With wallet gone (along with several hundred dollars in cash and all of my credit cards), I didn’t know what to do.
And on my very first night, someone pick-pocketed my wallet as I walked through a market. However, the problem occurred when I flew to Delhi a few weeks later, where I decided not to use the chain any more.
My cash and cards remained secure at all times as everything was in one bundle, attached to my belt with that chain, allowing me to quickly and safely pull out money while standing on a street corner buying a bag of raisins. This high-tech wallet system did prove useful in Afghanistan. So a few days before making the overland journey to Kabul, I bought a tough velcro wallet, two rubber bands AND a small chain in the ‘thieves market’ in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
After all, I was about to cross the border into Afghanistan and certainly such a trip warranted a money-carrying system far more secure than any I’d ever tried before. It was not until I was backpacking through the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan that I started to question the usefulness of my ‘pile of chaos’ method. Now, when Earl the Rebel would go out, he would just grab his pile of cash and credit cards, chuck it into his pocket, any pocket, and proudly flaunt the chaos and disorganization that resulted.įor two years I carried on in this manner. I eventually gave it up after spending an unsuccessful 2.5 hours searching for a new rubber band one day while in Montego Bay, Jamaica, with my cash and credit cards bouncing around like wild, misbehaving children inside of my shorts pocket.īy the end of those 2.5 hours, I simply wanted nothing to do with rubber bands and so I made the bold decision to abandon all types of money-carrying equipment, to rebel against every method that had ever failed me. And even though they broke on a somewhat regular basis, I stuck with this method of money-carrying for just over one year. Luckily, all I needed to do was find another rubber band. Unfortunately, this only lasted for 2 days, at which time the rubber band broke. My bulky pockets vanished and my money and credit cards never got in the way of my movements. I loved the idea and immediately ditched my wallet. His solution was remarkably simple – a rubber band. While working on board a cruise ship in Hawaii, a fellow crew member and good friend of mine once told me that he had faced a similar money-carrying issue as myself. But the wallet was bulky, especially when keeping it in my side pocket in the hopes of deterring pickpocketing folk in some of the countries I visited.Īnyway, I certainly didn’t quit my search for a better option. Of course, this mission was never successful, although, I still preferred any old wallet over a money belt. And over the following two years I went through a variety of wallets, mostly cheap ones found in local markets around the world, in an attempt to find one that fit my needs perfectly. With the money-belt gone, I immediately switched back to the standard method of money-carrying – the wallet. I happily discarded it one day while in the town of Mae Sariang in Thailand.
That money-carrying option lasted only six months, until I realized that my money belt actually made my life more complicated. Sitting here right now I can only chuckle and shake my head as I recall my inexperienced and frightened traveling self carrying around a money belt during my first trip abroad. By this point in my travels I think I’ve tried it all when it comes to carrying around my money and credit cards while on the road.
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