One of my biggest safety tips for solo travel is that I sometimes keep my important items, like my passport and iPhone, on me instead of in my purse. I’ve even gone so far as to use a decoy wallet, that looks like it would have all of my money in it, and kept my actual money in one of those confusing, tacky money-belts that go under your clothes. But I’m more than willingly to admit that I am not a fan of them, and that having a nifty travel jacket to hide my important belongings in would be ideal.
My problem with those safety fanny-packs isn’t even how ugly they are, it’s that I can’t easily get to them when I need to get money or my phone out. Lifting up my shirt in public just to get money out to buy something is awkward, not to mention unsafe because, oh look! You’re showing everyone where you keep your money! I love using pockets, but my old travel jacket was really good at letting everything fall out of them, and my pant pockets tend to be a bit small.
But anyway, let’s say I didn’t have the safety fanny-pack, and I didn’t have any pockets; my only option would be to just use my purse, which is usually fine…except it’s also usually like the black hole that seems to hide all of my stuff and scare the hell out of me when I think I’ve lost something. No matter how hard I try, I will always lose my phone, pens, lipgloss, and earbuds inside of my purse at least five times during a trip.
But alas! Good news! I may have found a solution! You may have even seen or heard of it before on social media; the travel jacket that has cool pockets and features for everything you need to hide or carry while traveling. It’s called the Joey Everyday Carry, and as you may be able to guess as the name implies, it’s a travel jacket with tons of cool little pockets (like a kangaroo…except more than one), and actual useful travel features built right into it!
I just used the Joey Everyday Carry travel jacket for the first time on my overnight flight from LA to Tokyo, and am already super stoked to write about it, because it’s the reason why I was able to actually pass out for ten hours. Not only does this travel jacket have all the cool pockets that I organized my phone, earbuds, chapstick, and hand sanitizer in so I didn’t have to keep digging through my bag, but it also has a built in eye mask in the hood, so it turns into your own little sleeping cave when you put it on!
Also, you know how annoying it is to try to keep track of those little eye glass cleaner things? There’s one attached to the inside of one of the pockets, so voila! You can’t lose it even if you tried! Speaking of losing things, there’s of course always the chance that you forget your travel jacket somewhere or that you’ll tie it to your luggage and it falls off, right? That would suck, especially if all your stuff is in it, but another cool feature of this Joey jacket is that when you fold it up and pull the flaps out from the hood, it turns into a luggage strap that you can just slide over your suitcase handle!
Did I mention it also has secret hidden pockets? Yeah. You will feel like a ninja, or a spy, or just like a really smart traveler. All of the pockets both on the inside and outside of the Joey jacket have zippers and are lined with water-resistant material, but to take safety to the next level, there’s also a couple of hidden pockets that I even had to look at the diagram to find. So that means if you don’t feel safe carrying your valuables, money, or passport in a bag, you can hide them in the jacket instead, or just use the jacket instead of a bag!
There’s also the option of soft fabric or water-resistant fabric; I chose water-resistant because I knew it was going to rain a couple of days I was in Tokyo and Beijing. Well, and because everyone needs a good water-restistant jacket to travel with. Mine also doubles as a a partial bed protector in case I happen to stay at any questionable hotels, overnight buses or AirBnB’s.
Also! I just went through TSA security in Beijing with my Joey jacket and it was a heck of a lot easier to pull my passport and ticket out of the pocket than digging through my backpack. Actually the TSA lady dug through my backpack and accidentally stuck her finger in the butter package I was saving for my bread roll from the last flight…that was awkward, but just goes to show that nothing good comes from digging through bags!
You can pre-order your own Joey Jacket from their Kickstarter page and also check out some of their cool new updates. For example, they recently exceeded the amount they were trying to initially raise so will be going InDemand and adding an additional feature to the jacket; the Metro Pocket, located on the outside of the shoulder sleeve area, for easy access to metro or credit cards when you’re on the go.
Disclaimer: This post was in collaboration with Global Travel Clothing’s Everyday Carry Joey Jacket, however I really do love my jacket, have used it a ton of times, and honestly recommend it as an awesome, useful travel jacket.
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