Passport question - carry with or leave at hotel?
 

I'm never clear on the rule if one is supposed to carry one's passport while touring/walking around or if it is safer to leave locked up in y hotel. Any ideas? I'll be in Turkey Romania Germany & Austria.

Carry a photocopy of it and keep the original in your hotel.

Hi,

There is no problem with carrying your passport but I suggest to keep it close to your body, e.g. in an inner pocket compartment. If you leave it in the hotel, make sure that it's really in a safe place, e.g. in the hotel safe or locked into your suitcase. What I'm often doing is to make copies of my passport which I have on a USB stick (just in case I loose it) plus physical copies which I carry along in place of the passport. However Europe is pretty safe and nothing should happen. Pickpockets are interested in values. So keep your passport separate from your bills.

Enjoy your trip!

Evelyn

I generally do what Sparkchaser says, unless I have some reason I might be asked to show it that day (ie, train ticket designated to me). I've never had a problem nor been pickpocketed/mugged but there's always a first time, I suppose.

It is absolutely not true that pickpockets are not interested in passports, they are extremely valuable on the black market. Besides, often they may swipe things and just take it all.

As far as "rules", some people issue dire warnings about how it is illegal for you to walk around in Europe without your passport as if the entire country were some terrible police state waiting to throw tourists into jail for nothing. I think you have to be able to prove your identity in questionable circumstances or if arrested, but you aren't going to be locked up for life if your passport were in your hotel room and you had to have someone get it for you if you were arrested.

Haven't been to Turkey in many years but in general, I am more cautious in countries like that, not less (in terms of not having it on me).

It's generally the law that you must carry a valid I.D./passport with you at all times, but many tourists take a copy and leave the original in a safe place at the hotel. I have yet to hear of a single instance where a tourist landed in any trouble because they were not carrying their passport while sightseeing.

Also, your passport is of value to some pickpockets, not to mention the hassle of losing it, so whenever you have it with you, keep it very secure and separate from other valuables.

We always carry the originals since if anything happens to it we want to know immediately. If you leave in the hotel how secure will it be? In-room safes - if the room has one - can often be opened by staff. And leaving in the main hotel safe it can be easy to forget.

Caveat:Have been to europe more than 100 times with never a problem of theft or loss - but I am a native New Yorker and have noted that some people do not seem to use the same normal safety procedures that I do for personal belongings.

I leave my passport at the hotel, but carry my passport card or drivers license in order to have ID on my person.

"I have yet to hear of a single instance where a tourist landed in any trouble because they were not carrying their passport while sightseeing."

OK, here's one for you then. Happened in Brussels. A brawl broke out in an Irish pub near the Grand'Place and spilled out on the street. The police came by, cordoned off the area and demanded that everyone -- whether they'd been involved or not, whether they'd even been in the pub or not -- show their real official IDs. Copies were not accepted. Those who could not produce valid, genuine IDs were penalized.

Another one for you. This time, in Switzerland. Tourists were riding the trams in Basel and forgot their free transit card that come with a hotel stay. The "control" police happened to do a spot check and when the tourists couldn't produce their transit card, they were asked to produce official ID. The authorities were definitely NOT pleased to be shown mere copies. The couple was taken off the tram and I could see something (tickets, fines, no idea, I didn't get off with them) being written up.

APBaron, the OP, asked about "the rule"--and the answer is, there isn't one.

We carry ours with us and also my husband has a copy of mine and I have a copy of his. We don't trust hotel safes!

I carry both my wife's and mine. It's not a question of control, but she has been pickpocketed and recently lost her bag with wallet and all ID in it. I have never lost papers; but then, the importance of papers has been drilled into me since I was a child. I use a visible belt pouch with passport, wallet, IDP in it. I keep a copy of the passport on my e-mail account, just in case.

I leave mine in the safe. Spending time on all the travel forums, not once have I read that hotel staff stole out of a room safe. Have you? With Trip Advisor, and almost instant posting, if this was ever a problem, we all would know about it. The mgr. might be able to get into a safe, but certainly not the housekeepers.

I never carry my passport unless crossing borders or flying. I have other ID. Take a photo of it and keep it in your phone, ipad or camera. It is only useful if you need to go to a consulate to replace it.

It depends. IF my hotel has a safe, I may leave it there. If I think I might need it for ID or there's no safe I carry it with me, in a money belt under my clothes. In Italy I always carry it (legal requirement) and I think there were a couple of threads here recently by people who had had problems in Switzerland with not having their ID with them (am traveling, bad time to search).

I always carry it. I'd forget to take it out of the hotel safe.

WhiterTea

What do youmean by 'penalized' ?
I've been living all my life in Belgium and never heard anything like that.

Anyway, like most Europeans, we have two legit ID's : National ID and Passport.
We leave our passport in our safe at hotel and keep our ID on us.

Mvg.

