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I've been doing some traveling lately, I started wondering. What happens if I lose my wallet (my ID, all credit cards, etc.) and my phone, or get mugged or such? How can I establish my identity? Say, my hotel key was in the wallet - would I be locked out of the hotel? How would they know I am me if I show up and ask for a replacement key? I mean, they can send a security guy with me to the room - and then what? All the stuff in my suitcase are very generic guy's clothes that could be anybody's. I probably don't even remember which exactly t-shirts and jeans I packed. They don't have labels or anything that points to me. How would they know? How would I get home, for that matter - I can't fly without an ID, and I can't get a new ID until I am in the same state at least - if I am not living in this state, they can't issue me a new ID.
I could go to the police maybe - though I wouldn't even know where "the police" is in a random city. But even assuming I just get lucky and encounter a traffic cop or something, and they explain me where the closest police station is - do I walk there then? And when there - how would they know I am me? Do they have access to other state's databases? Since I am a naturalized citizen, DHS for sure has a lot of my photos and fingerprints, but can any police precinct access it just on a word of a random dude? And after that - even if they do believe me, they can't issue me a new ID, right? So how do I still get home (or even to the airport, for that matter)?
Also, is there a good strategy to prepare for such eventuality? I can't just ask DMV for a secondary ID that I would keep in my suitcase in the hotel, for example, can I? I could probably take my passport, but the chance I lose it actually makes it more dangerous, and recovering the passport is probably even more annoying. Does a form of secondary ID that is not as costly to lose exist?
For me (someone who has been living alone as a digital nomad for several years now), my system is:
wallot with most of my stuff in my front pocket. it's quite thick and doesn't come out easily, I think it would be pretty easy to tell if someone was pickpocketing it. That's never happened.
backup old phone in my backpack. I did once lose my main phone and that was a huge pain. Luckily I could still use the old phone to connect to all my online accounts, but losing my US sim card and associated phone number was a huge pain.
Passport in its own separate shoulder bag that I wear under my shirt.
Documents in my suitcase like bank info, insurance info, an old driver's liscense, etc. I've never really had to use any of this but it's there if I need it. If you're just flying domestically in the US they're surpisingly permissive on what counts as ID, you can get home with almost government-issued paper that has your name on it.
Some small amount of physical cash, either in the suitcase or the backpack.
Basically you can't plan for everything, but as long as you're flexible and have some redundancy you'll be OK. You can also just stop and ask random people. If you don't look completely crazy you can find someone to help. I got locked out of my hotel room once and the staff let me back in, no questions asked. People on the street will give you directions if you ask them nicely. Police are not very helpful in my experience, mostly they just help you file insurance claims. The embassy is supposed to be good at helping stranded citizens get home, although I've fortunately never had to resort to that.
If you don't mind answering some questions... Do you recommend the nomad lifestyle? What's the best and worst things about it? The best country to live alone in?
I don't have any clear answers on whether I recommend it, I'm still deciding on that for myself. But I'll give you my thoughts.
The obvious best is getting a way cheaper cost of living. With my middle class American salary, I feel rich in a lot of foreign countries. Like 1/2, 1/4, or even less than what it would be in the US, depending on what you're willing to tolerate. I also really enjoy being able to get away from some of the stuff that's always bugged me about the US- suburban sprawl, health insurance, red-blue politics, enshittified apps for everything, and lack of good nightlife. Those are just my own preferences, but nice thing about digital nomading is you can kind of pick and choose what lifestyle and culture you want. Of course, every place has its downsides, and you start to see those more once your there.
Worst thing is that I can never stay for as long as I want, because of visa issues. Plus being an obvious foreigner with no permanent ties to the community, it makes you feel like weird and adds a lot of hastle to even simple things, like getting mail delivered. It's hard to stick to a regular diet or exercise plan or join clubs. I'm hoping to figure out a way to stay more permanently, but a lot of countries don't have good visa options for that, or only for older people.
Country-wise it depends a lot on which city and neighborhood you're in, but I really enjoyed my time in Mexico, Taiwan, and Japan. All 3 managed to hit the sweet spot for me of feeling comfortable enough to relax, significantly cheaper than the US, and interesting enough to find fun things to do as a random foreign single guy. It also helped a lot being able to speak some Spanish and Japanese. I did not enjoy my time in Southeast Asia where I couldn't understand anything at all, and I thought Western Europe just felt too similar to America to be worth the hassle.
Thanks for the reply! Sounds like overall it's kinda fraught with issues. Once you find a place you actually like a lot, you can't stay for long. And you should know the language before you arrive. I can imagine feeling alienated if you don't understand what anyone is saying. Japan is tempting, even for solo travel, but I would have to either learn some Japanese or be prepared to not be able to communicate with anyone beyond extremely basic words.
