It did not seem that there was much information here about Venezuela, so thought I could contribute with a post. I have 26 years of experience with the country including having lived in the country (not 26 years living in the country) and developed a number of relationships.
The price today is 897 BsF to 1 US Dollar, yesterday it was 878. Yes, cash is king! Bring cash and exchange. You change on the black market hand to hand. When you arrive in Caracas from your international destination people will come up to you and ask you if you want to exchange (this is part of the black market). There are guys with blue shirts that will help you with your luggage after you have picked it up and exited through customs into the airport. You can have these guys wheel your luggage to the national side (and you have a free escort) and if they do not broach the subject within the first ninety seconds, which is unlikely, ask them if they can exchange dollars. Either they will or they will have a nearby compadre (close friend) who does and you can exchange as you are transiting to the national building. You many exchange other currencies, but dollars are by far the most desired, Euros are a distant second. If they approach you first, you can generally get a better exchange rate, if you approach them first, it will be less. In general expect the exchange rate at the airport to be the least favorable anywhere in the country. This is their business and they are good at it. They know that they have the newbie over the barrel. Exchange $100 and use a $100 dollar bill as you will get a lower exchange rare with lower bills. Have the bill separate and pull it out of your pocket by itself. Do not pull out a wad of $100 bills. Have the bill pre-positioned in one of your other pockets. This will be sufficient for basic things for two days. I share methodology to decrease risk, not to be paranoid.
Your taxi driver is your second potential contact on the black market. Normally they do not ask to exchange as they are savvy enough and wait for you to ask first. If you are in one of the large black SUV´s with the yellow plates that I mentioned in the previous post, it will generally be safer and they are more reliable. As an addition to yesterday, you can also consider renting a taxi for a half day or a full day. This helps in developing contacts with people in the ´know´ and they generally have good common sense. But if you are not strong in judging people, use multiple taxis. If I am in Caracas I am always in combat mode.
In general exchange in day light hours, Use the hotel as an initial contact after your first taxi and then make other contacts from hotel staff. Various business men and stores will actually pay people like employees to go solicit for foreign currency as they want to exchange the Bolivars that they earn into something that will hold its value better because of inflation. You have high economic status as most people cannot get dollars because the government does not have them to sell/exchange. Your transaction is generally in public so be discreet. You may also make the initial contact more public, after which you can move to a more discrete place for the exchange. People often approach in open air malls. Some are willing to go to your hotel and exchange, but be cautious as now they know where you are (you can use a nearby hotel, etc.). Remember, they want to protect what they have earned from their labor, but are often unable to do so and you are one of their few outlets. There is a greater sense of desperation. That is why they buy houses for their children, and plow their money into something tangible before it loses its value. History, especially the 20th century, is replete with these types of examples.
You can go into a local store (clothing, appliance, etc) and you can solicit them to sell your dollars (foreign currency) for Bolivars, or you can be walking along the street and someone will approach and asks if you want to exchange after which you go into their shop and exchange. They need your dollars as they need to import their goods. I mention local and not commercial as the person running the local store is usually the proprietor and decision make, in a mall or larger commercial center your point of contact is a normal employee and has not idea. Situation awareness is important. Public and open can be safe because of other people, but it can also signal to others that you have something of value. Private means less public scrutiny by definition and you are in a potentially protected from the masses, but you can come to be in a precarious position though isolation. Reading people and experience are the keys.
Having two (or more) people is better than one as your wingman is spotting for you. Exchanging small amounts numerous times is a good strategy until you gain more experience. I would generalize and apply this notion to other Latin American countries as well. Look up Dolar Today (only one L) before you travel to get an idea of the real (black market rate). This site and others like it are blocked by the officials in the country, but the creative Venezuelans always find a work around, like using Google cache or twitter.
https://twitter.com/dolartoday As an experiment, the next time you are in an international airport, it does not matter where in the world, go to the currency exchange and ask to exchange your currency for Bolivars. After your transaction you will smile and understand what I am talking about. I have never found one, but a retired Venezuelan military friend told me that he had seen them once in Cuba.
There are some Venezuelans who are more fortunate and/or corrupt and they sometimes have access to officials who, in turn, can access government dollars at the official exchange rate (it is actually yet another official rate called Simadi which at one time was 12 BsF to the dollar, but is now at 199) and change their Bolivars into Dollars. Then they go back to the black market and exchange those newly acquired Dollars for more Bolivars. Like Bankers with Magic Beans, and they are amongst the most wealthy of Venezuelans. There is a long term consequence to this as their subsidy eventually comes to light in the depreciating currency as the bond payments that the country needs to make become more difficult to pay off without the dollars.
