When you travel, leave passport in hotel or take with you?

[RoboFox]

So we've established that nothing is secure and we should probably all stay at home? 

[grobyfox1990]

32 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

Surely suitcase is easier to steal than a fixed safe?

Slashing a suitcase and stealing its contents prob more obvious than ransacking a safe. You're never totally covered I guess

[jgtuk]

1 hour ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Slashing a suitcase and stealing its contents prob more obvious than ransacking a safe. You're never totally covered I guess

My Mother had a beach/tote bag sliced at the base and emptied as she was walking from our parking space 500m to copacabana beach in Rio De Janeiro. 

Totally emptied and she wasn't aware of a thing.

[grobyfox1990]

46 minutes ago, jgtuk said:

My Mother had a beach/tote bag sliced at the base and emptied as she was walking from our parking space 500m to copacabana beach in Rio De Janeiro. 

Totally emptied and she wasn't aware of a thing.

A cloth bag whilst you're out and about is v different to a shell suitcase in a locked room within a CCTV'd hotel tho

[jgtuk]

12 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

A cloth bag whilst you're out and about is v different to a shell suitcase in a locked room within a CCTV'd hotel tho

Yeah, sorry, it was more of just an ‘extra’ to the thread regarding never being safe than an answer to your comment 😂. 

[jgtuk]

Just now, jgtuk said:

Yeah, sorry, it was more of just an ‘extra’ to the thread regarding never being safe than an answer to your comment 😂. 

FWIW, her passport and credit cards were safe in our apartment on this occasion 👍

[Nolucklcfc]

Should have done a poll 🤣

[ftfagos]

19 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I tried leaving my passport with the hotel, but Kings Lynn Premier Inn didn't want to know.

Did they not tell you passport required to return to the West Bank?

[ramboacdc]

7 hours ago, brookfox said:

Tried to buy a bottle of wine in the US last year. Got asked for ID (I’m 47, but policy is policy I suppose!). Showed him my UK driving license, “what even is this, I can’t accept it, is it like Ukranian or something?!”. Sometimes easier to have your passport!

To be fair to the yank there, it is simple to confuse a card with a UK flag and the word "driving licence" at the top and everything else in English up with Ukrainian... 

 

They sound like someone who would be confused by their own shadow....

[Royston.]

21 hours ago, Lako42 said:

I put mine up my bum regardless of country

Even when you're nipping out to the corner shop

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, ftfagos said:

Did they not tell you passport required to return to the West Bank?

The Ouse flows West-East, the banks are north or south.

[FoyleFox]

Thinking of ways to keep items secure about your person when travelling, an alternative to the backpack we'd usually have. I thought I'd have a look online, as I've seen belt bags etc advertised before.

Realised searching for 'secure body bag' probably wasn't the best phraseology

Edited 13 February by FoyleFox

[FoxesDeb]

Maybe I'm very naiive, or maybe since we moved to Spain we are just used to carrying them now, but I just keep my passport in my handbag. My husband has one of those across body man bag things, but we don't do anything different when we're travelling. 

 

I wouldn't leave it in a hotel and not carry it with me though. 

[FoyleFox]

20 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

Maybe I'm very naiive, or maybe since we moved to Spain we are just used to carrying them now, but I just keep my passport in my handbag. My husband has one of those across body man bag things, but we don't do anything different when we're travelling. 

 

I wouldn't leave it in a hotel and not carry it with me though. 

You've just acclimatised to doing it now, I guess. And, if you did get mugged in Spain, you can still just drive home. For me, it's the perceived hassle that I'm away from home, I'd need to find an Embassy or Consulate to get an emergency one to fly home. Even more awkward if I'm off on a cruise and not based in one City.

 

I've got a land/cruise tour of Asia later this year, and I think we'll need to keep our passports with us when we're out there. Now I've rephrased my Google search, I think I'll get something like this. I'd feel more secure having it in a separate bag to all the general stuff in a backpack. And, I recall talking to someone recently who had their card scammed using the NFC/contactless chip, one of these with a blocker would be extra secure for that reason, too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DG28DPSY

Edited 13 February by FoyleFox

[FoxesDeb]

1 minute ago, FoyleFox said:

You've just acclimatised to doing it now, I guess. And, if you did get mugged in Spain, you can still just drive home. For me, it's the perceived hassle that I'm away from home, I'd need to find an Embassy or Consulate to get an emergency one to fly home. Even more awkward if I'm off on a cruise and not based in one City.

