11 Tricks to Prevent THEFT While Traveling Abroad (Outsmart Thieves!)

Getting things stolen while traveling can be a huge problem. The last thing you want on your trip is missing items from your checked luggage, getting pickpocketed in a crowd, or coming home and finding that your accommodation was broken into. Over the past 7 years traveling through some pretty sketchy places, I've discovered some clever ways to keep your things safe while traveling. Here are 11 strategies that I don't hear many people talking about. To make things more interesting, let's head down to the beach in Brazil for the sunset. So the first tip is to have secret hiding spots in both your main luggage and your day pack. And I like to stash some emergency cash in places like an empty chapstick tube or deodorant bottle or in a bag of dirty clothes. This prevents thefts of opportunity when thieves are just rumbling through your backpack real quick just to see if you have anything. When they only have a couple seconds, they're probably not going to check in your chapstick tube or in your dirty laundry. Next is to always pack carabiners with you. You can use carabiners to connect and close your zipper together so it's harder to open when you're walking through busy places. But I also like to use them if you're traveling in a group or if you have multiple bags and you can hook the bags together to make them harder to steal. For example, when me and Diane are traveling by bus in some sketchy areas and we have to throw our big backpacks under the bus, and let's say it's a night bus and it's stopping all night long and there's people getting on and off and taking their bags out, I don't want someone to take my bag when I'm sleeping in the middle of the night. And so I wrap our backpacks together with a bunch of different straps and then I carabiner them together. And so if someone wants to try to take off with my big huge 15 kilogram backpack, they'll actually have to take two big huge 15 kilogram backpacks together and it would just be way too awkward to steal. Also, if you can't fit a carabiner through both of your zippers to close it, you can also use those little zip ties that come with packages of bread or also a big safety pin to work. Speaking of zippers, most people don't think about this, but you should pay attention to the position that you close your zipper. I learned this tip from the Fox Nomad YouTube channel and he recommends closing the zippers at the top of your backpack because he says, first of all, you have more nerve endings on that part of your back and so you're more likely to feel it if someone tries to take something out. Also, if you have your zippers at the top, it's more obvious if someone tries to reach over your shoulder and try to open your zipper, more people can see it. On the other hand, I really think it depends on how your bag is set up and how you pack your bag because with my backpack, I usually put the zippers on the very bottom most position possible because in order for someone to get something out of my bag, they'd have to open up the zippers really high in order to get in there because the only thing on the bottom of my backpack is packing cubes and they can't take out a packing cube unless they open the zipper up. So really the tip is just to be conscious on how your backpack is set up and use the zipper positions wisely based on how it's set up. And no matter which method you use, if you're going through crowded areas and you're worried about someone sneaking your zipper open and sneaking their hands in there, you can tuck the zippers on the inside of your bag when you close them and that makes it harder for pickpockets to open them. Okay, my battery is about to die here so I'm going to have to finish these on the phone camera. Okay, so what about leaving your valuables in your room when there's no safe where you're staying? Well, you have a couple different options. First you can use what is called a pack safe travel safe and this is what we used to travel with all around the world. It's literally a portable safe bag that you can lock up and tie to things in your room and the bag is lined with mesh cables so it's slash proof. Another slightly less secure but still effective option is to just carry a metal bike wire and a padlock and then you can padlock your backpack to something solid in the room and lock the compartments with your valuables. Now if someone really wanted to get in there, they could still cut your bag open and take the things out but this does prevent thefts of opportunity. I've also seen entire covers for your backpack or suitcase that you can lock closed and that will prevent people from opening your zippers when you're not there. Pack safe also has actual backpacks that has the security built into the backpack and basically it has these wires that you can strap around things in your room and since it's built into the backpack you don't have to carry anything extra with you. That will however make your backpack a little bit more heavy. But if you don't want to hassle with carrying all of these security things with you, you can also just hide your stuff in weird places whenever you leave your accommodation. I'm talking places like maybe above the closet or in a stack of clean towels or inside of your pillowcase. Just imagine a thief breaking into your place and having three minutes to scavenge through all your things. Where will they probably not look? If you think about it, hiding your valuables like your laptop or whatever in these weird places may actually be more safe than locking it up because if a thief comes into your room and sees a backpack with all the security on it, they obviously know that there's something valuable there. Another thing that you