I came close to having problems on a trip to England, of all places. I'd pre-booked my B&B room in London for a couple of nights, fairly expensive at ~$180/night with taxes, but it was a business trip and I was getting reimbursed so I wasn't too worried about it. They asked for a credit card, of course, when I booked it from the U.S.
So I arrive and give them the credit card to pay, and it turns out that although they require having a credit card to book a room, they don't actually accept credit cards for payment, they take cash or local check only! As I'd only brought something like $500 cash for the 5 day trip, and my ATM card had expired from lack of use, that didn't leave me a huge amount of margin. Fortunately, the small town B&B I stayed at for the rest of the trip did take credit cards, and what I had left lasted me for the remainder of the trip, but I was rather concerned at the time. This was before cell phones were common or hotels were on the internet, so options were more limited.
Even now, we usually have discussions once in awhile about do we keep;
-1 credit card with a good reward program, and take a chance it gets a fraud alert and turned off just when we need it, or
-2 credit cards, so we have a backup in case of the above, and bring both on a trip, risking them getting lost or stolen and have no working card, or
-3 credit cards, and leave one at home when we travel, and bring two, but have to use cards with less good reward programs to keep them active. . .