An advanced option is to wire transfer money to individuals who you know and have an established track record and they will give you cash of transfer it to your local bank account. I know this is unlikely for most, but consider this as a longer term seed thought for other countries. As I have been around the block a few times, I have developed some solid connections in many countries, and I do cash, electronic transfer and banking. This will happen for you as well the more you travel and the longer you stay in any one location. Another advanced option is to carry small gold coins (tenth, quarter, half or one ounce). When I was flying combat in the sandbox, I would carry British Sovereign (5/8 ounce) coins in a coin belt that was wrapped around my waste so if I was shot down, I could use them to trade my way back to safety. The British coins have a solid reputation in the Middle East. I never needed them, but I felt better and it is a good illustration.
With banking, keep in mind FACTA laws in the US (and eventually GACTA laws that will be proliferated world- wide) as you could potentially have tax implications (if you have a bank account with over $10,000 USD).
As a quick example; you have a bank account in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Zimbabwae or like country that has a weak currency. As the value of the local currency inflates the value of your home currency increases in relatively. In your bank account you have $1,000 dollars which is worth 897,000 BsF currently (using 897 BsF as the exchange rate). The official interest rate (as there is only one interest rate for bank deposits and that is 12% (and 31% for credit cards FYI). A year later you have accrued an additional, using a back-of- the-napkin number - 108,000 BsF in interest (interest is compounded and normally accrued monthly).
For taxing purposes, your home government uses the official exchange rate (the US uses 6.3 BsF per dollar). You accrued 108,000 BsF exchanged at the official rate of 6.3 so your home government looks at you as if you earned a tad over $17,000 USD in interest and you must now add this to your taxable income. Hypothetically we say that you are in the 28% tax bracket as a US citizen. This is $4,700 (back of the napkin) in taxes on $1,000 in the bank. Ouch
Sure there are foreign earned income credits, but they are usually related to employment. There are a number of factors in play and things vary from country to country, etc. etc. The point being that with increased flexibility there are other considerations that most people will not ponder, but will become realities (liabilities) with which they may have to face in the future. Not unlike a women.
Another example of practicality and caution are cell phones, particularly in Caracas, even in the east end where there is more affluence. There are a number of people who carry two cells phones when they drive. The first phone is their good I-Phone and is placed somewhere in the car (under the seat, etc.) and a secondary crappy phone within their arms reach so that they can give it to the malandros (slang for bad guys). Some thieves have been known to come up on (a) motorcycle(s) in pairs (two on one bike or two bikes) and firmly ask for your phone (sometimes at gunpoint). A phone worth a few hundred dollars that is an easy target is highly profitable for thieves. Petty theft is the most common occurrence of crime in Venezuela (but remember Caracas was the murder Capital of the world in 2015).
Also you might normally assume that if the Venezuelan woman with whom you are with is from a higher economic class, she is of a higher social class. This is less true in Venezuela than in Columbia or Argentina.
Yes, you could easily live there for $1200 per month or less, the key is location. It would also depend on what you want to do and what is your lifestyle. In general there are, and in my estimation, will be opportunities like there were in Argentina in 2001-2002 or Ecuador in 2002-2003.
Not wanting to go too much off topic, but I think it is worthwhile to put in the back of your head. As you travel more, consider staying in countries for 30-90 days at a time and live with the locals. I understand that this will be difficult for most, but your experience will be at a completely different (I posit better) level.
As a final note, Venezuelan women that have moved abroad as adults to further themselves (education, job, better quality of life) are normally very different than those who moved abroad as younger members with their families. The second grouping share a significantly larger number of traits with culture to which they expatriated. This is my subjective experience. The top country for those families to emigrate has been the US (by far the largest), then Spain. After this is a plethora of countries to included Italy, Canada, Germany Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay. In the 1970´s, 1980´s and even early 1990´s immigration into the country was much greater than emigration. Today it is 180 degrees and has accelerated over the last 5 years. The point is, that the vast numeric majority of the emigrant Venezuelan women have moved to Anglo European countries and they will share much of the malaise of that country. They tend to be more educated and the families much wealthier. From a personal perspective, if she is in the second category and has been abroad for 3 or more years as a youth and has returned to Venezuela, I treat her more like she is from that Anglo European country. I would be interested to know, from a more sociological curiosity, if others have a similar or different experience.
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