Did the recent power outage make you rethink having cash on hand in addition to credit cards?

People always know their bank details and I always have my phone. And electric tills won’t work either.

3 years since I last touched any cash and two years since I was in a power cut.

We always travel with some currency (I'm a "Cash Kid" at heart) but a power outage probably wouldn't make all payments by card impossible. For instance, we were having dinner with friends at a local (Minneapolis) restaurant when the power blew over a large suburban area. Waitstaff had been provided with handheld devices for swiping cards so business went on as usual.

I think you have to differentiate between countries. For more central European countries such an event is more unlikely due to all the international power links. Also other reasons in operations of network infrastructure make country wide outages in countries like Germany for example more unlikely.

A different topic are cyberattacks which already affected special parts of the economic value chain in the past.

Heads up: in some countries such as Germany paying cash is still more usual than for example in the Nordics, see article "Payment behavior in Germany in 2023".

I would say that carrying a little "emergency" cash is always an advantage.

I keep some cash with me when I travel, just in case.

Some places may take cash only in Portugal, like market vendors or some eateries, especially in smaller villages outside of Lisbon or Porto. Also if you plan to leave some tips (like hotel help), it is standard to leave tips in cash.

It's not a big deal to withdraw some euro from an ATM (maybe 100) when you are there. Having hard cash in your pockets is not toxic, it's just a couple of extra paper that is even lighter than the plastic or your phone. It's not that the euro is a rarely used currency, it is used in 20 EU States and is often accepted in those that didn't adopt it. You can always use them in a next trip, if you don't use them in the current trip. If you are afraid of cash theft or loss, I want to let you know that the absolute number one target of thieves is your smartphone. That is the only thing you must worry about, because if you lose it or have it stolen (which happens very frequently to tourists while in Europe) you will feel like you've been deprived of every stitch of clothes you wear.

Yes, it made me re-think things.

In 2022 for a trip to Italy one of the folks in my local meet up group made me set up ApplePay. I could kiss her for that! Since then I've used it almost exclusively in Italy, England, Scotland, France and Netherlands plus at home. I don't even think about having Euro/GBP on hand.

I have had some leftover cash from previous trips but I'll make sure to maintain that "stash" after the most recent event as well as the more global event last summer.

make you rethink having cash on hand

no

Kind of. I haven't used cash at home in years. I haven't even been to an ATM at home in years. Even depositing a cheque can be done using my bank's app on my phone. But when I'm out of country I still carry a bit of cash just in case. I always seen to need some for group tours. In Italy two years ago and Portugal last Fall we needed cash for those. But I think the amount I bring will still be minimal. As per the comment above that Germany is still somewhat cash based gives me thought as I'll be on river cruise on the Rhine in a couple of weeks stopping in 3 German locations.

I never rely only on credit cards anyway and carry an ample amount of cash

People always know their bank details and I always have my phone. And electric tills won’t work either>>>>>

I don’t think that would work for you in a blackout.

Definitely.

But even before this, I decided I should carry a bit of local cash. In 2023 we only used cards/Apple pay in London. Then we went to Scotland. Our first day in Glasgow we went to Kelvingrove Museum. We couldn't check our jackets or buy a cup of coffee because they were only accepting cash

This past March I needed some cash for the laundromat in London. The next week in Paris I needed cash to buy a takeaway sandwich at 2 different shops.

"The next week in Paris I needed cash to buy a takeaway sandwich at 2 different shops."

That is surprising to me. The boulangeries in "my" hotel's neighborhood all take ApplePay as does the cookie shop and the gelato shop, hahaha!

I always carry cash.

You don't need the power out for there to be a network glitch and tgr CC machine to go down. While this is impossible in Germany, it does happen from time other locations.

Not a re-think, I always have some cash and this is one of the reasons. I've had two situations here locally where I could not have completed transactions without cash. In one case, an ice storm took out a whole section of town for 3+ days. The only business that was open was a hardware store, where the staff guided people to what they needed by flashlight, estimated the cost by hand and if you didnt have cash, they asked you to come back when you could pay. Old-fashioned service, and the people could do arithmetic without a computer. The other was a local computer glitch in a small restaurant where they would only seat cash customers. Traveling home and abroad, I've had cards not work for unknown reasons. Cash usually works, even in the dark.

Pam,

I was in the neighborhood of Le Petit Vendome and decided to pick up a sandwich. My lone sandwich and a bottle of water was under their posted minimum amount to use a card. The other shop was near Place de Republique.

