"Matt, Take Me To Europe!"

FRI, 8 DEC 2017: There was a travel belt in my mailbox on August 29. I’ve never used a travel belt, nor had I ordered one.

I thought for a second it was a belated birthday present, but that made no sense. It had been sent directly from a factory in Kentucky. There was no friend’s return address, no familiar penmanship, no wrapping paper.

I have many acquaintances but only a few friends close enough that they’d want to send me a gift. Most of those friends would make sure it arrived on time. Some of them would make sure it arrived early.

And anybody who cares enough for me to send me a birthday present definitely knows that the written words on a card or note mean more to me than the gift itself. This belt had just been dropped into a plain yellow envelope. No card, no note, no words at all.

I shoved in up to my elbow, wiggling my fingers around to procure a card, an invoice, anything. Nope. Mystery package.

After a bit of pondering, it occurred to me that the belt had arrived with all the ceremony of the tote bag two years before it, and the plastic coffee mug two years before that. These are the kitschy but slightly useful “bonus gifts” for renewing magazine subscriptions. Hey, in 2017, a loyal repeat reader of a physical magazine is as rare as Mitch McConnell at a swingers’ party. It makes sense that VANITY FAIR and CONDE NAST TRAVELER want to reward me for continuing to give them business. Now, they don’t care enough to enclose a personalized greeting— “Hi, Matt, we appreciate you, and happy few-days-late birthday”— but they care enough to slap a simple gift into a nondescript envelope. My TRAVELER isn’t set to expire until February, but I guess since they know I always renew, this belt is the magazine’s “gracias” to me for renewing. The token gift is a few months early, but okay.

I am a traveler, and I enjoy reading TRAVELER each month. But I am a traveler who has never traveled with a travel belt.

It’s a black elastic belt that snaps shut tight and has a black zippered pouch on it. The pouch is small, but it stretches to hold any number of small items you wanna put in it. The cardboard label on it suggests that you might wanna tuck your keys, phone, wallet, and credit cards into it.

Aside from a Radiohead tee-shirt or a tie made in China by our embarrassment-in-chief, there is nothing I’m less likely to wear than a fanny pack. This travel belt is precariously close to being a fanny pack, but I guess it skirts the designation by being black and narrow instead of colorful and thick. Or by featuring on its graphic a fit thirty-something in running attire rather than a flabby sixty-something in clogs and a floppy hat.

USA TODAY says, “Fanny packs are larger and can carry items like cameras and wallets, while money belts are slim and more easily concealed.” Hmmm. It’d be a tight squeeze getting a regular camera into the pouch on this belt, but my wallet DOES fit (after I pull out the wads of receipts and post-it notes). The pouch might be stretchy enough to hold my wallet AND my smartphone, but it’d be pushing it to get it to hold more than that. This belt is easily concealed, if I have my shirt over it; it doesn’t stick out too much even when I’ve got stuff in it.

Okay, fine. They sent me a fanny pack.

Could I use it as a running belt? You know, to hold my keys and wallet while I’m jogging? Well, I guess, but when I take a jog I leave my wallet locked in my car and my keys strategically hidden somewhere along my jogging route. Those things carried with me would slow me down.

I don’t jog or walk without music. I stream from my smartphone to my wireless Bluetooth earbuds. It would be handy if my phone could ride in this pouch while I do my thang, but when it’s in there the fit is too snug. I can’t work my fingers inside the pouch to pull the phone out in mid-jog and skip to the next track or click a different Sirius XM channel.  Sometimes my phone volume raises or lowers while smackin’ around inside the pouch, or something in my motion causes the music to pause or change. Nothing harshes a jogging mellow like “Eye of the Tiger” cutting off RIGHT before the chorus kicks in.

My old mp3 player still works and clips onto my waistband. It is MUCH more maneuverable in mid-stride because it’s accessible, right there on my hip. It’s light as a feather, and you have to intentionally push a button to stop or change the song playing. I can’t inadvertently turn Survivor off.

The people who play music through their phone while exercising and who stuff that phone into a belt like this one must not fiddle with the phone during their workout. Maybe this belt is okay for setting your phone on “play this station nonstop” and then squishing the phone into the pouch and not touching it again till your workout is over.

