Credit Card with Chip

It's a good idea when traveling in Europe to have a credit card with a chip (EMV) - there are some places that only take cards with chips.

When I looked into it, I found a bunch of banks that offer them. In fact, there are cards with chips that have no transaction fee for purchases abroad (usually banks charge 3% or more). 

Note that some cards with a chip use signatures, others PINs:

American travelers' 2012 guide to chip-and-PIN cards on Yahoo Finance

which has a link to American travelers' 2012 guide to chip-and-PIN cards on CreditCard.com

America’s Best EMV “Chip-with-Signature” Credit Cards on Nerdwallet

36 Top Credit Cards Without Foreign-Transaction Fees on Huffington Post (and mentions ones that also have a chip, as well as annual cost and other benefits)

P.S. The Seattle Times Travel section had a short article on May 26 by their editor who tried out a chip card in France. She says that some automated ticket machines in train stations, highway toll booths, gas stations in Europe only take the credit cards with chips. Overall, she says, "Having the card made life much easier" but notes that the Bank of America card she used is "not a true chip-and-pin card (and at least the bank isn’t calling it that any more, now referring to it as simply a chip card). It’s really a chip-and-signature card with the transaction supposedly verified by signing instead of punching in a PIN. That makes it much less secure than a real chip-and-pin credit card, and few merchants ever required a signature from me."

You may also want to read this article about Chip-and-PIN vs. Chip-and-Signature cards.