The truth about exchange rates in a nutshell.
Over the past year, the Euro has averaged 1.125 to the pound. Excluding any dramatic changes in the Political or Financial World, it will continue to average 1.125, and possibly rise a further 0.075- 0.10 over the next few months.(Unless Gormless Gordon calls an Election..yeah...HAHAHAHA!!) Translate that into real terms, and you will be able to expect to get around 1.10 euros per pound, after paying commission and charges etc. Again,in real terms, if you have 500 pounds spending money, you will be able to exchange that 500 pounds for 550 euros, depending upon where you change your money.The BEST way is to have 50% of your spending funds in a credit card, and avoid paying commissions etc. as much as possible. The other 50% could be changed into euros or travellers cheques for payments for things that require you to pay cash.
The reality of what effects the slight fluctuations in exchange rates up to and during your stay is,is that it will have a minimal effect upon how much more or less you will have to spend.Certainly not enough to worry about.
If you base the exchange rate on being 1.10 euros to the pound, you will have the confidence of knowing it is most unlikely to drop below that level. If it rises a small amount, you won't have lost much in terms of real money in your pocket, and your credit card and Travellers cheques will probably track that variation in real time anyway.
Carrying big wads of cash is really inviting trouble, and you can possibly arrange with your credit card Company to provide special rates for withdrawing cash from cashpoints in Spain.
Just an offer of my personal view. Probably some will disagree, and others have other ideas.
i normally find the post office gives the best rates, as sage has said dont go around with a wad of notes in your pocket, we keep our money in the safe in our hotel room and just take out as much as we think we will need for the day, if we go to the beach we take about 25 euro just enough to hire the beach beds and get a snack then if you are unfortunate enough to be robbed then no harm done, personally i have not and dont know of anybody who has been robbed in salou.
