When on vacation you have enough to worry about without having to constantly stress about whether or not your finances are safe as well. There are many ways to protect yourself when travelling in order to prevent yourself from losing control of your money or even your identity. One very important factor to remember even when on vacation is that identity thieves never take a break. They are constantly on the lookout for ways to access your personal information especially when on vacation when you are more likely to be using your credit cards frequently.
Ensuring that you take control of all of your credit card receipts and properly dispose of them is paramount to making sure that you leave nothing behind for identity thieves to take advantage of. A simple receipt contains enough information for a technologically advanced thief to create all kinds of havoc for you financially. Another important thing to keep track of especially when on the beach or at tourist sites is your wallet. As much as we think we would never lose track of something so essential we forget that when out having fun we sometimes get distracted and that is exactly what pickpockets and thieves count on.
Whenever possible leave the wallet in the hotel safe and only take with you what you know you will need. In the event you are ripped off in any way you will only lose the bare minimum of cash and not your credit cards and identification which is much harder to replace and can allow an industrious identity thief to drain bank accounts and max out cards in a very short period of time. Another fantastic travel tip is to ensure that you never put any information that you would not want made public like a Social insurance Number or credit card info in your check in bags.
If for any reason you lose control of those bags you can again be in a world of hurt before you even realize that you have been compromised. The number one take away is that by using traveller’s cheques you completely minimize the opportunity for thieves to get a hand hold on any of your personal information. If you do not want to use travellers cheques then at least stick to cash. If you do get burned at least the pain will be limited to what you are carrying and not put your entire bank account or credit cards at risk.
Being smart and maintaining awareness at all times when travelling will limit your exposure and ensure that any opportunist will find you not appealing and they will move on.
