# Trip report: google maps & traveller's checks



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

On my recent trip to Cancun, I took along some old amex traveller's checks I'd had left over from another trip about 10 years ago. After not using them on that trip, I kept them at home as an emergency stash. I had anticipated needing a pile of cash to give as a security deposit, and was planning on finally using the traveller's checks for that. They wouldn't have been enough, though, and the day before I left I tried to get more. I discovered my credit union no longer offers them at all (they used to be free there) and another bank I went to said nobody uses them anymore, that they hadn't sold any in 5 years. The teller in fact didn't know how to sell them to me, and was in the process of referring me to their older teller when I decided to give up on the idea.

In Cancun, I tried at several banks to cash them: Scotia, Banamex, Bancomer, Aztec and HSBC. All refused. "We don't change money" they said. So I resolved to find the local American Express office. Surely, I thought, there would be one in Cancun and they'd honor their own checks.

I put American Express in google maps on my cell phone and it put a pin in the map. I hailed a cab and showed him the phone and let him zoom in and out until he knew where to go. When we got there, he drove all around the immediate area and only after nearly circling it completely found a way in through a security gate. But the area didn't look right, it was low-budget residential, not commercial. We drove around a little in the slightly run-down gated community without ever getting to exactly where the pin was, but I gave up and had him drive me back.

Later I surfed the web a bit and tried some things and found out what happened. The Amex web site does show an Amex office in Cancun, at 208 Avenida Tulum. The pin google provided, however, was on a "road" named Paseo Tulum, (a pedestrian walk), in an entirely different part of town. Strike one for google.

Putting the address directly into google maps got me a pin on the right road, but I didn't find the Amex office there, either. Since none of the buildings were displaying addresses, I have no idea whether that pin was also in the wrong place or the office is simply not there anymore. It was probably close to the right spot, that area is a big row of banks. Strike two for google. 

I ended up bringing my traveller's checks back home with me, and will deposit them Monday into my checking account, and never use traveller's checks again. It's a dead technology. Which probably many of you already knew, but obviously I didn't.

On my last night in Cancun, I tried to follow a suggestion for a restaurant. I was told to try the "Flamingo Plaza" in the hotel zone, that they had a number of air-con restaurants, which was what I was looking for (I was tired of eating outside in the heat). 

For anyone who's never been to Cancun, the hotel zone is a 19 km long sand bar with a single road running its length and buildings on either side, sometimes only one side. I put "flamingo plaza" in google and it put a pin in the map on the hotel zone road. I took the bus that runs along that road, and got off when I got to the pin. From there I asked directions five or six times, and ended up walking about a mile back the way I'd come before I got to the plaza. By that point my shirt was drenched. There were only two restaurants, an Outback Steakhouse and a Gump's. And when I zoomed in on my phone, I saw that google had a placename marker for where I now was, naming the place "Flamingo Plaza". So their pin provided on search didn't even point to their placename marker on their map tiles.

Another google fail: I tried to find a law office. The law office website lists their address as:

Calle Kananchen, Número 48, Altos, Manzana 36, Lote 19, Supermanzana 59, Unidad Morelos, Cancún, Quintana Roo.

That's one heck of an address! I tried various forms of this (leaving out various parts) to try to get google to give me a pin, and never did succeed. It simply doesn't know where Calle Kananchen is at all. Bing maps does, it's a 4-block-long street. Google also doesn't really know where supermanzana 59 is. If you put in Manzana 36, it outlines an area on the map, but the outlined area is nearby Calle Kananchen, but doesn't include it. It's apparent to me that google simply doesn't understand the manzana/supermanzana system. I never did try to get to this office, because I never got the paperwork I needed to take there. So maybe it's somewhere completely different.

I asked several locals what the best map app was for Cancun, and they all said google maps, with sort of a shrug. I guess nothing else is any better, but clearly you can't rely on it to nearly the same extent you can in the US. And I suppose that's obvious to a number of you, but maybe someone else will read this.


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

Travelers' checks? I haven't used those since the Old Peso was in circulation. As far as Google maps, you're correct in their being less reliable in Mexico, particularly in the big cities. They often omit little details like one way streets and road closures. I often drive in Guadalajara, which normally has hellish traffic but lately is made even worse by construction of a new diagonal subway line all the way across the city. Long-term road blockages, 3 into 1 merges and detours are absent on Maps.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Banks do change US dollars ..... but cash. Forget Travelers Checks, Money Orders or any checks


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## chicois8 (Aug 8, 2009)

Welcome to Mexico, last time I cashed a Travelers Check was 1966......By the way first time I visited Cancun was about 1975, there was a giant Palapa restaurant, a pyramid shaped hotel and a round hotel, I said to my wife " you can tell this place was designed by a computer, very ugly" ...that was the last time I visited Cancun.....