But even if you don’t care about switching up your music mix, don’t you want to check your heart rate and time as you go? Some people use a Fit Bit, or whatever those things are that you wear on your wrist. They’re probably not using this belt.

To pull my phone out of this particular belt and toggle between the “distance run” screen and the “now playing” screen to check my progress and then to skip to a different song… it’s tricky in mid-kilometer. To stay put during your activities, the phone has to be snug in the pouch, and the pouch has to be snug around your waist. If everything is snug, it’s not easy to remove the phone quickly, check your stats and alter your playlist, and replace the phone quickly.

A few times I tried jogging with the belt on and my phone in the belt. I got fed up with wresting the phone from the clingy pouch every time I wanted to switch from 1st Wave to Alt Nation. Worse than the pouch, though, is the phone “free ballin'” in a pocket of my shorts. When the phone is in my pocket, it jostles around like Elaine on “Seinfeld” dancing. This leaves small bruises on my thigh after a long run, and it also screws with the reception of the signal. Any song I’m hearing with the phone bouncing in my pocket comes through in fits and starts. It’s not worth the aggravation.

Generally I jog with the phone in my hand. Any time I want to mix up my music or see if I’ve officially made it another mile, all I have to do is lift my hand to eye level. I don’t have to fish it out of any pocket or pouch. Once in awhile I might say, “I’m gonna leave it on The Stranglers’ first album until I hit the three mile mark,” and in those cases the phone can, yes, ride in my pouch from start to finish. But sometimes the robotic “target reached” voice that tells me I’m done doesn’t come through over the music. I about had a coronary one day when the voice didn’t announce my successful completion of three miles and I kept jogging, waiting to hear it. Finally— at what felt like seconds from death— I dug the phone out of the belt’s pouch and saw that I had just hit FIVE miles. Five miles! Jesus, robot voice, where were you when I needed you?

That’s why I like to have the phone in my sweaty grip as I exercise. I can look at it whenever I want.

So even if you don’t need it for your exercising, Matt, you could use the belt on your overseas trips, right?

Some of my peers in the travel planning business swear by money belts. Don’t ever carry a wallet, they insist; your money is only safe in a zipped pouch worn around your waist. Really? Because my hip pocket is harder for a thief to access than some bag at my waistline.

If you manage to slide your hand into my hip pocket, you are SERIOUSLY encroaching on my personal space, and I’ve probably made you buy me a drink first. We’re not talking about my butt pocket (apparently where most men keep their wallets, is that right?), which is behind me and out of my line of sight. Slipping a wallet out of a butt pocket is robber 101. Keep it in your HIP pocket.

When I am in a pickpocket zone—- on a rush hour subway, in a mosh pit at a concert, shoulder to shoulder while walking across a crowded bridge, in line for the men’s room at an outdoor festival— my wallet isn’t the only thing in my right hip pocket. My hand is in there, too… on top of the wallet. You are not going to pilfer my cash without knocking me unconscious first.

Keep your credit cards and cash in your wallet and your wallet in a hip pocket, and be alert, and you’re not going to lose any of it.

It’s possible to get mugged, to lose your valuables because some a**hole forcibly takes them from you. But muggings in Europe are rare. And if it happens, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got a money belt on or not. The belt just gets you called a geek as the mugger is running away. If anything might make a difference in that scenario, it’s having your cash and cards tucked into your sock or your shoe. Your attacker might believe you when you insist you’re not carrying anything.

If you are passably self-aware, you do not need to buy a money belt for your trip to Europe.

But, Matt, my passport can ride in a money belt and won’t fit in a wallet. I need a belt to keep the passport in, right?

In twelve years of European travel, I have never once been asked to show my passport anywhere other than a customs check at a border or an airport.

You don’t need a belt for your passport. During the transatlantic flights, ladies, keep it in your purse; gentlemen, keep it in your breast pocket. As soon as you get to each new hotel or AirBNB, lock it in the safe or hide it at the back of a drawer. There is zero need to walk around Prague or Venice or Rovinj with your passport at the ready. Yes, in theory, foreign cops can randomly stop you and ask you to produce it. No, in reality, it will never happen.

The sun is up now, so I’ll end this product review and go for a jog along the river. The belt is coming with. If my phone isn’t in it, I can use it as a slingshot against any aggressive alligators.