Best iPhone Cases for Travel
Written when a phone was a phone. It is now the camera, the map, the boarding pass, the wallet, the translator and the torch, which raises the stakes on protecting it and changes what a travel case needs to do.
What matters, in order:
- A raised lip around the screen and camera. Almost all damage is a face-down or lens-down drop onto grit. A case that keeps glass off the ground is doing 90% of the job.
- Grip. A slippery case causes the drops it is meant to survive. Textured sides beat a smooth back.
- Not a wallet case, for travel. Keeping your cards and your phone in one object means losing both at once, and pickpockets know what a wallet case is.
Water, which has changed. Modern phones are rated IP67 or IP68, so they survive rain and a dropped-in-a-puddle moment without any case. What ratings do not cover is salt water, sand, or depth, and seals degrade as a phone ages. For a boat or the beach, a plain roll-top dry bag or a sealed pouch you can operate the screen through beats any waterproof case: cheaper, and it protects the camera too.
For anything genuinely rugged, the heavy armoured cases are worth it only if the phone lives on a mountain or a building site. They double the bulk, which is the main reason people take them off.
Two things worth more than the case: a screen protector, which is a few pounds against the most expensive repair; and a tracker plus a lock screen with an emergency contact, so a found phone can be returned.
And the backup habit: photographs synced daily. A broken phone is a purchase; lost photographs are the trip.
Part of the guide to gadgets and power.