I'm not looking to be a perma-nomad or anything, but I do want a place where I can stay for ~3 months per year with a decent climate.
The thing about language learning, especially a non-European language like Japanese, is that it's a never-ending process. It's not like you hit some threshold and suddenly understand everything effortlesslly. It's a continuous grind to learn new words, new grammer, and improve on the basics. You can get by in any country with English, hand gestures, and phone translation, but it's not very comfortable. It's one thing to be able to do simple things like order food in a restaurant or follow transit directions. It's a whole other level to do the things that I want to do when I'm actually living somewhere- take a class, read a book, or keep up with people's jokes. Hardest thing of all is being in a group conversation and trying to understand what multiple people are saying, while also thinking of stuff to say myself. Even if I'm fast enough for the conversation, I might just not know the thing they're talking about, like if they're referencing some random local celebrity.
On the plus side, being an obvious foreigner who speaks English does have some advantages. You'll naturally meet more curious, intellectual type people who want to practice English and learn about other countries, as well as other foreigners travelling. And if you're like me and you tend to over-intellectualize everything, speaking in a foreign language can force you to just be blunt and spit it out in plain, simple words- because that's all I have!
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Since most problems can be solved with plastic money, I have a second credit card for travelling. I keep it separate from the rest of my valuables, usually at the bottom of my suitcase. That way, I have 3 sources of money: wallet, phone and travel credit card. So in your scenario, I'd be walking into my hotel room with security/reception staff saying "There's a black master card with my name on it behind this zipper, which I will tip you with. The Card Verification Value is 123."
If that's not enough, we might need to look at CCTV footage of the reception area from when I checked in.
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I misread this as international travel, so this is advice specifically for that, but if you get mugged or lose your passport, go to the embassy. I traveled in a group to Australia and one of the guys lost his passport (WYD Sydney, so we were mostly 14-18 years old with a handful of chaperones.) He went to the US embassy, made a few phone calls to his parents, and was back home before the rest of us.
As far as establishing identity goes, you weren't born with an accurate photo ID. At some point the government just takes it on faith that you are yourself if you have the right papers and someone willing to vouch for you. You hopefully keep your birth certificate, marriage certificate, SSN card, etc at home (in a fire proof safe if you're forward thinking.) People routinely lose everything in fires and floods and then start over again. Not great or convenient, but they don't suddenly become non-persons.
A lot of the advice is along the lines of, "Don't travel alone." You might lose your phone, but your travel buddy would hopefully still have his. Even if you are traveling alone, hopefully you still have some phone numbers memorized - family members, best friends who would be willing to drop everything for a few hours and help you out.
A lot of travelers wear something like this under their clothes with some cash and their ID. It's not going to deter a serious mugging, but it does protect against pick pocketing
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While I believe it's not technically legally valid, I keep both my drivers' license and my old state ID card from the last state I lived in on me. For international borders, they will give you a lot of shit, but I know firsthand the US has a database they can just look you up in and let you through without your passport, the hard part is getting on the plane without it (was very possible to do if you are a dual citizen, ESTA makes that less likely). You can also (anecdotal evidence, do not rely on) still fly without a Real ID, they just take you aside and, again, give you a lot of shit while they establish your identity.
But cjet is correct, your best strategy in those circumstances is social proof, looking like a respectable citizen and being able to talk your way into things. Find a helpful person and ask to get connected to the authorities - walk into a random hotel and ask the front desk, find a branch of your bank, ask a corner store for directions, etc. Harder if you're in suburbia but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Losing your passport if you don't need it immediately is a bit of bureaucracy but not a big deal. You have to file a new application and wait a bit. The main issue is if you need to do international travel in that time, in which case you'll have to do some shenanigans to go in person to a passport office. I would never travel without my passport even within the US, but yeah leave it in the hotel room (I don't recommend the safe, you are infinitely more likely to forget you put something in a hotel safe and leave without it than to have housekeeping break in and steal your passport).
For something like the border it's less worrying for me, because I know they have all the data on me, and they are legally bound to let me in. They can give me a lot of shit and marinate me for a bit there (for procedure or just for the heck of it, who knows) but at the end it'll be fine. I once got into the US from Canada with a wrong ID (I think it was expired or something, and I didn't realize that) and they were very upset at the document being invalid, and I had to go sit for an hour in a room with other suspects, but then they finally let me in, after admonishing me about the necessity to keep valid documents and follow proper procedures.