Now having heard 2 stories of tourists getting "in trouble" for only producing a copy of their IDs, I will continue to (a) carry a copy of my passport (I'd rather pay a penalty than lose my passport) and (b) bypass Switzerland, since there are so many more appealing Alpine destinations anyway.

i also think it is daffy to imagine the hotel staff is going to open your hotel room safe and steal your passport.

Also, I am mystified by this constant refrain that native New Yorkers are all either born with or acquire some super-knowledge about theft in Europe. I am a native New Yorker (NYC), and there are almost no pickpockets in New York City. In fact, not all that long ago, the New York Times interviewed one of the few pickpockets in the city, who actually lamented that there were so few pickpockets in the city, and they were so old, he doubted they would continue to even exist in a few years.

Most of us who grew up in New York City and lived there most of all our lives live by the simple knowledge that in the presence of a thief in New York City, you hand over your money. Period. So you don't get punched out or shot.

Europe is not like that. How dumb and unsophisticated do you have to be to realize that after 100 trips?

Here's one I read about on TA. A young couple was staying in an apartment in Rome. The man wanted to go to a bar in the evening, but she preferred to go back to the hotel. He went alone to a bar, where he had a bit too much, although they say he was by no means drunk. There was an argument and the police were called. He was taken to the station because he had no ID. Unfortunately neither had a phone that worked in Italy. Somehow, I don't remember the details, things got staightened out the next day.

Apart from the ID issue, if you stay in an apartment, both of you should have a working phone. And drinking too much in a foreign company is really stupid.

A woman in my town in Italy was detained for several hours by the carabinieri recently because she didn't have her ID with her. She had her driver's license, but that wasn't accepted.

I was told by our local marshall of the carabinieri, when I first came to Italy, that, until I got my Italian ID, I needed to carry my passport at all times, so I did. One of my daughters, when she visits me, carries a passport card and leaves the passport at home. The other always carries her passport. The passport card doesn't say anything about your entry and exit dates, so it might not satisfy every official.

I can assure you that anyone who looks North African would be required to show official ID, and somehow I don't care for the idea that paler people expect to be held to a different standard.

In my previous post, in the first example, the young couple was staying in an apartment, not a hotel. That was a good part of the problem.

Well for Americans the passport is the only official ID. We don;t have any system of national IDs for all people.

And as for being aware of theft - NO ONE is talking about robberies or muggings - which are very rare in tourist areas of europe. What we are talking about is pickpockets and those who prey on careless tourists by stealing wallets, purses, cameras, cell phones, etc - because the tourists put them down in public - or carry them in vulnerable backpacks - rather than holding on to valuables at all times, and carrying them in secured places.

(And as for pickpockets or similar in NYC - there are a lot of them in places frequented by tourists. There was a crackdown in Times Square recently. And a friend of mine - granted careless - has had her purse (gigantic) rifled several times on the subway.)

And yes, there have been reports of belongings rifled from in-room safes. I have not seen one on the europe board recently, but most hotels in europe don't have in-room safes. Have seen theft complaints for Las Vegas, Hawaii and places in Mexico and Latin America in the not distant past.

I carry mine with me in an under-the-clothes money belt.

Well, just to counter all these tales of woe, I confess than when in Mexico--generally small and even tiny towns, granted, not heavily touristed areas-- we have left our passports unsecured in our rooms in several places and returned to find them right where we left them.

Thanks everyone for all of your input. Forum folk are incredibly helpful. Much appreciated.

I was interested by this question both from a a historical point of view, i.e. when did the passport become used by us normal people rather than ambassadors (for whom it was designed)? I'm also a Brit, for me, not carrying an ID feels like a core part of being a citizen. In fact I would argue that not carrying an ID is one of the benefits of the allies winning WW2.

So the more I dug the more interesting it became. I concluded that wiki has the best answer here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ies_by_country after all if the rule works on the local citizen then a visitor should follow the same rule.

I also looked at the UK gov's advice for each country.

From your list Turkey worries me, as citizens are required to have IDs at all time but the UK says a photocopy will do. Given my few experiences there, I'd say the last thing a local policeman wants is to confront an uppity tourist so a photocopy would do

For your 4 a photocopy will do.

Belgium's position is pretty tough. I might avoid that country more if it wasn't between me and many of the wines of France and Germany

The idea that there are cops who would "penalize" tourists who aren't carrying a passport, rather than giving said tourists a reasonable chance to produce the ID, tells me that there are some dumb cops everywhere.

<<most hotels in europe don't have in-room safes.>> I would say most hotels do have in room safes with a minority that do not, certainly this has been my experience but maybe nytraveler has more experience of European hotels than I do.

I would say, keep the passport safe and carry around some other ID, which is not as important as the passport - a driving license, for example.

During my years as a consular officer, I frequently had to replace passports which were lost while being carried. I never had to replace one which disappeared from a hotel room. Make of it what you will.

I left mine in the hotel safe in Heidelberg and forgot it until I was a hundred or so miles away. Fortunately I was going to go to a Goethe Institute for a month, so I had it sent there.