I always start my trip with 100 of this and 100 of that, leftovers or from BAC. I have cash if I need it. If I don't need it or no one wants it, I have cash for the next trip. If I need more, I find a bank ATM. So far that's worked out fine. I haven't ran into a taxi driver who won't take cash.

Yes, it did make me decide to always have some cash just in case. Not much, just enough for a sandwich and drink.

We always carry some cash so this situated reminded us why. We have needed cash in France at odd times in the past 2 years. I always carry cash at home too because while our weekly farmers’ market uses Square etc, sometimes some of them have glitches plus cash is always appreciated. The cashless world is great until that particular day when it isn’t so much. And just because one hasn’t needed cash on previous trips that doesn’t offer guarantees it won’t be needed on the next trip.

And MarkK, even the Nordics are starting to reevaluate their cashless world because of geopolitical factors.

There's a cohort of travelers (not referring to anyone here) who seem determined to persuade those of us who are cash-phobic (to coin a phrase) that we're foolish and that we'll one day face a terrible outcome because we carry very little cash. So far I don't find their catastrophic forecasts compelling.

I really don't believe the recent power outage is likely to be repeated with any significant frequency. Perhaps if we discover there's a serious flaw in Europe's power grid that was previously unknown, I might change my mind and stuff my wallet with euros.

...if the recent power outage in Spain and Portugal changes the way...

No, because we've always made it a practice to have local currencey in hand. Technology does not always work as it should even without a power outage. There have been four or five times when technical glitches caused cards to not work. Cash has, in our experience, always worked.

Thanks for all of the comments! Just in the past couple of trips (in the U.K.) have I dared to not have cash on hand. Moving forward, I will always get a small amount of local currency.

Two major retailers in UK have had cyber attacks this week, making all online and some card purchases impossible.
Cash comes in handy.
I also like to have cash handy in case I need to take an unexpected taxi if other transportation fails - it is not unheard of for taxi drivers to want cash.

I always have some. I have run into cash only places regularly, as well as other issues with electronic payment, so having some back-up makes sense. But we are talking 50, maybe 100 euro.

If you are rethinking though, to have several hundred euro on you (to pay for a hotel and several meals) then no, that is preparing for such rare events, that then you should consider hauling freeze dried meals, gallons of water, and everything else to survive for some period (Given that restaurants and many eateries were closed, public transport was down, taxis were not even a viable option, even hotels may not have able to serve you)

Not from the recent power out, but I was in the UK last summer for the computer network meltdown. I was glad I had a bit of cash and needed it to purchase food when the network was down.

"I was in the neighborhood of Le Petit Vendome and decided to pick up a sandwich. My lone sandwich and a bottle of water was under their posted minimum amount to use a card. The other shop was near Place de Republique."

Jean, thanks for the specifics. Both areas frankly surprise me for not taking ApplePay or contactless even for small purchases.

“cash comes in handy” How true, which is one reason for having it available to use regardless if the credit card can be used.

Examples of when and where I needed cash while travelling in northern Italy last fall: Small museum in Ortisei emphatically preferred cash. Bolzano train station restroom required cash (which I did not have at that moment). Small B&Bs in both Bologna and Varenna required cash for the hotel tax and made this known in advance. In both cases, they took credit cards for booking through a third party but said they were not able to include the tax in those transactions. For lunch during a rainstorm, a restaurant in Bologna said they weren't able to connect for credit card use. I stayed at Hotel Garda in Milan, which of course takes credit cards, but offered a substantial discount for choosing cash when I booked, and I did that.

“Rethink” for us came in 2023 when we got caught in a British Airways meltdown at Heathrow. We thought we’d be connecting through until we weren’t and now we were competing with everyone else who was stuck. Taxi from the airport took credit cards, the limited options returning to the airport did not, even to the point of taking us to an ATM to retrieve cash.

Worth noting - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/06/co-op-shops-stop-taking-card-payments-amid-cyber-attack/

I have friends who are very into preparedness (aka rather anxious) who have just gone out to buy an old-style battery radio to use in case of major systemic failure such as happened in Spain last week. I just hope they remember to keep fresh batteries in stock!
But seriously, it did make me think of keeping a stash of cash at home for emergencies, but as I don’t want to be carrying hundreds of pounds in cash around all the time, I may still be stuck in town with unusable cards/phone and lots of cash at home.