How to acquire travelers checks in pounds sterling?

You need to get a debit card, preferably two. Make sure your minimum is high enough to get out what you need for the apartment. A $1000 minimum can usually be arranged. That should let you withdrawl about 600 GBP at a time. You didn't say how much the apartment is in Edinburgh but I suspect you'll need the second card just to get enough for it. In my limited experience most people renting apartments will take credit cards. A rental service should be more likely to take a credit card. Frequenly, they want a cash damage deposit but not always.

Traveler checks are no longer recommended by anyone or accepted by almost no one so they are not available. The first recommendation is to us a debit card at an ATM and make several withdraws over a couple of days IF an unusual large amount of cash is needed. Two debit cards on two different accounts could provide funds since it is a good idea to carry two debit cards. That would be the cheapest way to obtain pounds. A bank transfer works very well but the cost will be in the area of $50 but that probably is cheaper than travelers checks if you could find them.

Since you don't want to carry cash, the bank transfer is your only realistic option. You will pay for the service of course. Travelers checks are just not common any more and you'd have to buy them in Britain so the question of how you'd pay for them comes up.

Travelex will sell you a "foreign currency draft", but their rates are usually high. They have an office at the Cleveland airport. Info here: http://www.us.travelex.com/US/Home/ Xe.com will do electronic foreign currency transfers for you. Their rates are usually pretty reasonable, and you can do everything online. XE.com is owned by Western Union. You might want to see how their services compare with those of your own bank. Info here: http://tinyurl.com/nhuqzy Personally, I'd opt for the electronic funds transfer rather than cash or travelers checks (if you can even find them). Transactions are secure and traceable.

Thomas Cook may offer GBP travelers cheques somewhere, somehow. My contact at Wells Fargo told me that American Express had discontinued offering GBP travelers cheques a few years ago. Euros, Canadian dollars, Japanese yen, and Australian dollars are still available. American Express euro travelers cheques are available in €50, €100 and €200 denominations, nothing smaller. Non-customers can buy them with a debit or credit card, but your credit card will treat the purchase as a cash advance with all the associated fees and high interest charges. Wells Fargo charges $15 delivery fee for the cheques. Wells Fargo quoted a rate of $1.4521/€, a markup of 6% over the current interbank exchange rate of $1.3705/€. Foreign currency is sold at the same exchange rate and delivery fee. The delivery fee can be avoided by using an international teller site. https://www.wellsfargo.com/foreignexchange/ Taking a big wad of British Pounds in cash may be your cheapest/best option.

I think Ken means your daily withdrawal limit (rather than minimum). I'm not sure most banks are as flexible on adjusting your limit as they once were - but it's worth asking. If not, know your limit and take cards from a couple of accounts to get the larger amount of cash you need. Another option is to take U.S. currency and change it at a change booth at the airport in the U.K. It's not the cheapest choice, but if you will need it right away may be the easiest option.

What we did in a similar situation was to pay via PayPal. I already had a PayPal account, so I transferred enough funds to pay for our apartment (including exchange rates and charges) from my checking account into PayPal. The gentleman we paid give me his PayPal account information (to receive money that is - not access to his money! HA) and I then paid him, stipulating British currency. It may be more trouble for you than it's worth, but it was a fairly straightforward transaction since both he and I already had PayPal accounts. I blogged our enjoyable trip, getting a great deal of help from Rick Steves' travel guides here: http://pastorscott2.blogspot.com/search/label/London

My State Employee Credit Union charged me $12.00 to send a bank transfer from them to the Lady I was renting from in Spain. She had to send me her banking info for me to do it, so it made me feel a bit better knowing that she had a bank account and the money could be tracked. Everything went as planned and we had a wonderful apt. in Madrid.

I'll piggyback on Tom's reference to XE Trade. I have an account with them and it has worked very well for me. The exchange rate is only slighter higher than the international rate. You can have a bank draft in pounds mailed to the rental service in Edinburgh. Or you can have the bank draft made payable to the rental service but have it mailed to you at home. Take it with you and hand it over in person when you get to Edinburgh. Or you can do an electronic transfer if the apartment service will give you its bank account number. There are no fees for any of those options. You also can do a fast wire transfer, but there is a fee for that.

thank you all so much for your helpful comments! This has been a great boon to me and you are wonderful resources!