A good travel safety back-up plan starts before you leave home – make two copies of your passport, tickets, insurance details and other important information. One copy should be left with a relative or friend who you could easily contact in an emergency; the other copy should go in one of your bags – but not the one you’re carrying the original documents in.
Before you leave home, a nice trick can also to be to invest in a “decoy” wallet or purse. Cluey travellers like to put a few unimportant cards and just a couple of dollars into a cheap wallet and leave it in their back pocket. If a pickpocket is working a train or bus you’re traveling on, they might take your decoy (and be disappointed later) but then leave you alone; or in a worse case where an attacker demands your wallet, you can hand one over without losing all your credit cards or too much cash.
Plan B should also include on-the-road strategies. When my boyfriend and I visit a particularly big or busy city, we always agree on a place to meet if we get lost or separated. In some countries, our cell phones are still useful, but we still always agree on an easy place to find – a central monument, or a significant place near our hotel – where we can find each other again if necessary.
And a Note on Health …
Finally, in countries where hygiene and disease are a problem, not taking risks with unclean food or water is another way to ensure your safety and wellbeing during a trip. If you know that tap water is unsafe to drink in your destination, be sure to buy plenty of sealed bottled water, and use it for everything, even cleaning your teeth. Likewise, be wary of buying foods (for example, salads) that were probably washed in tap water; or consuming drinks with ice made from local water. You can get more information about the health risks in your destination from the National Center for Infectious Diseases.