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

sparks said:


> Banks do change US dollars ..... but cash. Forget Travelers Checks, Money Orders or any checks


Even cash can be difficult. I had a friend who wanted to change some dollars to pesos. The only way the bank would do it was to deposit the dollars in my account and then I withdrew some pesos to give to her.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

The ATM is the way to go for cash. So, have a debit card or two with you in Mexico. Get your bank to raise your daily limit and only use ATMs in banks or in major stores; never use private machines.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Here with Banamex and Banco Azteca I've never had a problem .... but with a $300 a day limit. Just your Passport needed.

My neighbor spends summers in Canada and wanted me to pay his caretaker. I told him to just mail a check to my Seattle Bank. He insisted on a Western Union money order sent here by the terrible mail system. Western Union here wouldn't accept it after a month in the mail.


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## Bodega (Apr 20, 2016)

perropedorro said:


> Travelers' checks? I haven't used those since the Old Peso was in circulation. As far as Google maps, you're correct in their being less reliable in Mexico, particularly in the big cities. They often omit little details like one way streets and road closures. I often drive in Guadalajara, which normally has hellish traffic but lately is made even worse by construction of a new diagonal subway line all the way across the city. Long-term road blockages, 3 into 1 merges and detours are absent on Maps.


There's often pain in progress. We were in Guadalajara last weekend, first visit since the elevated track project began, and I agree that you need to be determined if you plan to visit centro. I did appreciate the efforts of defining and marking the numerous detours that can help one avoid being siphoned off into gridlock in one of the neighborhoods where there is no possible way to reverse your steps. Like most large Mexican cities, the infrastructure here was long ago overwhelmed by an exponential influx of people looking for a better way of life. Guadalajara is fighting back, and I applaud that.


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

Bodega said:


> There's often pain in progress. We were in Guadalajara last weekend, first visit since the elevated track project began, and I agree that you need to be determined if you plan to visit centro. I did appreciate the efforts of defining and marking the numerous detours that can help one avoid being siphoned off into gridlock in one of the neighborhoods where there is no possible way to reverse your steps. Like most large Mexican cities, the infrastructure here was long ago overwhelmed by an exponential influx of people looking for a better way of life. Guadalajara is fighting back, and I applaud that.


What's inexcusable is the lack of planning. GDL needed to build line 3 over 20 years ago, before the city filled in and then jumped the periférico in all directions. They should be constructing línea 5 or 6 by now. Particularly idiotic is the willful negligence in development of the new megasuburb Tlajomulco. Roads, adequate sewers, schools and a metro line should have gone in _first_. Instead they built tens of thousands of houses and people moved in; quickly causing endless gridlock and large areas reeking of agua negra. Slipshod construction and insecurity have also caused entire blocks to be abandoned only 7 years after being built....as if planners had designed a ghetto in the first place. So now infrastructure needs to be installed in a heavily populated zone, at several times the cost and inconvenience than if it had been done 10 years ago when most of Tlajomulco was still cow pasture. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.


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## joaquinx (Jul 3, 2010)

After using Google maps for years, my rule of thumb is: if I can't find it on Street View, I give up.

Most buildings and houses don't have their address on the outside. I was invited to a party at, let's say, 21 Av. Verde. I went there and there was a party going on and I was invited in. But not recognizing anyone their, I told the host that I made a mistake and had to leave. I was walking back to my car and decided to walk past the cross street and look further down the street. There was number 21 painted in 3 ft letters. I went in and found out that I was at the right party. 

Once, I was looking for an address and thought that I found it. I asked the person who answered the door if this was number 23. She said yes, but I probably wanted the other 23, which was down the street.


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## Bodega (Apr 20, 2016)

perropedorro said:


> What's inexcusable is the lack of planning. GDL needed to build line 3 over 20 years ago, before the city filled in and then jumped the periférico in all directions. They should be constructing línea 5 or 6 by now. Particularly idiotic is the willful negligence in development of the new megasuburb Tlajomulco. Roads, adequate sewers, schools and a metro line should have gone in _first_. Instead they built tens of thousands of houses and people moved in; quickly causing endless gridlock and large areas reeking of agua negra. Slipshod construction and insecurity have also caused entire blocks to be abandoned only 7 years after being built....as if planners had designed a ghetto in the first place. So now infrastructure needs to be installed in a heavily populated zone, at several times the cost and inconvenience than if it had been done 10 years ago when most of Tlajomulco was still cow pasture. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.


