Over the last few days we’ve been collecting travel safety questions from the Indie Travel Podcast community. Here they are, and here are our answers.

For a big overview of travel safety, check out our new Travel Safety book. You can get a free preview of it at the end of this article. But now, down to your questions…

I have heard that it is a good idea to scan a couple of key documents, such as passport, and then email them to yourself. Can you guys think of any other similar documents? ~ James

It definitely is. It’s a good plan to keep a colour photocopy of your passport handy as your first piece of ID.

Scanning — or even taking a photo — of your passport photo page and any necessary visas is a good backup. We keep ours saved on our phones, on dropbox, and have a copy in our email too. (You want to have secure, unique passwords for all those services.)

Apart from those, we scan and keep copies of:

• Insurance policies
• Drivers licences
• Bank statement/overview
• Photos of high-value things (showing serial numbers where possible), in case we need them in an insurance claim

How about secret stash travel tips? Like huff.to/x5lw9i? ~ Joshua

Safety around Bangkok or similar cities for young travellers .. Where to store passports/money etc how to keep away from trouble ?? ~Sam

These two are pretty similar… and both point to concerns about either petty theft or violent crime while you travel. We rely on credit cards and an emergency cash transfer rather than a secret supply of cash if we get robbed. We always make sure there’s a card left behind at our accommodation: you’ve hit really bad luck if your hostel or apartment gets robbed at the same time you get mugged!

We’ve heard of or seen people store cash in shoes, seams in their bags or clothes, in specially bought belts with hidden pockets. We normally don’t bother unless we’re carrying a decent amount of cash. We split it between our two bags and our persons — and we do use a money belt if we’re feeling uncomfortable. We lock our bags shut if we’re not with them and, where possible, secure them in a locker or place valuables in a room safe.

The question of whether to use a room safe, reception safe, or carry your most valuable possessions has so many variables, we spent a whole chapter of Travel Safety: Safety Tips For Personal And Corporate Travellers trying to answer it. The preview you can get at the end of the article has a few tips on staying out of trouble in general, and the whole book has plenty more.

I was wondering if you wear your money belt every day or just on long-distance traveling days (i.e. leave it safe in the hotel room during the day while you’re at the museum)? ~ Heidi

It’s a tough one! It depends on how secure we feel with:
a) Where we are.
b) Where we are going.
c) Where our bags will be stored.
d) our general energy levels.

As a rule of thumb, we take our passports and some money with us in a moneybelt if we are staying in a public place like a hostel and we don’t think we can securely lock them up.

How much money do people carry? With ATM’s across the world, you normally don’t have to carry that much, but having a few hundred USD stashed away has gotten me out of some big binds, especially in the middle of nowhere with no ATMs. ~Spencer

It’d be interesting to hear what you carry, readers!

Since we got caught without access to ATMs following the 2010 Chilean earthquake we decided to keep two days worth of food and board money on us at all times. Once we hit that point, we tend to make the biggest possible withdrawal from an ATM (around US$500 in most countries) because we get charged each time we make a withdrawal. This seems like an OK balance between the risk of losing that much money and the cost of withdrawals.

If we’re coming up to a border though, we might let that reserve money drift down to nothing, as we know what kind of rates we’ll get from an ATM withdrawal, but we’ve often been left with currency that can only be changed at a poor exchange rate.

Your thoughts on overnight trains in Europe especially for people on their own – a friend was robbed while she slept a couple of years back and you always hear these rumours (esp Eastern Europe) but I’m reluctant to believe it’s much of a risk? ~Amanda

You’re right — the chance of it happening is real, but very low. You can minimise the chances of being robbed while you sleep on a train by securing the locks on your bag, and padlocking the whole thing to a support. Some people carry lightweight bike wires to do this with — we tend to improvise.

You might have a handbag or small backpack with your valuables in it. You’ll definitely want to secure this — both locks on zips and have it attached to something. I normally keep mine right beside my head (on the walled side of the compartment) or treat it as a deformed teddybear.

Having your bag attached to something means it’ll be hard to snatch and run, and give you enough time to wake up and scream… which will bring help pretty fast.

On a similar theme, if you’re going to sleep in a train compartment, you’re best to choose one that has (nice-looking!) people in it. If you have the whole compartment to yourself, there is a chance that less salubrious people may wish to share it with you.

Do you have something to add, or have more travel safety questions? Ask them in the comments below.

Get a free preview of Travel Safety

Travel Safety: Safety Tips For Personal And Corporate Travellers is available for just $9.99 and can safe you endless worrying. But you can also get a free preview and more information by signing up below:

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This article was written by Craig and Linda

Craig and Linda Martin have been living on the road since February 2006. Both born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand they are ... somewhere in the world! Craig and Linda host the Indie Travel Podcast - you can get in touch with them here.