Traveling internationally is one of life’s great joys. But international traveling also requires a lot of logistics. You have to make sure you have many different forms of documentation to make sure you can travel safely, and that you have items on you (money, cards, ID, etc.) to make sure that you can navigate the country accordingly.
Perhaps the most important documentation you can have is your passport. Without it, you cannot enter the country you are visiting, stay at a hotel in that country, or leave. Your money, your cards – these are all important, but your passport is the one document that you cannot be without.
HOWEVER,
You do not need to bring your passport with you everywhere. When you’re at a restaurant, or you’re on a hike, you don’t need to have a large, bulky passport with you at all times. In fact, there are many reasons NOT to carry it with you:
- Passports are large. They make it very difficult for you to move around, hike, or be active.
- Passports are critically important, and if you lose your passport, you are in trouble.
- Passports can be more valuable than money, and so they are more likely to be stolen.
Perhaps most importantly, you do not need it. You need it to fly in and out and you need it to get into the hotel, that is typically about it.
Passports and Wallets
It is not recommended that you keep your passport by itself in your pocket, bag, or purse, where it can easily fall out or be lost and forgotten. The best place to keep your passport is in a dedicated passport wallet. Passport wallets have a snug space for the passport, allowing you to access it when you need it, and it has all your other cards and cash as well so that you can access those when required. Keeping all these items in one place (a passport wallet) ensures that it’s always in your reach and easy to access.
But what should you do the rest of your trip?
The rest of the time you should carry as little with you as possible. Not just leaving your passport – leaving any extra cards you have, leaving any extra documentation, leaving business cards, and more. You should only be taking with you as little as you need at any given time.
Even the safest countries in the world have pickpocketing problems and are targeting tourists. In addition, a wallet that is lost abroad is unlikely to ever get returned. In an emergency, if you were to lose your cards or wallet, you would also find it even more difficult to cancel your cards and deal with the consequences while you’re abroad and you’ll need to have access to those items (like a second emergency credit card).
Which means that you do not need a large, bulky wallet weighing you down. You need something light, small, minimalist, and with room for only the items you need while every other document and card stays in your passport wallet.
That means that the best thing you can do – and something that makes traveling much easier – is to take two wallets with you on your vacation. One wallet holds your passport, emergency cards and anything else that you need for the entire journey. The other wallet, a smaller wallet (for example, our nylon card holder wallet) goes with you in your luggage and becomes the accessory you use while you’re on the trip itself.
“I needed to bring a lot of documents with me to travel around Switzerland, including a work credit card and health insurance cards” said Micah, an Allett wallet owner and CEO of Great Leap Studios and High Volt Digital,” but I knew that most of the time I would be out hiking or walking around small towns, and I would not need 75% of the items I carried with me. I brought an Allett black nylon sport wallet with me in my suitcase, and used it almost the entire time I was there, only turning to my passport wallet the first day and the last day of the trip.”
One wallet becomes your important card/document/extra cash storage, and the other wallet becomes your day to day carry that fits so comfortably in your pocket that you can go hiking and enjoy the outdoors comfortably. You may also be taking a lot of pictures on your vacation, and a small nylon wallet to carry with you will take up much less space for a less distracting pants bulge.
Wallets take up almost no space in your luggage but can make a tremendous difference in the quality of your trip. For passport wallets, small nylon wallets, or both, please browse our products, today.
