When traveling, we remember to bring those things of most importance and relevance to us – toiletries, clothing, the odd book, maybe a laptop nowadays – and many of us also brush up on some foreign language phrases or survival skills befitting of where we are going. Once we land, the first order of operation for many of us is to exchange our native country’s currency for the country at hand’s currency, and then we run amuck the land with nary a worry.

Having travelled to Mexico more times than I can remember, I can say, without further ado, that had I in my possession a quick currency converter like the Currency app by Jeff Grossman, I would have used it. Sure, there was a time when 10 Mexican pesos were easily calculated into one American dollar, and mental math was no sweat, but with currency rates changing all the time, Currency provides you with a quick and up to date source of information on almost any country you could want. Besides, when tourists flock about a foreign country, many often don’t realize that a baguette sandwich from a quaint Parisian café costs about as much as five tortas con jamon from streetside merchants on Isla de Mujeres along the Yucatan. These kinds of money conversions require effort to think about, and many people, including myself, merely retain a faint memory of how much costs what.

The Currency app by Jeffrey Grossman has a default listing of 7 currencies, but you may edit this however you choose, and add more currencies to expand the list; I added Aruba Florin just to tickle myself. The list of currencies you may add is extensive, including Botswana Pula, Icelandic Krona, and even Gold Ounces. Some, I’m shameful to admit, I’m not even familiar with, like the Moldovan Leu and Omani Rial. It’s easy to see how this app could be of great use to travelling journalists or anthropologists, as it provides current financial information at their fingertips. From an anthropological viewpoint, I was intrigued to see just how many countries list dollars and shillings as their currency names. Aside from obviously listing currency rates, this app managed to shed some light onto past colonization trends.

The exchange rate information is provided by Yahoo! Finance, and other than editing currencies in or out of your listing, this app has no thrills or frills. The information given is exactly what the title assumes, and currency is all what you’ll get from this clean, straightforward app with happy flags symbolizing their homeland.