I always do the same thing when I travel overseas: as soon as I clear Customs at my destination I go to the foreign currency booth at the airport and pay an exorbitant fee to get enough local currency to get me through the first day or two. After that, I use an ATM to get my currency. Thankfully, I did not have to do this during our trip to Nassau.

The exchange rate between the United States and the Bahamas is very simple: one to one. One American dollar equals one Bahamian dollar. With so many American tourists visiting, businesses will accept both currencies in payment. You can pay for an item with American money, Bahamian money, or a combination of the two. The same thing happens when you get your change back: it may be American, it may be Bahamian, or a combination of the two. This greatly simplifies things!

It’s interesting to see how banks handle this. I used two ATMs during our visit: neither of these were in a hotel lobby or a shopping area, they were both at banks. One ATM gave me all Bahamian money, the other gave me all American money. No problem, they both spent the same.

The only currency difficulty I had during the trip took place at the Crystal Palace Casino, next door to our hotel. I had a Bahamian $100 bill and wanted to play the slot machines, but the machines only took American currency. I went to the cashier’s window and tried to change the Bahamian bill to American but the lady told me she was not allowed to exchange currency.

“This is all I have,” I said, holding the Bahamian bill. “If you won’t exchange it, how do I play the slot machines?”

“Well sir, you can use it as a bet at the tables.”

“I don’t want to play the tables, I want to play the slots. How do I to that?”

Her solution was for me to leave the casino and go to the front desk at the hotel where they would exchange the bill for me. That’s annoying, but I had no other choice and did that.

Perhaps the Bahamas Gaming Commission prohibits casinos from changing currency. If so, I can understand that. But if they don’t, that was lousy customer service.

One thing that was different in Nassau from the US was the way you give tips for good service. The tips were automatic on this trip. For example, every restaurant automatically added a 15% gratuity to the bill. Normally, I only see that at home for groups of 6 or more. In Nassau you will always pay it.

Tips at the hotel were interesting. They explained the process to me as I checked in. We would be charged a one-time fee of $6 per person as a tip for the doorman. That was $12. Then we would be charged a fee of $18 per person per night as tips for housekeeping, maintenance, etc. So, that was an additional $36 per day! I think that was excessive, but I couldn’t do much about it. On the other hand, they did provide free high speed Internet in the room; normally that costs $20 a day at a luxury hotel, so that helped lessen the pain.

All in all, we liked the exchange rate because we did not have to calculate anything, ten dollars was ten dollars. That was much easier than it was, for example, when we were in Thailand a few years ago and saw that a souvenir cost 825 Baht (approximately 25 USD).

So, enjoy your trip to the Bahamas. If you are American, currency exchange is one thing you will not have to worry about.