I'm a newbie here but when I use private bitcoin wallet I have to copy the file wallet.dat, bitcoin address and private key for it then I save them in USB flash before I can do something in my wallet. it will be safer and restored.
Beware that USB flash drives are not stable for long-term storage. At the very least plug it in every 6 months or so and verify that the drive is still working. (If I were relying on flash drives, I'd have 2-3 of them for redundancy in case one went dead at the same time my HD crashed.)
I also agree that Cloud storage can be done safely. Use a strong password, and then do NOT name your wallet something like Allmyvastwealth.XXX - instead rename it to something like 2013VolleyballSchedule.txt and put it in the Sports folder on your cloud account.