On a trip, the usual assumptions stop holding: the network is someone else's, the phone is easier to lose, and a stolen device takes your second factor with it just when you have no way to sort things out.
Before leaving
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Check that recovery works
Backup codes on paper in your luggage, a spare email that opens, a phone number that is current. On a trip is the worst place to discover none of it works — how to prepare.
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Enable device location and remote wipe
Both are built in and both are useless if switched on after the loss.
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Make a backup
Photos taken before departure are not the point; the point is that a lost phone should not take your documents with it.
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Set a card limit
And take a second card kept separately from the first. Losing a wallet then stops being a catastrophe.
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Write down the bank's number on paper
Along with the emergency numbers of the country you are visiting. All of it lives in the phone that may be the thing you lose.
On the way and on arrival
| Situation | The risk | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Airport and hotel Wi-Fi | A fake access point with a familiar name | Check the exact name with staff — details |
| A hotel business-centre computer | May be recording keystrokes | Do not sign in to anything that matters |
| A public USB charging point | A port can carry data as well as power | Your own power bank or a plug socket |
| A boarding pass photo | The barcode holds the booking and passenger data | Do not post it — what photos reveal |
| Posting from the trip in real time | Announces that the flat is empty | Post after returning |
| Payment terminals in tourist spots | Card skimming and inflated amounts | Pay by phone, check the amount before confirming |
If a device is lost
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Block the SIM
The first action. The number is a route to your accounts, and reissuing it is a route for someone else — how that works.
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Wipe the device remotely
From any other device by signing into your account. If it comes back later, the data can be restored from the backup.
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End sessions in the important services
Email first: everything else recovers through it.
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Block the cards
If the phone had payment set up or bank cards were in the same bag.
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Report it locally
Needed for insurance and for the operator; do it the same day where possible.
What to do about a work laptop on a trip is in remote work security, and other people's computers in shared computers.