If I'd continued to travel to multiple destinations, I'd have been worried that it would become lost in the mail.

I carry my passport in my money belt, which I wear all the time.

I wasn't initially allowed into a dining "club" (the club was in fact a restaurant pretending to be a club, a technique to avoid some types of Italian tax I later understood) because I had left my PP in my room, I explained that my parents hadn't contributed to WW2 just so I had to provide governmental paperwork to be allowed to eat, seemed to work, but my italian was better then and my host was the parent of one of the chefs ;-)

I have totally changed my travel style over a few decades. You would think I have become more cautious; in a way, I have become far more at ease because I think my so-called "safety nets" may have made me more vulnerable.

For ages, we carried in different luggage copies of each other's passports--and our luggage was always carry-on.
We wore money belts.

Likewise, we kept photocopies of our credit,ATM, health cards with the same system.

All of the above was snail-mailed to my mother before we left so that in case of emergency, she could help us handle things.

The passport photocopies were kept with us; the passports went in the hotel safe.

Put your thinking cap on and you can see all the holes in this system.


Years later, I don't trust hotel safes for one second. And we're just not doing money belts. I now carry a really flat little purse that fits under my armpit--and my passport is always in it when abroad.

My husband wears pants with deep front pockets with both cash and credit cards bound with sticky rubber bands to create drag.

Should my little purse and passport be stolen, our should my husband be pickpocketed via his "parts", I have instant electronic access to every item via my own online account and/or via other members of our party.

And oh, I have a teeny tiny little cheat sheet, on both hard copy in my little travel binder and online, that carries CODED info for my credit/debit cards plus health, AAA, passport, global entry with all the needed phone numbers for contact. Should someone steal that cheat sheet, I have time to make contact before the code is deciphered.

Yes, the code is in my head, not written somewhere else.

Yes, someone can hack my drive. Someone can always do SOMETHING. That is the point: <b>we are all vulnerable</b>. Buying time, increasing awareness, and reducing paper vulnerability are my new goals.

Well I'm the other way round. I reckon that I am much more likely to lose/forget my handbag or have it stolen while I'm out and about than I am to be the victim of theft from my hotel room safe, so that's where my passport stays.

And in 45 years of travelling in Europe and the rest of the world, apart from checking into hotels etc. the only time I have needed my passport was to support a C/c purchase in El Corte Ingles in Madrid about 10 years ago.

This question is one of those that always generates multiple answers and opinions, just as the "should I use a moneybelt?, and "should I get Euros ahead of time or wait to get from ATMs when I arrive? You consider the risks and do what's comfortable for you. I always have my passport in my money belt, comfortably worn in the back, so I always know where it is.

I left my passport and 2 credit cards in the hotel's safe in Heidelberg and didn't remember them until I was 100 miles away. Fortunately I was going to be at a Goethe Institute for a month, but I had them sent to me.

I now usually wear a money belt with my cards and my passport. I feel safer that way.

My sister gave me her passport and credit card to put in my money belt while we were having dinner at a restaurant in Barcelona; a clever thief pretending to be a waiter made off with her purse.

Oops, so I had them sent to me.Not "but I had them sent."

If you want a back up ID card ypu can get an international drivers license. I believe it can be used as ID and that will allow you to leave passport in a safe place at the hotel.

I personally brought mine with me. Keep it in a money belt. You need it for museums and buying luxury items. It's really important to have or at least a photo copy of
www.benformisano.com

The original question was on safety, presuming loss or theft. In which case, leave at hotel safe. However, blind applications of this criteria would rule out many things of value worth pursing in spite of the risk. Is it safer to stay home than traveling to Europe? May be yes, may be no depending on where one lives and where one goes as well as if one has a belief that no risk is worth taking in spite of the benefit even if there is an acceptable fall back.

I think this is the case of the usage model. Those who have had problems not having one would carry one.

Having denied shopping for items, not once, but twice in Spain, having sent back to hotel after being told, "The copy of passport is no good, I need to see a real passport to accept your credit card," I carry one with me when I am likely to buy something that might require an id. It is up to the merchant to decide if a foreign drivers license is acceptable or not in Europe.

I prefer not buying something because I am refused my CC than traveling my my papers.
However as an European I have the luxury of having a driving license with photograph plus an ID card with photo and a passport with photo.
I put those in different places.
I have never been pic pocketed but have been handed back my passport or cc several times. There are more correct people than thieves.

<i>Having denied shopping for items, not once, but twice in Spain, having sent back to hotel after being told, "The copy of passport is no good, I need to see a real passport to accept your credit card," I carry one with me when I am likely to buy something that might require an id. It is up to the merchant to decide if a foreign drivers license is acceptable or not in Europe.</i>

Would American officials or store clerks accept a copy of a photo ID when identification is required? If not, why assume that Europeans would? Once in a foreign country, only the real thing counts for identification purposes.