What my dead phone taught me about travelling as a woman: a wake-up call on digital safety

We just got back from an extended family trip to Thailand and while jet lag and washing mountains of laundry are the expected part of coming home, I did not expect to come home with a lesson in personal safety that had nothing to do with dodgy taxis or unlit streets.

My phone died. Not “needs a charge” died – mainboard-dead, unrecoverable, everything not backed up to the cloud gone for good.

In some ways, it wasn’t the worst thing to happen on a trip. It forced me to switch off properly and it’s given me the chance to start fresh with only what I actually need on the new one (still in the post, weeks later). But the real problem wasn’t the phone. It was what the phone had become the single key to: my entire digital life.

The real risk isn’t losing your phone – it’s losing access

For anyone who travels solo, or who takes real ownership of the logistics on a group trip, this is worth sitting with for a minute. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one of those security features we set and forget – until the exact moment we need it, when it becomes the very thing standing between us and what we need.

In my case, almost everything was tied to that one device – either a text message to my number, or an authentication app that lived only on that phone. Once the phone was gone, so was my access.

A few examples from my own very inconvenient week:

• Banking – I couldn’t log in via a browser because I didn’t know my own login details (they were saved on the phone), and the security code had nowhere to go. This one genuinely scared me. It only resolved because my husband arrived and had access via his own phone. If I’d been travelling solo, I would have been locked out of my own money in a foreign country with no backup plan.
• My credit card – left at home, because it was “on my phone.” Until it wasn’t. Stupid, I know!
• WhatsApp – tied to that one device, with no way to access it from a laptop.

If you’re travelling solo – which is a huge part of what many of you reading this are doing, or planning to do – there is no partner, friend, or travel companion whose phone can bail you out. You are the backup plan. So the backup plan needs to already be in place before you leave.

A simple fix: rethink where your MFA points

Here’s the practical takeaway and it’s a genuinely easy one to action before your next trip:

Where possible, link your MFA to an email address you can access from any device with an internet connection – not solely to your phone number or an app that only exists on one physical device.

This one change means that even if your phone is lost, stolen, or simply dies, you can still get into your banking, your accounts and the tools you need to sort things out – from a hotel computer, a borrowed device, or an internet café if it comes to that.

A few things worth doing before you next travel, especially solo:

• Check which of your accounts rely solely on SMS or an app-based MFA linked to your phone number or device
• Where the option exists, add an email-based backup method
• Write down (physically, or in a secure password manager you can access another way) your key login details – don’t rely on your phone remembering them for you
• Consider whether a trusted person at home has any way to help you verify your identity with your bank if things go seriously wrong

Confidence isn’t just about the trip – it’s about the systems behind it

Part of what we talk about often in this community is building real confidence to travel – not reckless confidence, but the kind that comes from being properly prepared. Digital security is such an unglamorous, easy-to-ignore part of that preparation, right up until it isn’t.

I didn’t miss Instagram while I was locked out (you might see a little less of me there going forward, if I’m honest). But I did feel, for a few genuinely stressful hours, what it’s like to be a capable, independent woman suddenly unable to access her own money, book transport, check emails or accounts on the other side of the world.

Take this as your sign to check your own setup – today, not the week before your next trip.

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