It depends on where you are and the reputation of your surroundings. There are some basic facts that you should check when using a bitcoin ATM.

1. Try not to use it on night or use it in a place where it's not solitary. Bitcoin ATM can be an easy target for criminals.
2. Inspect the ATM that it's tempered or not.
3. Keep an eye on the transaction fees as well. Sometimes it can be insanely high.

Both the methods of Bitcoin ATM or paying in Bitcoin are good and effective. But here are the security and privacy matters that come. In using Bitcoin security and privacy both matter and I think security more. How let's talk about it. When you use the Bitclon ATM one will be confirmed whether it will be located in public or separately. If you use it in public it may be possible that someone can easily scam you by saying 'I will help you use the ATM ' and in this way, they will keep all your access, in another case if it is located separately it may provide a good chance to criminals and theft to take your funds on gunpoint. However, this is not applicable everywhere as we are not aware of your location so that is why we giving you a general overview, Here I am giving you some tips when you are willing to use Bitcoin ATM please make sure of it.

1-Sometimes bitcoin ATMs charge a higher fee so look at it before doing any transaction.
2-As I told you Bitcoin ATMs are located in public places so do not let anyone to know your personal information.
3-Take precautions while using Bitcoin ATMs.
4-If you are using it at night take your friends with yourself.
5-If you have any problems contact the ATM operators on an immediate basis.

In some locations, Bitcoin ATM service providers are few and this has made the market less competitive. This has made most of these service providers charge high fees. Just as bank ATMs have technical or software issues, Bitcoin ATMs can also malfunction. So you can be disappointed by poor service. Don't forget that his service can expose you to scams. Your details can be recorded through your transaction. Using an ATM in an unsafe country might be dangerous. I will not use this service in my location because people see Bitcoin owners are millionaires.  Using the service in a public place might attract the attention of criminals.

I prefer not to use ATMs at night, but it depends on the environment of the country where the OP is going and how much protection that country has for the citizens, like how much they provide security to such places. how much their police are active. If the ATM is in a public place then it might not be a problem to use it. I hesitate to use ATMs at night because there is no security or active police.

While the thieves are so much. Even on a bright day, thieves don't hesitate to loot people. In our country ATMs are near to banks and when a person goes there for any withdrawals the guards inform the thieves about the money the person carrying. Just to clarify, I am talking about fiat ATMs, not BTC ATMs because we don't have any BTC ATMs in our country.

I have only one suggestion for the OP, if he is using the BTC ATM for the first time then just watch a tutorial on YT and you will be ready to use it, don't trust on friends or relatives with your money, and don't even take them with you, to withdraw the cash either its from BTC ATMs or Fiat ATMs.

Yes, just don't. They're ridiculously expensive. In my place, they take a 7% commission when you're selling bitcoin. You become a target for criminals, and in case these two aren't discouraging enough, you're forced to submit KYC if you're going to cash out more than an upper limit. (in my place, that's about 500 EUR IIRC)

If the restaurant accepts bitcoin, then pay with bitcoin. But, obviously carry some real cash and electronic debit in case that won't work.

Apart from the high fees, I think the major concern you should have is security and privacy. Since you’re new to the city, you should research the area to know if it’s safe. You can be too careful about safety, where there is money expect to find dangerous people may be lurking around with the intent to take it.

Bitcoin ATMs ask for kyc and phone number verification, there is also the possibility that hidden cameras are installed in the machine so if you’re a person who has been working hard to keep his bitcoin history hidden and private, using a Bitcoin ATM may not be something you would want.

So you are traveling and want to use the bitcoin atm to sell and withdraw fiat correct?

The issue with the atms is that most of them generally only let you buy BTC and not sell, at least the ones I used. Even if it has a sell feature then usually it’s unavailable.

Plus you got the issue with the high 10% fees. You really should just use an exchange, withdraw to bank account and pay with your credit card when you travel.

Do you want to sell your coins for fiat?
Either way, don't *** it do it if you're in a foreign country, a neighboring city that's just a question of fees.

Somebody did mention my topic but let me do a TLDR for you
- I was short of Bitcoin, needed coins urgently, and was on vacation with no access to google auth or my second sim card
- tried to weasel my way out of KYC so tried to make small purchases
- wasted money on getting local fiat, wasted money on the ATM fee, wasted 20 or 40 euros on a taxi
- ended with that damn machine still asking for KYC, suspicious looks from the owners, and a feeling the cash ATM was tampered with maybe even the BATM

I don't know where you live and where you plan to travel, so if you're just sightseeing from Prague to Wien, then no problem, take the 5-7% fee into account and go for it, but if you're going to use some shady 3rd party ATM in some god forgotten city, DON'T!

As someone who used BATM for years, I would suggest you to only use them as a last resort, when you don't have any other way to get cash needed. In majorify of cases you will have to go through KYC, pay exorbitantly high fees and maybe even get yourself in danger, especially if you are in unknown city.

BATM used to be more popular where we didn't have so many options to buy/sell bitcoin, but fortunately things changed, even though I have to say that I miss the experience if going to BATM, initiating transaction and then sitting in a nearby bar for a beer or two while waiting for transactions to get confirmed, it was sort of ritual for me. What I don't miss though are fees and KYC for higher amounts and those two things are the reason I didn't use one for ~3 years.

Then again, you might wanna try it with smaller amount just for the experience of doing it if they don't ask for KYC.

Also, if you are in a country that does not have the same currency as your home country, verify the exchange rate.

I was visiting Montreal and instead of looking at say preev.com to see the rate I looked at my phone which had USD <-> BTC and did the math in my head for US to CAD and got burned for about 5% because I could not take that extra 30 seconds to actually look what the exchange rate should be.

-Dave