The Travel Wallet and other travel necessities
April 11, 2011
Every trip I take, I agonize over the ideal travel wallet scenario. Unless it’s within the tri-state area, my regular wallet doesn’t come with me, but I’ve yet to find the go-to alternate player.
My previous choices have been: a small two-sided folding cloth wallet, a slim zippered make-up bag, a small coin purse.
The cloth wallet can’t hold change or a passport; the make-up bag has held money, change, and some other useful items so it just becomes a clunker of a thing but doesn’t hold my passport; and the coin purse can’t hold enough of anything but cash and coins.
I’d like the wallet to have the capacity to hold cash, cards, change, possibly a passport if necessary (in some countries I won’t want to have it in there).
After reading through the lively comments in Traveling Earl’s post on this topic, it gave me a new idea.
I’ll adopt a two-part tactic for our upcoming trip which will be a bit more in-the-rough than my average business trip. I have a wallet that wouldn’t bother me to lose so I’ll use that to keep small amounts of daily spending cash; then keep some back-up cash….somewhere……
Of course, since I always carry a cross-body bag in the less natural parts (non-beach areas), it’s not as much of a concern as it is for the menfolk. Not really sure what the protocol is for beach days and how to properly lock up our stuff in hotel rooms as we’re not going to be staying in any high end places. I don’t feel comfortable leaving anything of value in our rooms but I don’t want to be lugging all our valuables like a netbook or camera with us to the beach either.
What’d ye ken? Have you any thoughts, suggestions or go-tos?
What I do is carry a nice little back pack not one where you lug around with you in grade school but a cute little one that fits all my stuff and still looks cute while I carry it around in an occasion with any outfit.
Be careful even with cross-body bags. I have heard stories of pickpockets using a pocket knife to quickly cut the strap and run away with the bag before you can say boo.
For some reason I’ve never been worried about leaving valuable stuff in my room as long as I’m staying in a reputable hotel. Youth hostels and the like often have lockers and some hotels safes. My computer is fully backed up before I leave home if I’m taking it. I don’t carry a lot of cash at anyone time, have the phone number for cancelling credit cards (I once did do this after losing my wallet, 15 years ago). Don’t keep my passport in the same wallet as credit cards etc. That time I didn’t lose my passport and went to the police to help me. They found me a place to stay for free while I sorted things out and then I paid the hotel when I had payment means back. I had to borrow money from the hotel owner to buy food to eat… So multiple “wallets” is a very good idea.
I recently stayed at a motel and there was a safe in the closet. For serious travel, we use those under clothing belts, which hold a passport.
We carry very little cash in any event.
Beaches are hard! No good solution.
I guess I’m pretty lax! I will leave my passport in the hotel safe (and try to keep a copy of it on me). I use my regular wallet (which is a bifold with one roomy pocket to stuff all of my c.c. and cash in and the other half has the window pocket and one under it and on the other side) and carry my things in a kids’ backpack. It fits my netbook. It also fit a medium raincoat (not with the netbook)! I love this backpack; it’s so convenient.
I never worry about leaving stuff in a hotel.. it’s more that I tend to bring some cash for the day, leave the rest in the hotel with my netbook and so on and travel light
I am more likely to be robbed walking around in daylight than someone going into my room.
@Momma Star: I’ve stopped doing backpacks since traveling on my own in really busy areas because I can’t keep track of what’s going on behind me, and the bottoms can be cut out of backpacks really easily.
@payingmyself: Quite true, I tend to always keep a hand on the bag itself.
@mOOm: We’re not necessarily staying at a reputable place for the first half. 🙂
I’m more concerned about the value of the computer itself than the files since I’d be taking my travel netbook and it’d be a major pain to replace it.
But I will pull out that extra wallet (or 2!) since it seems like that’s a good idea. And thanks for the reminder about the cancellation phone numbers!
@Frugal Scholar: Hm, I’m having trouble with the use of ATMs – they’re charging something like $4-5 per go! *shudder*
But carrying a ton of cash can’t be a good idea either.
@Karen: I think you stay at better hotels than I do 😉
@FB: There’s a bit about locking down your stuff in the hotels and stuff in most of the travel advice we’re reading, particularly for the budget type hotels we’re looking at so I’m erring on the side of caution. And my GF has been running around for several months with all her belongings and the only place anything was stolen was from her hotel.