Cross-Body Travel Purses | Product Review

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A summer trip to Paris had me looking into travel purses. Here is a product review of two cross-body travel purses that I looked into.

Traveling in Europe is a wonderful opportunity. There are so many things to see and do. However, personal safety is a priority with any travel or even at home.

What is a Travel Purse?

A travel purse has added safety measures to prevent purse snatching and pickpocketing. There are a few brands out there that are well-known. Some of them include the following:

• Travelon
• Pacsafe
• Baggallini

There are obviously other brands out there, but during my research, these names kept popping up, especially the first two.

Safety Features of Cross-Body Travel Purses

This is how a travel purse differs from a regular purse. They have these added safety features which help keep your valuables safe while traveling. The 6 features are:

• slash-resistant side panels
• slash-resistant shoulder straps
• locking zippers
• locking straps
• RFID blocking (this prevents people from getting the info from your credit cards, key cards, and passport, wirelessly).
• locking shoulder strap clips

My Personal Criteria for Cross-Body Travel Purses

There are several designs and sizes of travel purses online. It can be quite overwhelming. To help narrow it down, I had to set my own criteria.

• must be able to wear cross-body; keeping your purse in front of you, ideally with your hand on it in crowded places makes you less of a target.
• must be able to hold the essentials: cash, credit card, passport, key card, phone, a bottle of water
• not too big – I’m not a “big purse” kind of gal. I find that the bigger the purse, the more I tend to put in it, and then it ends up weighing me down.
• looks good – if I’m going to buy a travel purse, it needs to look good. More importantly, I don’t want it to “look” like a travel purse (more like a regular purse), making me look less like a tourist.
• lightweight – I have read reviews of some purses that can be quite heavy, due to the slash-resistant fabric. Considering that I would be filling it with my own belongings, I didn’t want it to get too heavy as I would be wearing it pretty much all day.

With these criteria in mind, I narrowed my choices down to 2 – the Travelon Classic Travel Bag and the Pacsafe Citysafe CX.

The Travelon Classic Travel Bag

What drew me to this bag with the water bottle holder on the side of the purse. This would allow the wearer to access a bottle of water without having to open the purse, making you potentially vulnerable.

It has lots of zipped pockets – almost too many. As I don’t carry that much around with me, there is no need for all those pockets. Depending on how much you carry, you may find it handy.

The Pacsafe Citysafe CX

Which of the Two Cross-Body Travel Purses Did I Choose?

In the end, I went with the Pacsafe Citysafe CX purse. Although I really liked the water bottle pocket feature of the Travelon, it was the cute design and small size that won me over.

The Pacsafe purse is the better-looking purse, in my opinion. It actually looks like a normal purse. I love the pink lining. I really like the small size of this purse. I don’t carry a whole lot and so the main compartment would be fine for what I needed. The front pocket could hold a water bottle. For safety reasons, I would put a water bottle in there and nothing else, so that when it is open, none of my valuables would be compromised.

To be honest, during my time in Paris I did not carry water with me. We typically would dine out for lunch in a cafe and I’d have something to drink there. Quite often in the afternoon, we would also stop for a snack and then I had something to drink then as well. The weather wasn’t blazing hot and so this was enough fluids for me to get me through the day.

What if You Don’t Want to Get a Cross-Body Travel Purse?

A travel purse is by no means, necessary. You can travel with any cross-body purse. Again, the key is being able to wear it cross-body. When your purse is in front of you, it’s safer as it is a deterrent for thieves.

I have a few lululemon cross-body purses that I had considered using. I was concerned that they were not slash-proof. While this does not happen all the time (and it happens more often with backpacks than purses), I didn’t want to take the extra risk so decided to invest in a travel purse instead.

However, if you want to use a regular cross-body purse, there are some steps you can take to make your purse safer. In order to lock your zippers, simply use a safety pin or a paper clip connecting the zipper to the handle. It can be a bit fiddly, but then so can the locking ones on the travel purses. It’s just an added safety measure if someone tries to unzip your purse.

As mentioned, a travel purse was not necessary, but when in Paris, it certainly gave me peace of mind. When on the Metro I was lucky enough to almost always get a seat and so then the purse was on my lap and I was safe. If I was standing I kept a hand on my purse. For those times when I couldn’t keep my hand on my purse, I felt okay knowing that the zippers were locked.

Now, to be honest, those locking zippers are a little fiddly. However, it is a small price to pay for peace of mind. I just had to take an extra few seconds to open up my purse if I needed something. Then there were the extra few seconds afterward to secure it again. It wasn’t a big deal, it was just something that had to be done.

We were very fortunate that during our trip we had no issues. I’m really glad I bought the travel purse. Although it’s not my everyday purse, I feel that it is good to have for future trips.

Now that you have your purse, you can go out shopping! Check out my post on fabric shopping in Paris.

And no Paris trip is complete without getting some great deals on French skincare.

Want to remember my product review of cross-body travel purses? Be sure to save this to your favourite Pinterest board.