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6 best travel wallets for organising passports and holiday documents

Prepare for your next trip, with top-rated wallets that will keep your essentials safe

Tamara Hinson
Wednesday 08 May 2024 10:21 BST
We looked for stylish travel wallets with room for all the essentials, as well as those that reduce the risk of identity fraud
We looked for stylish travel wallets with room for all the essentials, as well as those that reduce the risk of identity fraud (The Independent/iStock)
Our Top Picks

From passports to visas, the paperwork is all important when it comes to jetting from one country to another, which is why it’s worth investing in one of the best travel wallets, to keep all your documents safe and ready to access when you need them.

Luckily, some of our favourite travel accessory brands have risen to the challenge, producing fantastic travel wallets that not only have room for all the essentials but look incredibly stylish and reduce the risk of identity fraud, too.

We strongly recommend opting for RFID (radio-frequency identification) wallets, which use nickel and copper-coated material (usually polyester) to reduce the risk of identity fraud, by blocking the electromagnetic signals emitted from your bank cards.

Take the time to think about what you’re going to be using your wallet for – if you’re going to fill it to capacity, we’d recommend opting for a zip closure, but if easy access is a priority, don’t write off the humble magnet or press-stud closure.

We’re also huge fans of wallets that have clamshell openings – ones that open fully, like a book, rather than requiring you to extract your essentials through tiny openings.

How we tested the best travel wallets

Our recent trips involved a lot of paperwork (such as visas), currency in various denominations as well as essentials such as our passport (obviously), boarding passes and bank cards. We had plenty of opportunities to put a range of travel wallets to the test during these trips, whether it was before we’d even entered the airport (in India, all passengers must produce airplane tickets before being allowed into the terminal) or at visa checkpoints. In a nutshell? We truly put these wallets through their paces, and they all passed with flying colours. That said, certain ones have been clearly designed with specific additional purposes in mind, which is why we’ve highlighted the areas in which they excel below. Happy travels!

The best travel wallets for 2024 are:

  • Best travel wallet overall – Lifeventure RFID mini travel wallet: £24.94, Amazon.co.uk
  • Best budget travel wallet – Go Travel RFID organiser: £19.99, Go.travel
  • Best compact travel wallet – Jack Wolfskin cashbag wallet: £24, Jack-wolfskin.co.uk
  • Best for simplicity – Keela travel ID wallet: £24.95, Keelaoutdoors.com
  • Best large travel wallet – House of Disaster animal-print travel wallet: £29.99, Houseofdisaster.com

Lifeventure RFID mini travel wallet

Lifeventure RFID mini travel wallet
  • Best: Travel wallet overall
  • Material: Nickel- and copper-coated polyester
  • RFID: Yes
  • Why we love it
    • Handy transparent pockets
    • Can also store your phone
    • Good choice of colours

This wallet has seven card pockets, including one covered by transparent plastic. Our advice? Use this one to stash ID cards, such as a driver’s licence – you can flash it without having to remove it from the wallet.

Larger slip pockets – placed beneath the smaller ones – are ideal for boarding passes and passports, and we used the pocket made from mesh to stash our iPhone. It’s another RFID wallet, which relies on nickel- and copper-coated polyester fabric to reduce the risk of identity theft.

Call us fickle but we loved the choice of four colourways, too.

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Go Travel RFID organiser

best travel wallets
  • Best: Budget travel wallet
  • Material: Polyester
  • RFID: Yes
  • Why we love it
    • Great price
    • Slim but stuffed with pockets
    • Easy to access

Identity theft is no longer an invisible threat that brands merely use to convince us to part with extra cash. Well, some brands might still take this approach but Go Travel, which is known for its top-quality RFID travel wallets, definitely isn’t one of them, and this wallet is a case in point.

Despite its slimline design, it’s stuffed with pockets, to hold everything from passports (our rigorous testing proved that there was more than enough room for four) to boarding passes, which we placed in the extra-wide pockets beneath the ones designed to hold passports.

