I'd choose prostitution.

Good choice! Great payout everyday!

Obviously it was Jesus. Jesus is always the answer!

You've been abroad twice? Wow. Seriously though from someone who has seen half the world, traveler's cheques are always useful, bank cards mean you can cancel them before they can be spent and finally never keep everything together. Always have some money in reserve just in case this sort of thing happens that is not to be spent at all, enough to get by, for 3 days until you can get help in this case.

Traveller's cheques? Wow - I haven't seen one of those for about 15 years...

Exactly! No thief would have a clue what to do with them and would probably leave them alone. You can still get them, I used them recently and so did my girlfriend.

I don't think you should have everything on your person while travelling. I have always been told (if I can adhere to this rule I do): Keep a copy of your passport on you/some money. Leave your real passport and extra cash back in your hotel's safe. I know this doesn't work for people using hostels or whatnot, but at least don't keep all that important stuff in your purse. Shitty situation, but I kinda think YDI for not thinking ahead. #77--I studied abroad in Chile for 2 1/2 months last summer and was told specifically by my school not to bring traveler's checks since most businesses there won't take them.

That is chile, in my extensive travels I have yet to find too many places that won't accept them. You are correct though that some places won't take them, but is it a bad idea to have some dire emergency money locked away? My point was never have all of your money in one form, it's a fail safe in case one stash gets compromised. With the hostel thing though you are really limited for choices, I refuse to use a decent hotel's safe especially room ones. I've stayed in places where the rooms were broken into and the safes stolen, and know of people who had safes broken into by staff. Never forget to be on your guard when traveling.

ALL embassies for ALL countries have office hours. Often there's an emergency helpline, but there's a real chance that they wouldn't consider this an emergency, and would tell you to come back in office hours anyway. For example, the US Embassy in Berlin is only open for US Citizen services TWO HOURS a day (2PM to 4PM), and is closed German holidays, US holidays, and the last Thursday of each month. Careful who you call fuckshits, when I guarantee that whatever country you are from, your own embassy would have done the same thing.