In our family we don’t travel anywhere without something we call an “important document folder”. We mostly travel with passports from 4 different countries (New Zealand for my husband, UK for my eldest daughter, France for my youngest daughter and Ireland for me). Then we have the livret de famille, a document you go nowhere without in France, as it proves that your children are in fact your children and your husband is in fact yours as well. On top of that we have tickets, different currencies, millions of different plastic cards and the list goes on and on… All this needs to be organised in an easily accessible manner — hence the “important document folder”.

Now, my important document folder is a beautiful vintage Hermés thing, but completely impractical for modern traveling. I inherited it from my grandmother and I love it. Problem is, I do get the feeling that in the ’50s travel documents were shaped differently and people definitely needed a lot less paper work.

So I have been perusing the internet and have fallen upon the wallet designers, Paris House. Ironically, though I am blogging from Paris, these fabulous travel wallets are actually designed on the other side of the world, in New Zealand.

They are great. They don’t take themselves too seriously and they have the perfect amount of pockets in the perfect sizes  for a modern day traveler. Card slots, pen holder, ticket compartments, slot for a SIM card, compartments for different currencies… everything you ever need to have access to whilst in transit.  (My vintage 1950’s Hermés folder was missing the little pocket for a spare SIM card; I wonder why??)…

I can’t wait to get all my little bits and pieces organised in my new wallet and hopefully, during my next travels, I will not have a queue of people behind me shaking theirs heads impatiently while I am trying to find a missing passport in a panic.

- Emilie