Do you carry your passport with you?
 

When you travel to Europe, do you always keep your passport with you all the time?<BR><BR>I always have a copy, but not the original. However, on my last trip, hotel did not have a safe, so I had to face a choice of either leave my passport in a suitcase or carry it with me.<BR><BR>If you do carry it, where do you put it?<BR><BR>Thanks,<BR><BR>Jim

I'm old fashioned, but I always carry mine with me, usually in a shirt pocket (I usually wear shirts which have pockets that have flaps you can button.) I don't think there's a need anymore to carry it with you.

I leave it in the hotel safe unless I will need it that day. Then I carry it, along with my wallet, in a zippered waist belt under my shirt, which I can access easily. Many years ago I left it in a jacket pocket, but it fell out in a taxi when I took off my jacket. I learned never to leave it in an open pocket where it can fall out or be lifted.

Addendum: I lost it in St. Martin, and I tracked down the taxi, and recovered it.

What if you're staying in a rental apartment and leaving it in a safe is not an option? Would you trust the apartment locks or carry the passport with you everywhere?

Elinor,<BR>I guess I'd try to find a safe place in the apartment and hope for the best.<BR>I carry a copy with me at all times now. If nothing else I need it sometimes to avoid the VAT tax on purchases.<BR>One place I have read NOT to put any valuables is in a locked suitcase. First, it's obvious. Second, a thief can just walk out with the whole suitcase and never be noticed.<BR>Travel stores like Magellan's carry camouflaged personal safes in the shape and weight of books or aerosol cans that might be a thought.

Always, always!!! We use security wallets, they're a pain in the butt but I feel safer that way.

I read that you should carry your passport with you in your money belt inside your shirt.

While in a foreign country, I always carry my passport plus a credit card. God forbid something happens and you arent able to get back to your hotel (act of god, uprising, etc) and you need to take the next plane outta there!

I'm with X. I feel very secure carrying both my passport and a credit card with me at all times in a foreign country with copies of both and copies of my airline tickets in my luggage. If I hid the originals somewhere in the hotel room or apartment in some camouflage device, I just know I'd outsmart myself and forget them when I left!

I always carry it in my money belt, with one credit card (on a different account than the one my husband is carrying) and some money.<BR><BR>My husband used to carry it and his wallet in a pocket on those jeans with pockets on the leg, until he got pick pocketed. The guy got thru 2 buttons, velcro, and a double flap without either of us knowing it. It took 5 days to get a Visa card (at that time we had the same account), and created a major inconvenience... you need a credit card to rent a car. To add insult to injury, it was not worth claiming on insurance, since the deductible and our claims-free deduction loss would have been more than the cash lost.

My first choice is to leave the original passport, airline tickets, bulk of traveller's cheques(that's how we spell it in Canada) and a spare, different account credit card in the hotel safe. If there isn't one, I carry those in a well-concealed money belt/body pack of some kind. A good idea is to leave a photocopy and/or list of your travel documents with a trusted friend back home....passport, airline tickets, traveller's cheque numbers, VISA account numbers, etc....and you can telephone them if you have to recover(or cancel) those numbers if everything else you've done to protect yourself when travelling goes catastrophically sour.<BR><BR>Enjoy, but plan ahead!<BR><BR>Scott