The US State Department offers the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. Helps facilitate matters if you lose your passport, although thankfully I’ve not had to test it out yet.
In Thailand, I carry a photocopy of my passport at all times. Some people will tell you the law says you must carry the passport with you at all times, but no one’s ever been able to point to the exact law that says that. The confusion seems to stem from the fact that it is the law that all Thai citizens must always carry their ID. That law says nothing about foreigners, but police generally don’t care about these fine points and anyway are not going to admit some foreigner knows Thai law better than they do. They usually accept the photocopy, although there have been the odd report of it not being accepted and the foreigner taken in.
I notice quite a few of you keep a passport in your front pocket. It seems like the safest place, except perhaps for a beach vacation. In any case, doesn’t the passport get damaged? Seems too small a space, especially if you’re wearing jeans or something similarly tight.
That’s where I would keep mine and, like I said, I’ve had kept it with me every day for more than five years, in my pocket, and even washed it once. Yes, it does get weathered. But it survived fine and I had no issues crossing borders with it, which I did fairly regularly. I’m not one to keep my passports looking news and stiff and crisp, though.
Reminds me of a Thai hotel worker who was caught breaking into the room safes using a method he said he learned from watching MacGyver. This was about a four-star hotel in Bangkok, with room safes. The kind with a keypad, and you punch in a four-digit code. This one bellboy would wipe “nose oil,” as the news phrased it, onto the entire keypad. After a guest checked in and then went out into the city, he would then enter the room and look to see which numbers had been pushed. He would try different combinations of only those numbers until the safe opened. It did not take him long.
Because of this case, I now wipe clean the keypads of any hotel safes that are in my room before I use it. But the last hotel I stayed in, I noticed you can now vary the number of digits used, anywhere from four to 10 digits. That helps. Used always to be only four.
Staying at a hotel: In my inner pocket of the coat or Jacket.
Staying with friends: In a drawer in the room and once in their safe.
When I lived overseas: Kept safely with othee docs, just like at home and did not carry it when travelling domestically.
Have a photocopy and emailed a scanned of the first two pages to myself.
I lost mine in England once. I hid it from myself in my camera case and didn’t find it for months. Fortunately, this was pre-9/11, and I realized it two days before my return flight. 4 hours at the embassy and $250 layer, I had a new passport.
I’m a home sewer, I put secret pockets in our clothes, so unless we’re likely to need them that day, that’s where they are, same with our cash horde and credit cards. I have copies back home I can access, including copies of my visas. On a plane they are in our hand luggage.
Rick Steves carries his with him, along with other important items (a credit card or two, and the larger cash bills) in a hidden money belt/pocket thing. This is in Europe, so a beach vacation would be another matter, I presume.
Whilst travelling it goes in a button-up pocket in the cargo pants I’m wearing, once I’ve arrived it goes in my suitcase in the hotel room. I have scans on the free cloud drives you get with an email address.
I’ve done a fair amount of traveling around the world, and some of it was to some really iffy places, and some was to places where one is required to have the passport on one’s person (and I have been stopped and made to produce it). And I’ve stayed in hotels where I didn’t trust either the hotel staff or the other guests. I don’t really travel to places like that anymore, what with the very young child and all.
First, I make sure that someone back home has a copy of my passport, and all my credit card numbers, along with their customer service numbers. I’ve got a copy, too. I have, on a few occasions, taken a laundry marker or a Sharpie and written the numbers on my body – with the right marker, the writing will last through a few showers.
I’ve also got scanned copies of the most important documents in a password-protected file on my smartphone, although I do realize that I could lose the phone, or have it stolen, so there’s a hard copy backup somewhere, in addition to the copies back home with someone I could call if I had to.
I generally carry my passport in my front pants pocket. I’ve been the target of many pickpocketing attempts, but none have ever succeeded – hopefully I haven’t jinxed that by saying it.
These days, my travel is entirely to the developed world, and I’m staying in decent hotels (especially when I’m traveling with my daughter). I’m pretty comfortable leaving my passport at the hotel (unless I know I’ll need ID). Near-universal credit card acceptance and ATMs mean I pretty much don’t have to worry about changing money, so I won’t need ID for that.
My wife, on the other hand, never carries any kind of ID on her. She just forgets. All the time. It can be kind of a PITA – I wish she would. I mean, at least her driver’s license, right?
It can be a problem sometimes, especially since she’s not a US citizen (she’s a permanent resident), and once in a while that matters for something, and then she’ll just look blank and say “oh, I don’t have my green card, or passport or license, can’t you help me anyway?” And of course the person requesting ID can’t help her.
Yeah, passports are pretty tough. I always keep mine with me anywhere I would take my wallet. I’ve had to leave a country quickly without being able to go back to my room; I just feel more comfortable knowing I have everything on me that I need to get to the next way station.
