Should I buy a dummy ring for travel?

No, usually not. The question usually arrives with a worried person across my bench holding an engagement ring they're afraid to lose. Buying a dummy ring for travel answers the wrong problem.

What clients actually worry about is theft, loss in the ocean, or damage from sunscreen and chlorine. These are real, but a $200 cubic zirconia ring in a silver setting doesn't fix any of them, and a thief on a scooter in Naples isn't going to pause to grade the stone before he grabs your hand. If he wants the ring, he takes the ring.

Last June a client named Nicole came in for a duplicate of her 1.2 carat round. She was headed to Barcelona and wanted a look-alike she could wear without worry. I told her the truth: pickpockets there don't care if the center stone is a CZ, and hotel safes are not that safe. She bought it anyway, paid about $550 for a moissanite in 10k. Two weeks later she emailed me: the dummy was gone, lifted from her bag on the metro. She wore a simple band the rest of the trip. She was right. The dummy ring didn't lower her risk; it just moved the loss around.

What I tell clients instead

Here's what I tell clients now. Get a jewelry rider on your homeowners or renters policy, with a proper appraisal from a GIA-trained gemologist. That covers theft, loss, and even mysterious disappearance, which is exactly the scenario you're worried about. Standalone jewelry policies from companies like Jeweler's Mutual or BriteCo work too, though they tend to cost a little more. Premiums run about $1 to $2 per $100 of insured value per year, so a $5,000 ring costs around $50 to $100 a year. After that, the real ring is just a ring. You're not wearing $5,000. You're wearing an insured asset, same as your laptop.

For the trips where you'll swim, hike, or lift luggage, skip the fake diamond travel ring and buy a plain 2mm 18k gold band, or go even simpler with a silicone ring for the actual water days. A plain band doesn't catch on anything, costs a fraction of a look-alike engagement ring, and nobody's going to yank it off your hand at the beach. If you lose a $180 gold band in the ocean, you shrug. If the same thing happens to a $550 moissanite dummy, you're just out $550 and still have the real ring sitting at home doing nothing.

The one exception

Dummy engagement rings are mostly jewelry-shaped anxiety. Where a dummy actually makes sense is a place with real risk of violent mugging, and even then I'd go cheap: a $60 CZ in silver, not a $500 moissanite. You're not protecting the real ring by buying a nicer fake. You're just buying a second thing to lose.

Nicole now wears her 1.2 carat round everywhere, insured, and keeps a $40 silicone band in her suitcase pocket. Last I heard, that was enough for her. It usually is.