If that happens, aren’t you pretty much walking to the closest mobile phone store?

A basic device that’ll give you access to the internet, mail and maps is basically a commodity the same way a toothbrush is.

What "closest mobile phone store" in many places? I've been on a ton of trips where I probably haven't seen a closest mobile phone store for a week or more.

My point is that you should try not to be absolutely screwed if you're cut off from the Internet. I carry physical maps, itinerary, guidebook, etc. You can actually travel without Internet access. Of course, you can't mitigate any eventuality but I'd certainly argue that you should generally be able to move forward without Internet, email, or GPS.

You'll find stores selling that stuff in even the most rural parts of central Asia and Africa these days. As long as there's a reasonably sized human settlement, someone's probably selling mobile devices even if there's no local network to use it with.

I remember standing up to board my flight home, putting the phone into my pants pocket, except I was putting it into air, and it landed on the tile floor of the boarding area. The outside screen wasn't cracked, but the LC-Display cracked all across the bottom, making the display totally black. I usually don't bother having physical boarding passes, but luckily I did have it in paper format at that point.

Interestingly the phone was still working, it just can't show anything. Double-clicking the power button still opened the camera app, and I could take pictures by pressing the volume down button. And alarms would still go off, but holding the power button opened Google Assistant and it understood the command "Delete all alarms", no unlocking required.

I reluctantly use mobile boarding passes when traveling because I don't have a convenient printer when I'm not leaving from home. But presumably the counter could still look me up via my passport or other relevant ID.

The thing I haven't figured out (mostly because I haven't sat down and done so) is how I'd access mail and such—without my password manager on my own phone, I don't have access to anything.

I've sat down and tried to figure this out, and never been happy with the solution. I carry an old phone as a spare, which also has my password manager and 2 factor codes.

I asked HN about this recently because I couldn't believe everyone, especially people who aren't interested in designing backups, i.e. the type to come to HN, were all thinking this through enough to have good solutions.

HN consensus seemed to be for hardware keys like Yubikey, and paper backup codes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42427443

I have a Yubikey (well, two actually) on my keychain for 2FA, gets rid of those pesky apps.

Why would we assume that the Yubikey or even the entire keychain survived whatever befell the telephone that is being replaced?

I don’t universally travel with a laptop.

this is where i'd use the keepassxc password manager. Put a password archive at a URL you can remember, and download it somewhere if you need it.

Or have a 2nd email without 2fa and use it to contact a friend to help you get your keepassxc archive.

Problem: with 2FA, lost phone = lost access to your email and rest of digital life, when on a trip (I’ll assume no one travels with their recovery keys).

I actually do have my Gmail recovery keys with my passport though I haven't tested in a while. But from reading other comments, I guess I'm pretty paranoid and maybe more prepared for a situation where I don't have a working phone.

But, if you use a password manager for Google, not sure if that does you any good. Honestly, regaining access to your various accounts if you need to get a new phone--perhaps especially internationally--may be pretty hard. I do sometimes travel with an older spare phone but it's getting out of support.

1Password handles this problem pretty elegantly because of their secret key system.

You can just print out your secret key and stuff it in your suitcase / backpack. Its useless for a thief unless they know your password too.

You could set an emergency / recovery contact too, but I don't know how the recovery flow would go.

Also, an eSIM will vastly complicate your bootstrapping.

And an eSIM is all my current phone has.

Not sure how much confidence I would put in getting back up and running in an international trip with 2FA vs. having paper copies of important info.

Yubikeys with a passkey for every major service. One on the keychain, a nano one permanently in the laptop. This lets you access anything with the key and a password.