When going on my last travel, I realized have many documents I had to bring and how vulnerable I was to losing these documents, this being passport, plain-tickets, hotel-vouchers, insurance and so on. In order to accommodate this vulnerability I scanned the most important documents saved them to PDF a brought them with on a USB-storage. This storage was kept separate from the documents in order to reduce the risk of losing both, and it was encrypted so that the sensible information keept on it would not be accessible to others in case it was stolen.

Scanning the documents

In order to get a digital copy you need access to a scanner (surprise!). Watch out that you don’t scan the documents in to good quality (I use 300dpi, 256 Gray tones). After scanning the documents I would save them in PDF-format since in PDF since it is very versatile while still keeping the print-out an exact black & white copy.

If your scanner software does not support export to PDF this can be accomplished by installing pdf995, which appears as a printer in windows, but in fact saves your print out as a PDF. In other words it should be possible to get an exact copy in most internet cafés
Storing the documents

In order to keep the documents accessible one can either keep them on a USB device or online.

If you decide to keep the documents on a USB device they will be safer if encrypted. Travelling-forever has made a small guide on how to encrypt part og a USB device The USB device be either external an hard drive, a small flash USB stick or an mp3 player like Apples Ipod (it can likely be a burned cd-rom too – but I have not checked to se how truecrypt reacts to not being able to write).

The other way to go is to keep the documents at an online service you trust (and save the encryption). I one has not access to a ftp server this could be accomplished by signing up at Box.net, sending all the documents to the Gmail account or any other online way where you trust the documents are safe while still being accessible.