Travel Tips to Keep Your Crypto Hackproof on the Go

By Bob Czeschin

It’s summer vacation season in North America. From coast to coast, vacationers are welcoming the warmer weather as they hit the road and skies to see the sites.

This year, tourist season comes as Bitcoin (BTC, “A”) sits within a couple percent of new all-time highs.

And it’s almost certainly headed higher.

Rarely has your crypto ever been more valuable … … or a more inviting target for scammers and thieves.

That means it’s time to take your crypto security seriously.

Marija Matić already covered how DeFi can help you navigate crypto safely.

But there are easier, common-sense steps you can take to boost your defense that require little to no technical expertise.

So, here are four crypto safety tips to take with you on your travels this summer.

Tip 1: Keep a Low Crypto Profile

This is especially important when you’re among strangers in public places. Because you never know who may be watching. Or listening.

Avoid anything that clearly or publicly identifies you as a likely owner of a pile of Satoshis. Because the higher Bitcoin goes, the more tempting a target you become.

That being the case … …

• Avoid entering airport security with a hardware wallet. No law prohibits bringing it with you on a plane. But it will show up on a security scan — even a casual visual inspection. This straightaway identifies you (to everyone paying attention) as a likely crypto holder. Which is exactly what you don’t want.

  Also, it is unlawful to cross the U.S. border with $10,000 or more in undeclared cash or negotiable instruments. Suppose Customs inspectors ask how much money is in your hardware wallet?

  Do you really want to explain how your tokens actually exist only on the blockchain — not inside your digital wallet?

  Most folks don’t know blockchain from a bicycle chain. Your interrogators’ sole experience of wallets may be a leather billfold full of banknotes. But they can still arrest and detain you on suspicion alone.

• Avoid in-person shopping paid for by crypto. Because this also identifies you as likely owner of a pile of BTC. On top of that, obviously crypto-friendly shops are still a curiosity — and therefore may be under surveillance by opportunistic thieves in search of promising targets.

  But that doesn’t mean you can’t safely spend crypto on the road! If you use a crypto debit card, you’ll blend right in with millions of other VISA and MasterCard users.

  Or you can use your BTC to buy gift cards redeemable at familiar vendors.

Tip 2: Avoid the Juice Jack Hack

Just this week, the American Transportation Security Administration (TSA) warned: “When you’re at an airport, do not plug your phone directly into a USB port.”

A USB connector has five pins — only one of which is used to charge a connected smartphone or laptop. Two of the other pins are used for data transfer.

So, while you’re sipping a Starbucks, waiting for your device to recharge, an attacker could be silently copying all your data. Including stored passwords and software crypto wallets.

Or installing malware. To spy on you, lock you out of your own device or erase everything if you refuse to pony up a hefty ransom.

This type of attack is called “juice jacking.”

More people traveling with more valuable crypto makes juice jack hacking a growing problem.

And this isn’t limited to airports. Juice jacking can happen at any public charging station.

To safely make use of them, bring along an external USB power brick. And only use the public charging station to top it up. Nothing else.

Tip 3: Protect Your Seed Phrase in Transit

When you set up a self-custody wallet, your seed phrase is the key to everything. It is how you can access your crypto on any device, no matter what.

The safest thing to do with your seed phrase is to keep it offline. That means writing it down physically and storing it somewhere safe.

Naturally, traveling with your seed phrase is very risky and therefore inadvisable. If stolen or compromised, your crypto could be gone in a flash.

Even so, there may be times when this is unavoidable. If you have to get on a plane with your seed phrase, you don’t want it to be obvious. And to anyone in the know, a string of 12 random words is pretty clear.

So instead, try the paperback book strategy.

Books are one of the most common items passengers bring on a plane — which is a good thing when you intend to hide in plain sight. I recommend one of the most boring books imaginable: a pocket dictionary.

But before you depart, look up each word in your seed phrase. And next to it, write down the number order in which it appears in the seed phrase.

Make a note of the page numbers you marked (so you can find them later without having to flip through the whole book).

To disguise this list of page numbers, I suggest typing them into an Excel spreadsheet (from highest to lowest), making an unlabeled 12- or 24-item bar chart. Save the file, so it looks like just another interrupted project or assignment that was never completed.

Now, you have your precious seed phrase concealed in plain sight — deep inside one of the most tedious books on the planet that absolutely no one will care about.

Tip 4: Avoid the Perilous Public WiFi

Hotel and other public hotspots are no safer than public USB charging stations.

That’s because so many of them transmit data in plain text. That’s a gift to hackers monitoring network traffic because they can intercept and record personal banking information, digital wallet passwords, crypto account login credentials — everything you do online.

This is not a new problem. But it’s all all-too-often ignored, even by tech savvy folks who should know better.

Case in point: The giant Bitcoin2025 conference in Las Vegas that recently attracted thousands of attenders.

Would you believe the venue offered no dedicated, securely encrypted WiFi? Incredible!

Happily, there’s an easy way to know your public WiFi connection is robustly encrypted and immune to compromise.

And that’s to always use a virtual private network (VPN). There are number of quality VPN providers to choose among, some of them free.

Bonus Tip: Watch the Crypto All-Access Summit

Security shouldn’t stop once you get back home. In fact, that’s when you’ll need to step up your game the most.

Because in the comfort of your own home, you can easily forget the bad actors out there, just waiting for you to slip up.

To learn what strategies we suggest while you ride the next leg of this bull run — and how to minimize your risk at the same time — I suggest you watch our Crypto All-Access Summit.

Best,

Bob Czeschin