Protecting Your Passport and Travel Documents

Your passport is the one item on a trip that is genuinely hard to replace and genuinely disabling to lose. The protection is a habit rather than a product: keep the original somewhere secure and unnecessary to carry, keep a copy somewhere else entirely, and never let both live in the same bag. Everything else in this guide is detail on those three rules.

What You Need to Know

What to copy

Photograph the passport data page, any visa or entry stamp you may need to prove, your insurance card including the assistance line, prescriptions with generic drug names, and the front of the payment cards you are carrying. Copy the itinerary and accommodation details too, because a stolen phone takes your booking confirmations with it.

Where to keep them

Three places, deliberately unconnected: on your phone, in an account you can reach from any borrowed device, and with someone at home. A printed copy in your luggage is a fourth and is worth the paper. The test is simple: if your bag were taken right now, could you still see your own passport number?

Carrying the original

Most of the time, do not. A hotel room safe is a better place for a passport than a day bag in a market. The exception is countries whose law requires foreigners to carry identification, which is a real requirement in a number of places and is stated on the destination’s country information page. Where it applies, carry the passport in an inside pocket or a pouch under clothing rather than in a bag, and carry a copy as well.

If it is lost or stolen

Report it to the local police and get a written report, which insurers and consulates will ask for, then contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. A copy of the data page turns the replacement into an errand rather than an investigation. The detail of the replacement process is covered in Lost or Stolen Passports Abroad.

What to Do Before Your Trip

• Photograph everything on the list above.
• Store the copies in three unconnected places.
• Check whether your destination requires you to carry identification.
• Decide what lives in the safe and what travels with you each day.
• Note the nearest embassy or consulate for each city on the route.

Important Considerations

Hotel safes are useful and not impregnable, which is the right way to think about them: they are far better than a bag left in a room, and they are not a bank vault. For most travelers the passport in the safe is the correct trade. Where a hotel offers a front-desk safe or safety deposit box, that is generally more secure again.

Split what you carry. Two cards in two pockets, some cash in a third, and a copy of your documents in a fourth means no single loss ends the trip. Of the 211 destinations the State Department publishes country information for, 125 describe pickpocketing, petty theft or bag snatching, so this is a mainstream precaution rather than a cautious one.

Be careful about handing over your passport. Hotels in many countries will ask to register it, which is normal and usually quick; there is rarely a reason for anyone to keep it overnight, and if that is proposed, ask for a copy to be taken instead.

Tips for Group Travelers

• Ask for copies before departure, and keep one sealed set as leader.
• Never collect the group’s passports to carry together. One loss becomes everyone’s.
• Tell the group whether the destination requires carrying identification.
• Know the nearest consulate for each city.
• Return copies or destroy them when the trip ends.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• The only copy in the bag with the original.
• Carrying the passport daily where the safe would do.
• One card, one pocket, everything together.
• Leaving a passport with a hotel overnight without asking why.
• Copies only on a phone that can be stolen with everything else.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I carry my passport with me every day?

Usually not. A room safe is a better place for it than a day bag, and a copy is enough for most purposes. The exception is countries whose law requires foreigners to carry identification; your destination’s country information page says whether that applies, and where it does, carry the original close to your body.

Where should I store copies of my documents?

In at least three unconnected places: your phone, an account reachable from a borrowed device, and with someone at home. A printed copy in your luggage is a useful fourth. The test is whether you could still see your passport number if your bag disappeared right now.

Are hotel safes actually safe?

They are considerably better than a bag left in a room and are not impregnable. For a passport and spare cards that is the right trade for most travelers. Where a hotel offers a front-desk safe or deposit box, that is generally more secure again.

Related Travel Tips

• Safety and security, the section this guide belongs to.
• Lost or Stolen Passports Abroad. What to do if it happens.
• Credit Card Security Abroad. The same discipline for cards.
• Hotel Safety Abroad. Using a safe, and choosing a room.

Plan Your Trip With LABUSA Travel

Whether a destination requires you to carry identification, and where the nearest consulate is on a multi-city route, are the sort of details that belong in the itinerary rather than in a search on the day.

Talk with a LABUSA Travel advisor about a trip you are considering, or browse our destination guides for a specific country.

Verify Before You Travel

Whether identification must be carried, and the location of the nearest embassy or consulate, are published per destination by the U.S. Department of State. Local crime conditions are also assessed independently by the U.K. FCDO.