It costs the merchant more to process a credit card transaction, so they don't bother unless they're likely to get a lot of tourists. These days, more and more

It costs the merchant more to process a credit card transaction, so they don't bother unless they're likely to get a lot of tourists. These days, more and more places are going cashless too, though those places generally always accept credit cards, otherwise it'd be really hard for overseas visitors to pay. I have a credit card here and only use it for international transactions[0], it has a fairly low limit to the point where if I'm, say, booking long-haul flights I need to pre-load it with money which fortunately only takes moments. This is partly by choice - as it's automatically paid off each month, I want to ensure I can never put more on it than will be in my bank account - but also that was the default limit when I got it. [0] local online transactions pretty much always use a system (iDeal) that goes via your bank website.