I've been traveling to the Markham area for vacation for more years than I could count, and getting Canadian currency had always been a slight annoyance. Change my USD for Canadian dollars at the "Tourist Centers" just over the border? You get a ridiculously low exchange rate, like 5 points lower than market rate. So instead of getting, say, $130 Canadian for each $100 USD, you get only about $125. So I started using the banks in Markham. They also gave a lowish rate (maybe $127 instead of $130). But some charged a transaction fee, and worse of all, many refused to exchange my currency at all unless I had an account with them, or they had a limit and could only exchange $500 or less.
Then recently I was told by a friend to try Interchange Currency Exchange. When I walked up to one of their stores, it looked like one of those sketchy "checks cashed here" places, so I was pretty skeptical. But I walked right up to the counter, there was no line, and the teller courteously asked me what I needed. I was told the current exchange rate, which on that day was about 1 to 1.31. I said I wanted to exchange USD for Canadian. I pulled out $5,000 USD. The teller counted my money with a counting machine and told me that I would receive the 1.31 exchange rate. Then he gave me the exact right amount of Canadian dollars. The whole process took under 2 minutes. There was no fee, no hassle, and I got the highest exchange rate I had ever gotten in Canadian in terms of not getting ripped off for a lower international market rate. So I don't plan on going anywhere else in the future when I travel to Canada to buy my Canadian dollars. Fast, efficient, friendly, and I get the most Canadian dollars for my USD. Can't do better than that! read more