People did that? I took one look at the fees and ... "no thank you", and took cash.

Sure. It might have been different in other places but when my folks took out traveller's cheques in the nineties to travel to e.g. the caribbean the 'cost' in the form of a slightly worse currency price wasn't a serious issue, in part because ATM fees/exchange rates were way steeper than piecemeal exchanging the cheques for local cash. Getting a bank to reissue cheques was easier than replacing a card too.

Some destinations were probably cash friendly, i.e. no one would scope you out for theft, but that's not the kind of travel I had in mind. I'm actually not that familiar with that kind of travel, I've mostly travelled on a budget or to less touristy places.

Yeah, if I wanted to pay the crazy spread on currency exchange, I’d use my credit card instead.

10 years ago I was still traveling with a bunch of $100 banknotes and reading blogs to find the most honest shady currency exchange place with good rates wherever I went. Fun times!

I even paid for two! iPhones in cash back then!

Today? I just stop by an ATM and withdraw some cash, everything else goes contactless on Wise.

We always got traveler’s checks from AAA which were “free”.

I assume the quotes because maybe no transaction fee but massive spread on the exchange!

Well it was dollars for dollars so they really were free (except for the AAA membership).

International money exchange has always been fun, luckily for us we never really travelled anywhere that you couldn't just use dollars.