The Pouch Under My Blouse: A HERO Neck Wallet Story

Every travel agent keeps a short list of things she begs her clients not to do. Mine has three items on it, and the one at the top is this: never keep your passport in a bag that hangs off your shoulder where the person behind you can reach it. I know how that sounds. I also know that I did exactly that for twenty-three years before I bought a HERO Travel Supply neck wallet, and I did it while telling other people not to.

My husband Walt is sixty-five and retired. We take about four trips a year, one or two of them overseas, usually Italy or Portugal or Ireland. For most of those years my routine was the same. Passport in a zip purse, purse strap over my shoulder, right hand clamped on the purse all day long. In airports I held it against my ribs like a football. Walt used to say I looked like a woman guarding a sandwich. I told him a sandwich would not ruin the second week of a trip.

Three years ago, the spring before our Italy trip, I finally ordered a HERO Travel Supply neck wallet. It arrived in a plain envelope and weighed almost nothing, 2.3 ounces on the kitchen scale, and I remember thinking that a thing that light could not possibly hold both our passports. It does. That is the whole reason I still wear it.

The pouch is nylon with a ripstop weave and a YKK zipper, and the strap is adjustable. It measures 0.2 inches deep by 5.5 inches wide by 8 inches tall, so it lies flat instead of lumping out under a shirt. On travel days it sits against my chest and the strap runs under my collar at the back of my neck. Two sections, five compartments, one zip pocket. My passport on one side, Walt's on the other, a backup credit card and the local cash in the middle, and the everyday spending money in a small ordinary zip purse in my tote, where a purse belongs.

The first time it proved itself was at the check-in desk in Madison. The young woman behind the counter asked for both passports, I reached under my collar and produced them, and Walt laughed out loud. He had watched me pat a purse strap for thirty years. I did not pat anything. That was the moment I understood what the thing was for.

There is a smaller thing I did not expect. On the flight to Rome I slept with it on, and I have never been able to sleep on a plane while holding a bag on my lap. It is thin enough that the seatbelt does not press it into my ribs. That sounds like a small thing. Over eight hours it is not.

Two passports, a backup card and the week's cash ride in 2.3 ounces of ripstop nylon under my blouse, and I have not patted a purse strap in three years.

Now the honest part, because a review with no complaints in it is an advertisement. The strap took me two tries to get to the length that sits right under a collared shirt, and I had to do it in front of a mirror instead of guessing. The nylon feels warm against my skin in August. And you do have to get used to reaching under your own clothing in public, which looks strange to whoever happens to be watching. I step into a restroom or turn my back to a wall. After three years it is a habit and not a nuisance, but nobody should be surprised by it on the first day.

I also read the label, because I read every label. The lining is multi-layer RFID blocking, which matters more to me now than it did at fifty-five. Walt carries a card that taps, and I would rather it not tap for a stranger in a crowd. The fabric is water resistant, which I have tested in a drizzle in Dublin and would not care to test in a downpour. HERO Travel Supply says it individually tests every wallet in the USA before it ships and backs it with a lifetime replacement guarantee. I have not needed the guarantee. I am the kind of person who keeps the paperwork anyway.

What it actually changed is both smaller and larger than security. Smaller, because it is one less thing to think about at a ticket counter. Larger, because the whole day feels different when your hands are free. I carry a tote now instead of a handbag, and I do not hold it against my ribs. In a crowded market in Florence I bought a scarf, paid for it, and never once thought about who was standing behind me.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you that the safest place for a passport is the one nobody can see, and that is the whole idea, not a line on a feature list. I would tell you to put the wallet on before you leave the house, not at the airport, so you are not fiddling with a strap in a security line with your shoes in one hand. I would tell you that eight inches tall holds a passport without folding it, and that matters, because a bent passport is a conversation with a border officer you do not want to have. I would tell you to keep the day's cash somewhere separate so you are not pulling your passport out to buy a coffee. And I would tell you, gently, that the travelers who run into trouble are almost never the careless ones. They are tired, or rushed, or carrying too many things in two hands. This takes one thing out of your hands. I say a quiet prayer before every long flight, and it is easier to mean it when my documents are where they belong.