Your purse is something you will inevitably forget about until the last minute. It’s not exactly a priority in the list of travelling purchases is it? But chances are your everyday purse is pretty bulky with lots of space for cards and most likely full of loyalty cards and receipts. This isn’t going to cut it if you’re travelling to Asia/South America/Africa.
True to tradition, I checked forums and blogs online before my first solo trip to the States to see what kind of purses other girls took along. ‘Don’t take anything you don’t mind losing, purses get snatched all the time’ they said… In a moment of fear of losing a pretty little purse, I took a purse that my nan had brought me back from Australia a few years before…
Yep Billabong. With Velcro. I don’t know what I was thinking either.
2 weeks into my trip I was at a bar in Santa Monica waiting to be served next to an Australian hairdresser I’d met, when she eyed up my purse and said “So… you work in fashion and that’s your purse…?” I mean it’s a pretty snarky thing to say but I couldn’t even be mad because I totally agreed. Total Purse Shame. I didn’t even know that was a thing.
I learnt from this ‘TPS’ experience and played it a little differently for Southeast Asia. I took a small, cute coin purse, just big enough to fit money for the day in, as well as my credit card if I needed to take it out. I substituted my completely irrelevant money belt as a travel wallet to keep my passport and emergency traveller’s cheques in and kept this in my room (more on the inapt money belt here).
So that is my advice – a smallish cute purse for your daily spending and a travel wallet type thing (that you can also keep any travel documents in) for everything else.
Also, it’s worth noting that you are most likely to find cute purses on your travels that you will inevitably sub in for your home-bought one. So I wouldn’t spend a lot of money on it. I got a super-cute panda one in Chiang Mai for around 50p!
Here’s a little selection of purses and travel wallets you can pick up right now on a budget. All added to my Pinterest board of course (it’s right here!).
And for the ever-important travel wallet…
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