Last week, while lounging on a beach on a small Thai island, I went into the sea with my waterproof camera in the pocket of my shorts. The waves were a bit rough, and getting out of the water was challenging. I managed to cut my foot a bit on a sharp rock while doing it, and with my attention on that, I totally failed to realize that my camera was gone until about an hour later, when I was back in my hotel room. I wasn’t even sure where I dropped it, although the rough sea was the prime suspect. I went back to the same beach to scout the sand for the camera, but of course, it was nowhere to be found.
That gave me an idea of this post. A camera is just one of the items you really don’t want to lose on your trip overseas. Let’s talk about all the other things you should always keep track of, in the order or importance.
Wallet
A wallet, or whatever receptacle in which you keep your cash and cards, is probably the single most important thing that should always be either on you or within an easy rich. In other words, never lose sight or track of it. Cash aside, your driver licence and your bank cards are probably there, and you really don’t want to be stuck without them on a journey overseas.
It actually happened to me once – I dropped a wallet in a taxi to the airport and didn’t have time to deal with it before my flight. I arrived to another foreign city (Kuching, Malaysia) without a penny cash and no cards. Fortunately, I stashed away a backup credit card that I was eventually able to use to withdraw cash. But restoring the drivers’ licence and calling the banks to cancel the other cards was a royal pain in the arse. But that does illustrate the importance of separating your stash of cash and storing some of it, together with a secondary credit and/or debit card, somewhere other than your wallet. Best of all, always know and remember where your wallet or your purse is.
Mobile Phone
We live in the world where a mobile phone is probably our best friend just about anywhere we go. Forget about making calls; its main purpose is to keep us connected to the world via social media, and we get so addicted to it that we end up spending a lion’s share of our travel time crouching over out phones just like we do back home. But the importance of your mobile device goes beyond that. It probably has the music you listen to; the alarm clock you use to wake up for those early bus rides; translator apps; dating apps; rideshare apps for getting from A to B, and many, many other applications. So for some, it might just be the most important item in their possession, and heck, I can’t blame those people.
Just like with the wallet, I also managed to leave my phone behind once. It was upon my arrival in Bangladesh, and I realize once in the taxi driving away from the airport that my phone was nowhere to be found. I insisted the driver took me back, and only after some time did I finally recall where I saw it last – it was at the money exchange counter where I used the phone as the calculator. Fortunately, it was returned to me, so at least this story had a happy ending and did teach me the lesson of always keeping track of my phone.
Camera
If you are a photographer like me, your camera is one of your most important possessions. I also presume it’s not cheap, which alone is a good reason to never lose it. I know, many if not most travelers nowadays are perfectly happy using their smart phone (see above) as their camera, which means it’s even more important to never lose it. But any photographer – amateur or professional – will tell you, you just can’t shoot the same image quality pictures with your phone as with your 30-40 megapixel camera with top-notch optics. Not yet, at least.
What’s most important is not even the camera itself, but the memory card that’s in it – losing your camera would also mean losing a few hundred, or even a few thousand pics you shot since your last upload to your hard drive. Which provides 2 lessons: one, never lose your camera, and two – upload your pictures as often as you can.
Passport
To many, losing a passport is paramount to a tragedy. I actually think it’s not all that huge of a deal, unless you are travelling in many countries and still have a few ahead of you. In that case, your travel plans are busted and it does become a real big deal.
If you are staying in the same country before heading home and lose your passport, don’t fret – your home embassy will provide you with a document enabling you to return home relatively trouble-free. You will, of course, lose a lot of time, but at least you won’t turn in to a person without citizenship like Tom Hanks’ character in “Terminal” movie. So best thing to do is to always know where your passport is. It’s trickier because you don’t always need it, so make a habit of checking periodically to make sure it’s where it’s supposed to be. And we already talked about the importance of keeping your passport dry.
Jewelry/Watch
Nobody should be wearing expensive jewelry on a backpacking trip, but there are plenty types of travel where you may want to bring one or two nice pieces. If you do, put them in a case or some other easy to remember container, and never leave it too far from your main bag or a suitcase.
As I have written recently, I travel with at least one nice travel watch, sometimes two. While that probably makes me a bit of an oddball, that does add a burden of always knowing where my travel watches are. If you have only one travel watch, things are easier for you, but still, don’t leave it on the bedside table when checking out in a hurry if you don’t want to part with a few hundred or even thousand bucks.
Toiletries
This can be quite important, especially to women who do get attached to their beauty products. But for men or women, a toiletry bag can contain important medications, difficult-to replace hair, oral or other personal products, some of which may be tricky or impossible to obtain abroad.
Toiletries are particularly easy to forget since you would usually put them in the bathroom of your hotel room. So when you are getting ready in a rush, they can be easy to overlook. Carry a toiletry bag that is big enough to keep all your stuff and brightly-coloured enough that you would never forget to pack it back while on the road, and don’t leave your toiletries too far from the bag.
Sunglasses
Sure, you can probably buy sunglasses just about anywhere now, from a supermarket to a shady man in the street. And while supermarket sunglasses are probably going to be okay, even if they’ll lack style, buying your eye protection from a dodgy source is not prudent and can even be detrimental to your eyes.
And with sunglasses, it’s not just losing them that renders them useless. It’s also scratching or breaking them my dropping that you have to watch out for. Whenever I get a nice pair, such as these favourites, I initially take a great care of them – put them in the case whenever they’re not on my face, wash and wipe them regularly. As time goes by, however, I start to neglect them, carry them unprotected and sure enough, eventually I either lose or break them.
Don’t be like me. Always take a good care of your sunnies and most certainly, always know where they are.
Keys
Keys, phone, wallet – that is the trifecta of items I always know where they are, at least when I’m home. You won’t always have a key with you when travelling; you might leave it at the hotel reception, or simply not have it between your destinations. But whenever you do have a key in your possession, it becomes one of the key (got it?) items for you to remember about.
Apart from the inconvenience of being potentially locked out of your place, a lost key will often mean a stiff penalty. So more reasons to always know where it is. I keep mine in the front right pocket of my pants or shorts. Where do you keep yours?
Headphones
I don’t know about you, but music is very important to me on my travels. It really helps with those long plane or bus trips, or even just when I happen to hike or lie on the beach. It helps me relax in times of stress and put things into perspective.
To enjoy music on your trip, you need headphones or earphones, and those are particularly easy to lose. To prevent that from happening, assign a permanent spot where you would always put them. And try to keep them in some kind of a container, as they too can break very easily. Try to get a pair that already come in a container, such as these or most other wireless models.
Hat
A hat is seemingly easy to replace on your journey just about anywhere, but it doesn’t mean you would always have that opportunity immediately. I seem to lose hats more often than any other items. For some reason, I keep taking them off and putting them back on, and sometimes I just put it somewhere and forget about it until too late. One time I even had a long-time favourite hat of mine blown off by the wind into the volcanic crater of Mount Merapi in Java. A good story it might be, but I’d much rather still have that hat with me.
You might be emotionally or otherwise attached to your hat, so if you do have to take it off, keep it within your sight or in your hand. That particularly applies to speedy boat or motorcycle rides where a hat can easily be blown off by the wind. In those cases, it’s better to take it off and hold it. I lost many a nice hat over the years and some of them, I still miss.
So that’s the list, folks. Try to remember where those things are at all times, and you will have far fewer travel mishaps. Speaking of, my camera story does have a happy ending: the next day I went back to the same beach and the staffers of the resort on the beach did find my camera half-buried in sand at low tide. Fortunately, it continued to work fine. Which is more than I can say about dozens of other items I lost or broke on my travels.