As long as you don't travel on a highway where the money will be seized by law enforcement by use of civil asset forfeiture due to your suspiciously carrying cash.

I believe that limit is $10,000 and you never use a credit card when spending that amount of money because the transaction fees are too high.

There is no legal restriction of how much money you can carry around with you in the US, I believe. When you cross a national border you need to declare it and if you buy casino chips or deposit into a bank, they will report you to the government. But the cops can and often do "arrest" the money and will take much smaller amounts of money from you if they find it.

The limit is not 10,000. There may be an official number where that starts happening but I have seen it happen (completely anecdotal) with amounts as low as $800.

Care to tell your story because that is totally fucked up if a cop took a measly $800 in cash from you?

In Philadelphia, most cash seizures are under $250.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/10/how-p...

You don't read much about police abuse of power, huh.

Do you think gift cards would shield you enough? I mean they can be tied to the card used to purchase. But are the data-mongers doing that?

Gift cards can be purchased with cash.

As long as this is possible. In China's social credit experiments cash money is no longer an option, and in countries such as Sweden they are thinking of getting rid of cash too (though public opinion has shifted somewhat with growing awareness of privacy issues).