I never used to carry a travel wallet and would have agreed they were pointless. Anything important enough to want to put in a wallet would be important enough I would want it on my person so a wallet would be right out.

I recently picked up a cheap free promo wallet and I used it on a recent trip. And it was incredibly convenient. It held my passport, home currency, all the cards I needed for travel but not daily use (bank cards for back home, Nexus card, residency card, etc), as well as the hotel reservation and so on.

So I'm convinced. I just need to figure out how to not worry about it disappearing from my bag.


I have a neck pillow that I've used precisely once. It was actually super comfortable and makes a huge difference if I sleep in an economy seat. But it's *always* the first thing to get tossed when I'm packing and trying to prune the load.

I've also taken my tablet, kindle, and camera on more trips that I can count where they never got used. It turns out when you carry a phone which does a mediocre job of handling all those use cases it's hardly ever worth the hassle to dig out and carry something bigger which does a marginally better job of it.