Good question…and I’m sure many others have encountered the same problem.

A couple possible solutions…..If you’ve already booked into accomodation, and are just out seeing the sites, leave your passport at reception (hostel, hotel, etc.) – definitely safer there thean swimming with it or leaving it on the beach. Alternatively, a lot of Adventure stores (Mountain Equipment Coop in Canada) sell waterproof wallets for such situations. A ziploc won’t cut it.

Hope this helps,

Greg

in Cinque Terre i ended up sitting on the beach watching our stuff while my travelling buddy swam in the sea. then we switched.

my swim trunks had a waterproof pocket and i tried that and a ziplock bag to swim for my self when i was alone but that didn’t work. the good think is that the passport has relatively water resistant paper so it was ok. my eurorail ticket wasn’t though.

if you’re in a jam, do the double zip lock bag thing.

Thank you for your advice. At MEC I found the waterproof wallets but discovered it was just a fancy "zip-lock" baggie that kept things dry. ALOKSAK is the brand name bag MEC uses. I googled ALOKSAK and found dozens of places to buy them plus rave reviews. No soogy passport or sitting on the beach for me!

Most hostels/hotels have some sort of lockers…be it small safe deposit..or bigger ones…just lock your passport in there when you go swimming.

If you’re just going for a dip off the beach, I’ve never had a problem leaving everything under a towel on the beach. Just keep an eye on stuff same as you might do at a beach at home.