Never leave your pack alone, not even for a minute!

[Phuen]

Some cultures are very forgiving to criminals, specifically thieves. India was a surprising experience for me. Just shove a hand down your pockets and smile about it.

I put my leg through the backpack handle too. Laptop has a lock, so it can't just be picked up quick. Usually, a meaningful but small deterrent will do!

 

[r3yn]

I was at a wild rave after-party in Ottawa, Canada, and a bunch of vile gangsta dudes came into the house. The busses had stopped by this point, and wouldn't start for another few hours, so my girlfriend and I slept on a couch in the middle of the party, and I held onto my pack.

I woke up a while later and my pack was gone. Dude had lifted it from right under my grasp. Wow. Then I went looking around the house for it, and realized someone had stolen my shoes, from the front area, too. There was three-feet of snow outside, and a fresh layer just falling. -25*C. So I wrapped plastic bags around my feet and wandered out. Just a bit behind the house, I found my empty bag (I guess they didn't realize the worth of the mil pack, or just were looking for valuable shit....? but oddly they stole my already-stolen airline blanket, some sweaty rave clothes, and some other shit... fair, I guess, re: the airline blanket).

Anyway, I saw their tracks continuing up the lane, and started to follow the fresh thief-sign in the snow. The sun was coming up, and I tracked their trail to the bus station, but lost it there amongst the clusterfuck of early-workers. Asked security to see the cameras; they told me to go fuck myself in the usual bureaucratic custom of Canada.

Still, kind of worth the experience, anyway.

 

[Anagor]

Still, kind of worth the experience, anyway.

Yeah, an experience indeed.

I only had two (not so severe) experiences in 4 years of traveling. Once my smartphone was stolen out of my jeans pocket in a squat in Brighton, UK ... other people missed things as well after that night.

And once my backpack was stolen as I slept in Bristol, so I only had my sleeping bag I was sleeping in and my daypack, everything else was gone.

BUT I got my stuff back ... For some reason someone stole my stuff but left it somewhere and a good soul found it, found the coach ticket in my backpack, found me on fb cause of my name written on the ticket and I got my stuff back.



Hope you got your shoes back btw ... I once was without shoes in winter cause they fell apart and ended up walking around in flip flops in the snow ... not -25°C more like -5 ... but still cold ...