Unlike with similar products, the RFID tech has added minimal bulk, and its clamshell design, with zips that opened on three sides of each half of the wallet, meant refreshingly easy access to the contents.

  1.  £19 from Go.travel
Prices may vary
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Fjällräven kånken travel wallet

best travel wallet
  • Best: Travel wallet for easy access
  • Material: 65 per cent polyester, 35 per cent cotton
  • RFID: No
  • Why we love it
    • Compact
    • Extra-wide pockets
    • Tough and water-resistant

How Fjällräven managed to squeeze so many pockets into such a compact wallet, we’ll never know. We had plenty of room for our passport, vaccination documentation and foreign currency, which we placed inside the wallet, while we kept our boarding passes in the extra-wide exterior pocket on the wallet’s rear.

There’s an incredible sense of toughness to the kånken (thanks, partly, to the water-resistant G-1000 fabric), and we loved how the concertina-like strip of material between the wallet’s two halves meant we could open the wallet fully – no fumbling around through narrow openings to extricate essential documents.

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Keela travel ID wallet

best travel wallet
  • Best: For simplicity
  • Material: Unspecified
  • RFID: No
  • Why we love it
    • Can be worn under garments
    • Great for easy access
  • Take note
    • No bells an whistles

To begin with, we were sceptical about the simplicity of this wallet but we’re now total converts. In recent years, partly because of the extra documentation required for travel (whether it’s vaccination paperwork or visa forms, much of which isn’t required to check in for a flight), we’ve taken to carrying our passport in a separate wallet, simply so we can produce it without riffling through irrelevant paperwork. Our top tip? Before entering the airport, place your boarding pass and passport in this transparent wallet (which slips neatly under jackets or T-shirts) and simply whip them out as and when required.

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Jack Wolfskin cashbag wallet

best travel wallets
  • Best: Compact travel wallet
  • Material: Shell: 100 per cent polyamide; lining: 100 per cent polyester
  • RFID: Yes
  • Why we love it
    • Great for thick wads of cash
    • Small and easy to carry around

We love the name of this RFID wallet – if only because it brings to mind an accessory stuffed with thick wads of cash. That wasn’t the case where we were concerned, to be clear, although, we did find the extra-wide pocket useful for quickly stashing a wad of 1,000 Indian Rupees (don’t get excited – this equates to about £10).

It’s one of the smallest travel wallets in our selection, but that’s precisely why we love it – although it might not be large enough for your passport, it’s got more than enough room for currency, boarding passes and paperwork, and its size means it slips easily into pockets.

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House of Disaster animal-print travel wallet

House of Disaster animal-print travel wallet
  • Best: Large travel wallet
  • Material: Vegan-friendly ‘leather’, faux cheetah fur, cotton lining
  • RFID: No
  • Why we love it
    • Funky, stylish design
    • Labelled compartments

We were instantly smitten with the flash of pink against the animal print, but the interior of this wallet was just as impressive. A zippered pocket was perfect for stashing loose change, while we used the shallow card pockets for hotel room keys and business cards. The highlight, however, was the main compartment, with its four dividers, clearly labelled (in chic golden font, no less) to indicate separate pockets for passports, tickets, documents and ‘other’.

Full disclosure, we were initially concerned by its larger size but a trip to India, which involved multiple internal flights (read: lots of tickets), visas and vaccination documentation, meant we easily filled this particular wallet.

It’s also available in a leopard-print design (£29.99, Houseofdisaster.com).

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The verdict: Travel wallets

If you want a wallet with all the bells and whistles, the Lifeventure RFID mini travel wallet is an absolute essential for jet-setters. It’s a great example of a product that proves opting for extra security doesn’t require going down the supersized route. Meanwhile, Fjällräven’s kånken travel wallet is a sturdy, stylish piece of kit that stands up to serious amounts of wear and tear. If you like to stand out from the crowd, however, the House of Disaster animal-print travel wallet offers a dose of dopamine-boosting design.

Preparing for your next trip just got a whole lot easier, thanks to our pick of the best packing cubes to keep your suitcase organised

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