What to Keep in Your Pocket and What to Leave

There are two separate questions hiding inside this one. What you must have with you, and what simply makes the day easier.

We can answer the second properly. The first is a rule, and rules about identity documents belong to the authorities rather than to a travel agency.

The passport question, answered honestly

Whether the original must be on your person is not something we will state here. It is exactly the kind of instruction that goes stale and then costs somebody an argument.

Ask your hotel on the first morning. Reception deals with the current practice constantly and will give you a straight answer in a sentence.

Our own habit is simple. The original stays in the safe, a clear photograph lives on the phone, and a paper copy sits in the day bag.

The copies that save an afternoon

Before you leave home, photograph four things. The identity page of your passport, your entry permission, the insurance certificate and your flight bookings.

Put them somewhere you can reach without the bag they might be lost with. Email them to yourself and give a set to somebody at home.

This costs ten minutes and it shortens every difficult conversation that could follow. Our page on losing a passport here explains why that matters more than people expect.

The address is the document people forget

A hotel brand name is not an address. Drivers here work from a street, a building and a district.

Carry the full address written out, ideally in the local spelling, plus a phone number for the property. Screenshot it so that it survives a dead data connection.

The same applies to a restaurant you have booked or a house you have rented. Our note on moving around Baku covers how journeys are usually arranged.

Your insurance details, not your policy booklet

Carry the policy number and the insurer emergency phone line. That is all anyone needs from you in the first hour of a problem.

The full wording can stay in your email. Nobody reads a booklet in a waiting room.

Medicine and prescriptions

Keep medication in its original packaging and carry a copy of the prescription. It answers the obvious questions before anybody has to ask them.

Bring more than the trip requires. We will not promise that a particular medicine is available on a particular day, because that is not a fact we can verify.

A card, a backup and some cash

Split them. One card in the wallet, one card and a reserve of cash somewhere else entirely.

A traveller who has done this recovers from a stolen bag in an hour. A traveller who has not spends a day on it.

What changes outside the city

Very little, which surprises people. A drive to Sheki or Lahij needs the same items as a day in the city.

What does change is the distance from a solution. Keeping copies and a working phone matters more when the capital is several hours away.

What to leave at home entirely

Anything you cannot replace and do not need. A second passport from another country, an original birth certificate or a stack of cards you will never use.

Every extra document is one more thing to lose and nothing more.

The short version

Original in the safe, copy on the phone, address in writing, insurance number to hand, cards split across two places.

That is the whole list. Everything else is specific to your own situation, and your hotel or your embassy is the right place to check it.

Tell us your details

To confirm a car we need the date, the number of passengers, the pickup address and a phone number that works while you are here.

Send those and we will confirm the vehicle and the current price. Nothing else about your documents is our business.