One thing many people don't consider before leaving the country is money, other than perhaps exchange rates and whether or not they can use their ATM abroad. Consideration of some other factors can save you in the long run.
First of all, if you haven't traveled in a while, travelers checks have largely fallen out of favor for the most part. I have never had much success in using them at stores and cashing them at banks proved a major rip off. Plan to bring some hard cash along with you to change just to be on the safe side. You can ask the bank to provide you with the crispest, newest bills possible before you go. These are preferable to currency exchange kiosks and you'll get a better rate sometimes. It is often difficult to find anyone who will accept the older forms of American bills so leave those at home.
Your US ATM card should work in most ATMs around the world but check with your bank to be sure in advance. If you have and ATM/credit/check-card however, be advised that most stores in Europe will no longer accept them as credit cards and it will only be good for use at the ATM. You should still be able to use it as a credit card to pay for hotels, train tickets, etc. however.
Check with your bank before you leave about foreign conversion fees when making purchases abroad. These tend to hover around 2-3 percent of the purchase plus whatever the exchange rate happens to be. Also check ATM withdrawal fees. For example, one of my banks charges 5 dollars per withdrawal while abroad PLUS the fee of 3% PLUS whatever fee bank that owns that ATM might charge. My other bank charges nothing on their end for ATM fees and only 2.2% foreign fee. Of course I'm going with the most reasonable one there when I hit the ATM! If you have more than one bank account, plan on using the one that has the best fees. Some banks like HSBC have tons of branches abroad and that makes it easier when you go to one of the countries that they have a presence in. I just hate advocating for major banks so please take this with a grain of salt. Sometimes it's hard to get around them, sadly.
Also remember to call your bank ahead of time and inform them of where you're traveling. I've had banks shut down my card because charges began to come in from locales other than where I live. You don't want to deal with this while traveling abroad, trust me. Also ask for their international assistance number in case you need it while traveling so you can avoid huge fees trying to call a US number.
Lastly, remember to check exchange rates and avoid yourself a shock. This is a great currency exchange page that I use regularly:
It also helps to memorize the word for ATM in the language of the country you're going. Then when you're looking for one someone can at least point you in the right direction. I'll let you cheat and tell you the ones in the languages I know:
German: Geldautomat
French: GAB (guichet automat de banque)
Italian: Bancomat
Norwegian: Minibank (and I imagine in most other Scandinavian languages it's something close?)
Spanish: Cajero Automatico
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