You are correct, of course, on all your points. Unfortunately, the "Too little, too late" scenario is being played out the world over, not just in Guadalajara. Drive hwy 35 across Austin, TX, during peak times, and you'll experience the same feeling of a woefully inadequate road system. Municipalities just cannot afford to fund an upgrade that isn't already obsolete by the time it's completed. What I am applauding is that the current government in place there is apparently putting a huge chunk of their budget to use in a way that will benefit a lot of people.


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## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

perropedorro said:


> What's inexcusable is the lack of planning. GDL needed to build line 3 over 20 years ago, before the city filled in and then jumped the periférico in all directions. They should be constructing línea 5 or 6 by now. Particularly idiotic is the willful negligence in development of the new megasuburb Tlajomulco. Roads, adequate sewers, schools and a metro line should have gone in _first_. Instead they built tens of thousands of houses and people moved in; quickly causing endless gridlock and large areas reeking of agua negra. Slipshod construction and insecurity have also caused entire blocks to be abandoned only 7 years after being built....as if planners had designed a ghetto in the first place. So now infrastructure needs to be installed in a heavily populated zone, at several times the cost and inconvenience than if it had been done 10 years ago when most of Tlajomulco was still cow pasture. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.


This is not a third world or second world thing by any means. In 1990, I moved from the DF to DC but wound up in Virginia, at Tysons Corner. I had never heard of it. Even back then, it was already larger than Miami or Denver but had absolutely no mass transit.

The "brains," federal and state workers, had built all highways and metros to funnel workers in and out of DC, but Tyson's Corner had grown organically on its own. Most of the people who worked there lived further south in Virginia, or across the Potomac in Maryland. Almost no one came out from DC. Of course, the majority of people who live in DC don't have cars, and there was no metro to booming Tysons Corner. I thought I was moving "to the country," but it was an absolutely road nightmare, 10 minutes to clear intersections, NO SIDEWALKS, commuters turning back roads into workarounds to congested thoroughfares.

Yes, they finally got a subway out there, BUT, the biggest increase in commuter traffic in past 30-40 years has been people living in Maryland and working in Virginia and vice versa, but in 40 years of trying, the "brains" have been unable to build a single new bridge over the Potomac to help these harried commuters - the one south of DC simply replaced an older structure.

I used to live in Virginny and have business in Maryland. It was a nightmare. You either had to go through DC, or there was just, and still is just, one bridge on the western side of DC, on the cruelly overburdened 495 that connects the two states, a parking lot 20 hours of the day. They've been proposing new bridge plans going further west and west but always run into well connected home owners who want no part of a major bridge feeding into their backyards. You have to go all the way up to Harpers Ferry to find a bridge across that damn river.

As I lived near one proposed route, they'e also been working for 40-50 years on a highway to pass north-south passenger and commercial traffic around the driving hell hole that I-95 is between Virginia, DC and Maryland (and also Delaware, NJ, NY and Connecticut,but that's a separate question). Each new proposal again goes further and further west to try and get around home owners, but they're never quick enough.

This, is the "capital of the free world." Politicians I think have given up, though they had been very active through all the years I live there. So, I haven't been to Guadalajara in a good while, but Mexico City has been at least building. We can argue whether it's a good thing that citizens along new metro routes don't have the power that Virginia and Maryland taxpayers have. I have no idea what's best, but let's not over-criticize Mexican planners.


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## Bodega (Apr 20, 2016)

*Street addresses*



joaquinx said:


> After using Google maps for years, my rule of thumb is: if I can't find it on Street View, I give up.
> 
> Most buildings and houses don't have their address on the outside. I was invited to a party at, let's say, 21 Av. Verde. I went there and there was a party going on and I was invited in. But not recognizing anyone their, I told the host that I made a mistake and had to leave. I was walking back to my car and decided to walk past the cross street and look further down the street. There was number 21 painted in 3 ft letters. I went in and found out that I was at the right party.
> 
> Once, I was looking for an address and thought that I found it. I asked the person who answered the door if this was number 23. She said yes, but I probably wanted the other 23, which was down the street.


Yeap, been there. When we built, we couldn't find anyone interested in helping us select the correct street address. We finally chose the number between our neighbors on each side of us, which made sense to me. 113, 115, 117, all on the same side of the street sounds good, yes? Nope, we doubled up a guy down a ways, on the opposite side of the street. He was kind enough to add a "B" to his number, since his wasn't even displayed (another common occurence) and ours was a more permanent marker.


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## Howler (Apr 22, 2013)

I had the same problem with finding some addresses in Orizaba last year & the year before. Something I used with some success was the "little yellow guy" that you could take walking to "see" the area from the street perspective. The problem with this approach is that not all areas or streets are available to this function, or you may need to know more about the area that you are trying to (re-)search. This is based on satellite imagery & also the "Google" car having driven through the area to stream it for the internet.

Better hunting next time!


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