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Comment by kylehotchkiss | Hacker News Reader

Untold best practice: Keep your phone, passport, wallet etc on your body always while on a flight. Imagine being stuck in this situation in a foreign country where they'll keep you at the airport for days waiting to figure out how to get you back home without a passport. Your renters/homeowners insurance may cover anything left on the plane that is lost and not covered by the airline.

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I lost my passport while in the United Kingdom and had no other identifying documentation with me. The US embassy had me fill out a ~10 question sheet of paper and then "checked me out". 30 minutes later they said I was "good" and would have a new passport delivered to me in 48 hours.

UK/US relations are pretty good. I'm sure this situation could have been a lot worse in more unfriendly countries but I'm still shocked this solution was even possible.

Eh, the chances of ever having this impact you are incredibly remote. And yes, the “cost” of following this guideline is low, until you consider that you could have similar rules for hundreds of other incredibly rare situations, none of which will ever happen to you. Seems exhausting for no benefit. I’ll just continue to keep my stuff in my backpack under the seat, and I can grab it if needed. Or not, and I’m sure that’ll be fine too.

Also, there’s no indication that anyone who left the plane without their ID or passport is just being left in the terminal for days, making this guideline even less valuable.

> there’s no indication that anyone who left the plane without their ID or passport is just being left in the terminal for days

Because US Airlines have such a good reputation for taking care of their stranded passengers? /s

Also push everything up to GitHub before deplaning starts :^)

(or always bring a large USB)

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