Are Safes Safe?

It does depend somewhat on the hotel. In general, keep your valuables with you in a neck wallet or waist belt under your clothing.

A copy of a passport is ONLY good for proving you had a passport when trying to replace it at the AM embassy or consulate. A copy is a not a legal id and your passport is the only thing that proves you are legally in the country. We never use the safe since I believe the best safe is my money belt. But it your choice and the perceived degree of risk that you are willing to assume. You might want to review the same discussions at: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/74510/carrying-a-passport.html and http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/74120/passports-in-france.html

This question is basically, really, sort of paranoid. We just went to Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia. Unless you are crazy, it's no less safe than the US. I've heard of pickpockets, but we were there for 20 days, and nothing like that happened. We had gypsy beggars try to sell us stuff, which we did not buy. We had a lunatic engage in road rage, but we found a cop and that solved that problem. Europe, even Greece, is a lot like the US safety-wise. Here are a couple of rules: 1) Carry the money and passport at all times. 2) Get money at the ATM, and only what you need for 2-3 days at the most. Besides being sensible, ATMs often limit you to about $400 USD per day. If you can't afford to lose $400 to a thief (not that you want to, but can you afford it), why are you traveling? 3) If you are worried sick about being ripped off, you won't enjoy your trip. Be prudent, be careful, and drink a glass of wine.

In five trips to Greece, we have only carried passports with us on travel days. If we're on an island, the passports, credit & debit cards and any extra money are in the room safe. Or, if there is no safe, we "hide" them in our room and assume the best. And we have never had a problem of any sort. We are in Greece now, and it has been in the 90's for the past 3 weeks. No way we are going hiking or swimming or sightseeing with a money belt. When we leave our room for the day, we have enough euros for the day's expenses, the room key, camera, and that's about it. Everything else, including this computer, is left in the room. We get 400 euros at each ATM stop, and carry maybe 50 with us each day for lunch, etc. So don't worry! This is a wonderful place. I hope you have a wonderful holiday.

I cannot imagine carrying a passport to the beach,, yes, its been years since I have been to Greece, but the two weeks I did spent there I left my passport in the hotels safes. "If you are a beach person then passport carrying means always having a travel partner staying with them while in water.

In my opinion, the hotel safe is perfectly safe. I know there was an article not long ago that suggested that hotel safes have a default 0000 code that opens them automatically, so the cleanup crew and anyone else with access to your room can easily open it. I can personally say that this is not true. Maybe some do, but I have tried about a dozen hotel safes across four countries since that article, and not one of them was vulnerable to that hack. Passports are, frankly, not a big target of theft. A thief who steals your wallet with a passport in it is apt to keep the cash and credit cards and discard your passport. The reason to keep them safe is not that they are theft targets but because their loss to you is a major pain in the backside. For that purpose, a hotel safe is perfect: a locked place where you won't forget it and it won't accidentally get left behind. (For the record, I keep small losable things like earbuds, Ipod nano, prescription drugs, earrings, etc. in the hotel room safe, not because I'm worried about theft but because it is handy to keep them in an organized place so they don't get mislaid.) I know many people here differ, but I don't carry my passport in my day-to-day travels abroad. I have never, ever been asked to show my passport in a random check in any country I have ever visited. (You may need them to change money, use an internet cafe, and check into a hotel, of course, so if you plan to do such things you will need it.) The only time I have ever needed to have my passport when I didn't have it was when I was taking a day tour in Korea that offered a special discount for non-Korean travelers. No passport, no discount. So despite my blue-eyed English speaking appearance, no discount for me!