sometimes digitally is much easier, better and not so obvious. For example using steganography you embed 12 words into a picture file. Nobody will know that a cats picture will contain your backup seed. With a metal plate or a well known hardware wallet, nowadays many people would know that you are carrying a large amount of BTC. Metal plates and HW are meant to be used kept them hidden, not traveling with them. You setup a HW, extract the xpub (for future deposits) and hide it. Do not travel with it like a portable wallet.