It’s one thing to save for travel. However, on vacation, you need to keep it safe from thieves. But you’ll want to make it accessible. How do you avoid making yourself, your electronic devices, or your money a target for scam artists? By adopting a few smart money, banking, and personal privacy tips, that’s how. You can travel using money, credit cards, and electronic devices on vacation and balance safety and necessity too. Here are a few Smart Money Travel Tips for Banking and Personal Safety.
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Smart Money Travel Tips for Banking and Personal Safety
Are you going to need your library card when you’re 3,000 miles from home? Probably not. Before you take off, take the time to go through your wallet. Take out everything except the necessities. I take everything out of my purse and wallet and leave them behind. The only things I take with me are my DOD ID, state DL, International DL, and passport. Never, never, ever travel with your Social Security card or anything that can be used to capture personal information about you if lost.
Banking & Personal Privacy
I also contact my bank to let them know that I will be traveling to avoid identity theft. And if I change my plans, I’ll contact them again.
Secure the banking apps on your phone. Consequently, never check them without a secure WIFI connection. And verify that you are using the establishment’s WIFI. You don’t want to just hand over your information to hackers. Make them work for it. In addition, don’t save your login or password in the cache. Re-enter it every single time you use them.
Make sure to use very strong passwords on your phones, tablet or MAC. With this in mind, upgrade your virus protection and encryption software before you travel.
Secure Your Electronics
It’s crazy the potentially endless list of techno-gadgets we travel with– laptops, tablets, GoPro’s, phones, cameras, laptops, e-Readers… etc etc. But sometimes you need to go old-school. If you aren’t sure about access to the Internet, printout maps and addresses so you won’t get lost trying to find a Starbucks to access them.
I suggest you hard copies of important documents, itineraries and everything in your wallet too. The last step really helped after we were robbed in Spain a few years ago and we didn’t have any verifiable identification. In addition, it doesn’t hurt to give a copy of your itinerary to a friend or family member.
Save your battery life and buy an inexpensive watch. You don’t want to keep pulling your iPhone out in a place where they may steal it.
I am careful with my safety and money. Make sure you know what a legitimate taxi looks like. Know how to identify counterfeit money. And use ATMs in the hotel or in a safe public location. I personally don’t use money changers. They do not give the best exchange rates anyway.
Social Media Awareness
Even though I am a blogger, I know social media can be dangerous. It’s important to remember personal privacy. So I:
1. I never post where I am GOING, only where I’ve BEEN.
2. Keep personal information, personal. Traveling is a great opportunity to re-invent me. And I love using my imagination to create new personas;
3. I always travel with a little cash, in small denominations. Keep it in multiple locations on your person and belongings. And don’t put all your money in one place. Again, make it harder for a thief to totally wipe you out.
Cell Phone Safety
1. I never use unprotected/ or unidentified WIFI to check my email. Beware, because hackers can use anything to steal your identity. Just because it says it’s Starbucks, get clarification. Don’t just connect to any available source.
2. The emergency number, from any mobile phone worldwide, is 112. Not 911. It will work even if the phone is locked, has no sim card, or has no reception from your provider. Any provider within cell service will provide connectivity.
3. Stay in touch with friends and family. There are a ton of free phone apps for phone calls and texts. It’s a matter of preference and whether you are using an iPhone or Android phone.
4. And finally, for my personal privacy, I deactivated geo-tagging and location services. You should too.
Related Content
- Tips for Stress-Free Travel
- Tips for the First Time International Traveler
- 8 Travel Resolutions and How to Keep Them
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Comments
Thank you for sharing great and helpful tips. Glad I popped by your blog.
Keep posting!
This post really too helpful for me to do blog commenting. Thank you for sharing.
This is some really good information about banking. It is good to know that it would be smart to try to use a secure WIFI when banking. That is good for me to know as a young adult who wants to keep my banking information safe.
These are great tips!
Thanks for this post. Although my family and I don’t travel that often, we are still very careful with using our phones to connect with the WiFi. No public Wifi is the rule. We also use RFID sleeves to protect our bank and credit cards.
Thats a good rule, many people connect to unsecured WIFI never knowing who is hosting it.
These are great tips! I never give a second thought to signing on to WIFI (especially when it’s free!), but I will now 😉
And I’m SO old fashioned – everything is written down on paper (and now I feel really good about that, lol)!
I know, you aren’t the first person who told me that, but you really shouldn’t. Hackers create these WIFI logons to lure you into giving them access without any effort on their part. Its a huge business.