Travel Tip: Before Losing a Wallet in Italy...

When staying in a hotel, B&B or agriturismo in Italy, ask for a business card of the place you are staying at and put it in a prominent place in your wallet.

There is one successful story of someone dropping his wallet in a parking garage. Someone picked it up and returned it to the parking management (See? There are kind people in Italy). The manager saw the card and called the hotel. The hotel contacted him while he was out. Wallet successfully recovered!

If traveling and moving from hotel to hotel nearly every day, you can prepare your own itinerary card before leaving on your trip with phone numbers. Print it in small sized fonts to fit a standard sized business card and put a title in both English and Italian on top, such as "If you find my wallet, here's where I will be:-Se trovate il mio portafoglio, ecco dove sarò:"

As a preventive measure, try to not keep your credit card or ATM card in your wallet. I used a leg wallet that fit comfortably on my calf to hold our passports and extra credit cards. Women can use a bra card pouch. I tended to get cash only when I needed to replenish our 2-3 day supply. I'd hold what I needed in my pocket and the balance would go into my leg wallet.

I opted to keep my everyday cash and main card in a small billfold type wallet... less of a pocket bulge, and if I was in crowded situations (railway stations, lines for tickets, crowded tourist spots, etc.) I could simply keep my hand tucked in my pocket to make sure I was touching it until we were out of harm's way.  A large wallet makes an obvious bulge that pickpockets are always hunting for.

If anything, try not to keep large amounts of cash in your wallet when traveling. If someone finding it is tempted with lots of cash, they might lose their soul for a moment and give in to that temptation... keeping the cash and tossing the wallet in their nearest trash can.

Stay safe!

--Jerry Finzi

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