I stay mostly in cheap hotels (not always, but very frequently, though I avoid outright dumps, but a step higher is often ok for me) and over by now decades of travel I can't remember a single thing that was stolen from me in a hotel. Of course, not that I have a lot of stuff worth stealing, except maybe computer tech. Maybe I just got lucky, but I am not overly concerned about hotel housekeeping stealing my ID - if the cartels need my ID so much, they'd just bribe a receptionist and he'll copy it for them and I'd suspect nothing. But they probably already have all my data anyway from the last Experian hack or a dozen of similar ones that followed.
I mean it in the sense of "getting your ID stolen from your room is too rare to every worry about." The only time I or anyone I know has had something stolen from a locked hotel room was a dodgy hotel in rural Turkey where some girls with us had their cash disappear from their purses left in the room. Stealing stuff from hotel rooms is vanishingly rare, and even then I would think the thieves would generally try to be subtle rather than taking stuff that ensures you'll make a scene. I do sometimes slip my ID and a credit card out of my phone case into my pocket in very dodgy areas, so that if I get mugged I can hand over my phone/wallet and still be fine - as you say, criminals really don't care about your ID, we're long past the days when passports were valuable targets because you could cut them up and stick another picture in.
P.S. I'll take the chance to recommend Ferenc Karinthy's Metropole to anyone reading this thread who finds these sort of travel/identity scenarios tantalizing to consider.
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I keep an older phone. Primary reason is backup in case the primary phone battery explodes (or other weird shit), but it doubles as backup phone when I travel.
While traveling, I have a big conspicuous wallet where I keep cash and enough of my cards, and inconspicuous one with one other credit card and folded-in paper with important phone numbers.
Never been mugged, as I travel in boring touristy places, my primary worry is pickpockets.
TBH my primary worry is me. I've never been mugged or pickpocketed, I just added it for completeness sake. But I have lost a lot of things over the years. If I get to thinking deeply about something or reading something interesting, I could get quite absent-minded sometimes. Usually the victims are hats, umbrellas, sunglasses, chargers, water bottles and such small items, but one day I could get especially unlucky.
That's the list of Stuff I Lose as well. You know what the common thread is with all those items? They're things you don't carry in your pockets every day, just when you're out and about. Life gives us very good instincts to take care of phone/wallet/keys - in fact, when I travel, it often takes me a day or two to get over not having my regular keys in my pocket. This is the other thing about passports, they're easy to lose because you're not used to carrying them.
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If you get mugged or pickpocketed, you walk into the nearest establishment like a bar or a hotel, tell them you have been mugged and ask them to call the police. This solves the question of getting to the nearest police station. You also ask them to call your hotel so they can block access to your room and your bank to freeze your credit cards. The cops probably know where your wallet is, most street-level criminals don't need your ID.
If you've lost everything (let's say you mixed your prescription pills with alcohol and blanked out), get to your hotel. They know enough about you that you can prove your identity to them: full name, room number, phone or email, maybe they even have some CCTV footage or a copy of your ID (I don't know if they copy it in the US).
They stopped copying IDs years ago in most hotels. Of course they'd have a record of Mr. JJJ in their database, the problem is proving that guy and me are the same person. CCTV would help but I am not sure whether an underpaid receptionist would have access to such things, especially days back. I guess if I am insistent enough they could at least get someone who does on the phone, if only to get rid of me.
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What edgecityred said is good stuff. Also:
Your secondary ID is other people that have not lost their IDs and are willing to make a lot of calls and spend money for you.
Parent / spouse work best since they will have a reason for knowing you and a paper trail that connects you.
Your employer/ HR department if you are traveling for business reasons.
A good friend might help you in some ways that require spending money, but not as much on identity things. Unless you pre-plan giving them documents or access to your private stuff.
If you are traveling outside of your country your embassy can also help you out.
You will need to memorize their numbers or have a way of contacting them in case of an emergency.
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You photocopy these documents. You can leave a copy in the hotel safe (if you're not leaving your original passport in there). You should also keep phone numbers handy: your credit card company, for one, though you can probably google that. I have Amex and the concierge had my phone I'd left in a rental car FedExed to me. That's the card provider I prefer for service like that. They will also wire you money and find you a lawyer or directions to a consulate. https://www.americanexpress.com/content/dam/amex/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/PGA_Benefit_Guide_Rev_09-17-final.pdf
You can black out anything sensitive like your SSN, etc. if you put copies of things like this in your luggage.
Also, get luggage tags. A big, colorful tag is extremely handy at airports anyway if you have nondescript black bags that look like everyone else's at the carousel. Mine is a large lime green circle tag.
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