How to Travel Safely With Important Documents

Can You Keep Your Vital Documents Safe During International Travel?

If you plan on leaving your home country, you’ll need to take, at a minimum, your passport, but you may also want or need to bring your drivers license or international drivers license, as well as a visa for entry into another country and a few credit cards for making purchases. If not credit cards, then cash.

With all of these valuable items, what do you do after you check into your hotel, short term rental, or hostel? Can you trust that your passport will remain safe when you leave the room and leave all your important items behind? Or, is it necessary to take all of those items with you every time you leave the room?

Having traveled to several continents and areas where it was important for my traveling partner and me to remain aware of our surroundings, I can say that I haven’t yet experienced any thefts inside any of the places I’ve stayed. From humble abodes to luxury hotels, I’ve had great luck so far with my important documents, personal items, luggage, and all my stuff.

However, that doesn’t mean that I’ve become complacent in keeping my passport sitting on the table or somewhere obvious. I do hide my passport while I’m at a hotel, and I usually leave it behind in the room unless it’s absolutely necessary for me to take it along on an outing (most of the time, you really don’t need it).

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Leave Everything At Home That You Don’t Absolutely Need

My biggest piece of advice when traveling is to leave everything behind that you don’t absolutely need that’s normally in your wallet. You might have a few debit cards, some credit cards, a bunch of cash, some discount cards for the grocery store, and a bunch of other random things in your wallet or purse.

You don’t need any of that while you’re traveling. If you don’t plan to drive, you can actually leave your drivers license behind and rely solely on your passport for identification when checking into the airport for your flight. I do tend to bring my drivers license anyway, however, because I want that option to drive should the opportunity or need present itself.

But you can probably leave just about anything else behind. Do you really need all five of your credit cards? Do you need the Chevron card you use to fill up at the gas station? Probably not if you don’t plan on filling up a vehicle in a country where you might encounter a Chevron station.

I actually have a traveling wallet that I use that I fill with just the few items I know I’ll use while traveling. It’ll usually have my license, my main credit card, and a backup credit card, just in case the first one gets bent or stops working for some reason. I also have a small zippered pouch for my passport and visa (if I need one), which I keep in a rear pocket in my carry-on bag. But that’s about it for travel documents.

Make Copies of Everything and Keep Them Digitally, Too

Not only should you leave behind (at home) any documents, cards, or identifying items you don’t absolutely need for travel, but you should also have copies of everything that you need to have with you. So, that’ll usually be your passport at a minimum, a visa if you need it for your trip, and perhaps your license if you plan on driving on your vacation.

Now, I go a step further and actually have two digital copies and one physical copy of all of these items. I make a copy of my passport and keep it with the paper copy of my itinerary (yes, I print an itinerary out because sometimes I’m nowhere near a power source and can’t always rely on my smartphone for details about my trip!). I also make a copy of any other items, including the credit card I always take and my visa or driver’s license (if I have them).

For the two digital copies, I have one saved on my phone, which is good because I always have my phone with me (I even have waterproof bags, so I don’t need to leave the phone at home even if I’m in a watery place). The other digital copy is usually on a flash drive that I toss in my suitcase in one of the pockets. See, my phone is always on me (digital copy #1), the flash drive is in my suitcase (digital copy #2), and the physical copy is in my backpack.

Not only do I have multiple copies of my important documents, but I spread them out, just in case something haywire occurs, and I lose access to one of these things. Now, in this day and age, I’m probably going a little overboard with the document prep, but I’ve been to quite an array of countries with “high” travel advisories, so I’ve felt it appropriate to have a few copies of identifying documents with me.

Where’s the Best Place to Hide a Passport When You Travel?

Yes, the best practice is to hide your passport whenever you stop somewhere for the night. I think it’s pretty doubtful that the proprietors or workers at any hotel or place you’re staying would steal your passport, but that’s not why you’re hiding the item. Rather, it’s in case an unauthorized person gains entry into your room and rifles through your stuff.

They’ll probably take a look at all the familiar places. Under the mattress. In the bedside table drawer. Under your pillow. The key to making sure nobody finds your passport is to get just a bit creative, but not so creative that you forget where you hide the passport. Rather than putting it in the drawer in the bedside table, hide it in a book and then put the book in the drawer.

Instead of putting it under the mattress in your hotel room, put it under the sheet on the mattress, as long as the shape of it isn’t visible through the top layers on the bed. You can hide the passport somewhere familiar and not risk it being found without getting totally crazy and hiding it so well that you forget to put it back in your luggage and take it with you when you depart for your next bit of travel.

I think, too, that unless you have an activity that requires it (and they very nearly always accept copies anyway), it’s best to always leave your passport behind rather than take it with you on your day trips. Don’t risk going all over the countryside or walking all over the city on a tour and having to backtrack it all because you brought your passport and lost it. Just leave it behind in the room and don’t take the chance you’ll lose it while you’re out.

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