After all that planning and waiting, you’re finally on that trip of your dreams, far away from your home country. You keep your passport handy during your travels because you’ll need it for Customs and other travel-related things. But now you’re getting ready to go out and about as a tourist, and you pause for a second…should you bring your passport with you? Or should you leave it somewhere secure in the room?
First, let’s look at the pros and cons of each situation:
If You Bring Your Passport With You
- You have 100% legal government-issued ID with you, and even if you go somewhere that doesn’t accept your driver’s license as ID (read: an occasional bar), a passport is internationally accepted.
- There’s more chance of it being stolen or lost.
If You Leave Your Passport In Your Hotel Room
- Pickpockets can’t get to it.
- It needs to be in a secure place. Don’t leave it in your hotel safe because breaking into hotel safes is super easy. Don’t lock it in your suitcase either. If your suitcase has a zipper closure – it’s simple to break into those, too. So you better have a SAFE place to keep it, if you’re going to leave it in your room. We have this portable safe and it’s wonderful.
So What Should You Do?
If you’re just there as a tourist, most places recommend not carrying your passport when visiting the sights in a foreign country. Besides being too easy for it to get lost or stolen, it’s also a major pain in the behind to get a new one and is probably the last thing you want to have to do while on your vacation.
If you decide not to carry your passport with you, DO still carry a copy – a color copy is better than a black & white one. If you’re traveling with another person, make a color copy for him/her to carry (and vice versa). You may also want to have a color copy well hidden among your stuff that someone might not want to touch (i.e., dirty clothes), left with a trusted friend or relative back home, and even an online copy in a secure online place (read: cloud) that you can access. Some people keep an electronic copy of it on their phone, which is fine as long as your phone isn’t stolen. Oh, and don’t carry it in your wallet or where you keep your money because those are the things and places pickpockets will go for first.
If you decide to carry your passport anyway, at the very least, make sure it’s in a secure place on your person, such as an inner pocket compartment, not in a handbag, backpack or coat/pants pocket that anyone can reach.
I don’t mean to sound like an alarmist, but even in places where you feel like you’re safe (say, a Disney park), you never know when the person next to you will take an opportunity to see your passport sticking out of your bag and grab it when you turn around to look at something. Also don’t have one person to carry “everyone’s” passports, if you can help it…wherever you stash them, if they grab one, they’ll grab them all and then you’re all in trouble. So, every adult should carry his/her own.
Valid I.D. In Terms Of Visiting the U.S.A. & Wanting To Buy Alcohol
Each state in the United States has its own laws regarding what is considered valid I.D. in terms of buying alcohol. But since I know a lot of people from outside the U.S. visit Walt Disney World, here are their rules regarding I.D. (drivers license vs. passport) when it comes to buying alcohol (photo taken at WDW’s Typhoon Lagoon water park):
One More Thing That’s Important To Keep In Mind
Although you should carry some sort of photo ID with you in any foreign country, there are some countries where it’s the law that foreigners must have their passport with them at all times. Japan and Panama are two of those countries, and it appears that if you don’t carry your actual passport in Italy, you really, really, at the very least, should bring a color copy of it (and explain that you’re afraid to carry the original around with you for fear of it being stolen). I know other countries have such laws, but please don’t ask me what they are because I have searched and searched and can’t find an actual LIST. Your country’s government entity that has to do with passports would be a good place to ask whether or not you need to carry your passport all the time in the country or countries you plan to visit.
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4 comments
It is always best to leave in the hotel safe. Have never once had a problem in 100s of stays.
Most theft is a crime of opportunity. If maid leaves door open somebody might run in and grab whatever is on the desk. They won’t have time to crack the safe.
The only exception is that you may need passport to change money. Otherwise carry a passport card or drivers license which is sufficient for everything else.
I used to think the hotel safe was the best idea, until I decided to take a stroll one Sunday afternoon outside of my hotel in Maputo, Mozambique — a random police stop/passport check resulted in approximately a $100 (ahem) “fine” in order to save a trip to the local police station.
I’m not worried about pickpockets. It’s easy to thwart them. And it’s always good to have situational awareness. I always keep my passport with me. You never know when you’ll have to present it and it’s a royal pain to not have it if you need to present it or if you have it stolen because you left is somewhere you thought was safe
This is such an important topic, especially for travelers like me who are always on the go! I usually keep my passport in a secure, hidden pouch under my clothes when I’m out and about in a foreign country. It’s always a balance between accessibility and safety. Another tip I’ve found helpful is storing a digital copy in secure cloud storage in case the physical one is lost or stolen.
(Reply edited by YMMV to remove the spam. Good try, though. Whomp whomp!)