My Old Travel Wallet
Hong Kong: I was fourteen years old, about to leave my home and my parents for boarding school in the UK. From that time on, I travelled the world on my own. Flying back and forth between the UK and Hong Kong, and many other trips in between.
My parents bought me a black leather travel wallet. It has been my traveling companion for the last 30+ years. I flown over one million miles since. It is still in serviceable shape. These days I travel sometimes across three countries and needed to carry a bit more ID's and other travel documents during my trip. I needed something a little larger. I have never found a travel wallet that fits my needs until I found this Levenger Road Scholar. It fits all my updated requirements:
- zipped closure, to not loose things as I pull the wallet in and out many times during transits
- enough card slots for all the cards
- large enough passport area to store two passport types document (including my resident permit from China)
- pen slot so that I don't have to reach for a pen separately, when filling in forms -- I put the best travel pen in there - a sharpie fine point (B002M7Z338), which is slim and writes on different surfaces
- not too thick and large -- for example, the Tumi version is 9.75 x 5 x 0.75, whereas the Levenger is 9 x 4.75 x 1
- has an outside pocket for boarding passes - the Levenger has two.
The leather on the Levenger is quite nice. It has a bit of texture. The zipper pulls around smoothly. It has some extra features -- like a detachable inner wallet that holds a little bit of coins, cards, and currency. The detachable wallet is attached via magnet on top and bottom. I probably will just leave it out to reduce weight and thickness.
Finally a bit of strange distribution channel issue - Levenger charges $14 for ground shipping. But the same item is available on Amazon. With amazon prime it is free two day shipping. I used it for the first time last week flying from Boston to Shanghai via Tokyo. It worked wonderfully. Recommended.
