The splendours of travel are many. As are the dangers

Whether for business or for pleasure, travelling can be one of the best experiences of a person's life. The chance to broaden the mind and get a sense of different peoples and cultures is a priceless one, and has the potential to vastly transform a person for the better. Unfortunately, alongside this potential for great good also comes the potential for great ill. Strange diseases, crime, dangerous public transportation and tacky popular culture are a few of the maladies that can plague a traveller, but perhaps the most overlooked pitfall of travel is identity theft.

Travellers are even more open to identity theft than normal users, being at the mercy of questionable Internet cafes, shady wireless access points, and tempted by all manner of pirated forbidden fruits on the street corners. But few take the time to take precautions to safeguard their personal information while travelling. The silver lining to this cloud is that, with a combination of not-so-common sense and a knowledge of the threats that are out there, it is relatively easy to prevent identity theft while on the road.

This article is intended to provide a basic introduction to the potentials for identity theft that face the road warrior, though it should not be taken as a substitute for one's own judgment in different situations. Above all it is a guide, and like all guides should be taken with a grain of salt to better suit the tastes of its reader.

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