 

I've got a land/cruise tour of Asia later this year, and I think we'll need to keep our passports with us when we're out there. Now I've rephrased my Google search, I think I'll get something like this. I'd feel more secure having it in a separate bag to all the general stuff in a backpack.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DG28DPSY

Funnily enough our cruise last year was the only time recently we haven't carried our passports with us out and about. The cruise line took them off us when we checked in and we didn't see them again until we disembarked, replete with all the stamps of the different countries we'd visited!

[FoyleFox]

12 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

Funnily enough our cruise last year was the only time recently we haven't carried our passports with us out and about. The cruise line took them off us when we checked in and we didn't see them again until we disembarked, replete with all the stamps of the different countries we'd visited!

It very much depends on your itinerary, we have kept them for the whole cruise but on other occasions they take them all, do the necessary immigration and stamps for you. Was that your Marella Canaries cruise? Or the Middle East?

Edited 13 February by FoyleFox

[SkidsFox]

Take a photocopy of passport and carry with you (or just take a photo on the smart phone), and leave the passport itself in the safe. 

Of all the things to worry about on holiday, this must come way down the list.

 

[FoxesDeb]

36 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

It very much depends on your itinerary, we have kept them for the whole cruise but on other occasions they take them all, do the necessary immigration and stamps for you. Was that your Marella Canaries cruise? Or the Middle East?

It was the Middle East, we changed the canary islands cruise for the Middle East as the cost of the cruise itself was the same, and we thought it would be a bit more adventurous! We nearly forgot to collect our passports on the last day 

 

We're doing it again later this year, this time to the Caribbean and central America, but that's for the holiday thread... safe to say we've definitely got the cruising bug though 

[Parafox]

5 hours ago, jgtuk said:

My Mother had a beach/tote bag sliced at the base and emptied as she was walking from our parking space 500m to copacabana beach in Rio De Janeiro. 

Totally emptied and she wasn't aware of a thing.

 

What was in it, a packet of crisps?

[Qwerty]

Leave passport in the hotel safe.  But keep your GHIC card with you.

[jgtuk]

1 hour ago, Parafox said:

 

What was in it, a packet of crisps?

Purse with cash, sun cream, bottle of water and a small make up bag I think. Was a while ago though. That same week our car was broken into, stereo gone and a few small items from the glove box. Car still locked and no sign of entry. Same beach front. 

[Dan]

Leave it in the hotel, but just a word of advice if you ever want to go and watch a game of football in Italy - take it. I had to argue, and somehow use my railcard to get into the San Siro

[fazzyfox]

In Cyprus our apartment reception made us hand ours in as a security deposit, we get them back once they've checked the room on departure day. I'd never heard of that before, it wasn't in the brochure T & C's and I wondered how legal it was (and if they'd spend the week running off forged copies to flog!) It was too late to argue or refuse so we handed them over.

 

It turned out to be not as unreasonable as it seemed, a big group of English lads in their 20's, they must have seen it all before.

 

Then when we woke on the last day we found one of our mates had gone the full Keith Moon and chucked a sofa out of the balcony window . Quite rightly the peeved hosts made us recover all the sections from the bushes below (I co-ordinated from a distance in case of snakes), hungover and in scorching heat, carry it back up the staircases and reconstruct it. We weren't like that, we were all good sorts he just claimed he had heat stroke and didn't know what he was doing. That's heat stroke sponsored by 25 pints of Cheapos Beeros.   

[Grebfromgrebland]

On 13/02/2025 at 18:39, FoyleFox said:

Thinking of ways to keep items secure about your person when travelling, an alternative to the backpack we'd usually have. I thought I'd have a look online, as I've seen belt bags etc advertised before.

Realised searching for 'secure body bag' probably wasn't the best phraseology

When I'm in especially sketchy places I keep my passport and a bit of cash and a card in a flat hip (bum) bag under my t shirt. Also spread money and cards in 2 to 3 different places such as wash bags and in socks in my rucksack. 

 

Also copies of everything back home and on an online drive. 

[StanSP]

Unless we think we need it, it stays in the hotel locked inside the safe or one of our bags.