can do to prevent theft from your checked bags is to choose the right type of luggage. Your best option is a piece of hardshell luggage that has built-in TSA locks into the luggage. For one, hardshell is harder to cut into than a softshell piece of luggage or a backpack. And two, a built-in TSA lock in my experience works better than one of those external TSA locks that you can buy and attach onto your backpack because every single time I attach those to my zippers and I check a bag, my bags ended up arriving with the zippers torn off because the TSA people didn't feel like using their keys to open the zipper I guess. Now it's true that thieves can get their hands on these special TSA keys and open the locks or they can also use the pen trick to open zippers on luggage. But the idea is to make your bag less of a target compared to other easier to steal from bags. Better yet, avoid packing anything super valuable in your checked luggage at all and instead keep it with you in your personal item or a carry-on if you have one. As one YouTube commenter famously said, if someone wants to steal my used underwear, Walmart t-shirts, and moist toothbrush, they probably need it more than I do. If you've learned any ideas from this video, make sure to like it so it gets shown to other travelers. The next tip is to protect your irreplaceable things. Most things can be replaced if they're stolen, but some can't. Pretty much anything in my backpack can be replaced except for my travel journal. If I lost that, I'd be devastated and so I make sure to make backups by taking pictures of each page. The same goes for laptops. Make sure you're backing them up regularly. And if you have any other sentimental items like wedding rings or family heirloom jewelry or anything, it might be a good idea to just leave those at home. My next anti-theft tip is to connect your bag to yourself. When you're actively traveling from one destination to the next, put all of your valuables in your personal item and keep it with you and keep your eyes on it at all times. The exception would be to have some emergency cash, emergency ID card, and emergency credit card in your other luggage just in case your valuable bag gets taken. It's all about being prepared for all the scenarios. Never separate yourself from your valuables bag. If you're resting or sleeping in the airport or something, hook it around your leg so no one can take it while you're sleeping. If you're on a bus, keep it on your lap instead of putting it under the hold or up top where people can take it. If you arrive to your hotel and they offer to take your bags to your room for you, you can leave your big luggage but always carry your valuables with you. Same goes for taxis. You can put your main bag in the trunk of the taxi but keep your valuables up front with you. I've actually heard of some nightmare experiences with taxi drivers where the traveler had to jump out of the car because of the situation and luckily they had their valuables with them and it wasn't in the back trunk. Staying tightly connected to your valuables also applies to your daypack so when you're just out sightseeing. It's a good idea to be conscious how you're carrying your daypack or your purse or whatever. If it's just in one hand and you're holding it next to you and you're walking alongside the street and the backpack is on the side of the street, you might risk a motorcycle or something coming up and snatching it. You want to avoid making yourself easy prey by always hooking your backpack or whatever on both shoulders securely or if you have a purse, carrying it on the opposite side of the street where someone could take it. Another tip for protecting your luggage is to use air tags or luggage trackers. Just hide these somewhere in your luggage and if it gets stolen it'll be easier to recover whatever was stolen. It'll also help locate your luggage if it gets lost on a flight. So now let's move on to some next level tips for if you're planning to travel anywhere that's a little bit more dangerous. In order to get your things stolen by thieves, you first need to attract the thieves attention. So if you can avoid attracting attention to yourself, you'll be in a good position. I recommend trying to camouflage yourself and blend in with the crowd. The goal is not to look like you have a ton of money or to wear clothes that make you look super sexy or attractive because that's going to attract attention and not all attention is good attention. If you're carrying an expensive laptop around out in the streets, one trick is to carry it in an ugly or dirty backpack. I've even heard stories of travelers who put a big black trash bag around their big normal backpack in order to walk through sketchy areas because it just looks like they're carrying around trash. I've heard of other people who just randomly put duct tape on everything they have on their backpack, on the back of their laptop, on their phone, on whatever because if someone sees that there's a bunch of duct tape on something, they're not going to want to steal it. If you have an expensive phone or laptop, you can also cover the branding with the case that you use or cover it with stickers or something. Speaking of which, the more you personalize things, the harder it will be for a thief to resell it. Another trick that I used when solo backpacking through Central and South America is I had secret pockets sewn into the ankles of my travel day pants. This sewing project cost me just five bucks at a seamstress when traveling in Guatemala and I stored emergency cash in there, passports, extra credit cards, anything that I didn't want to have on me while walking through sketchy areas. Do be careful though because if you have to walk through some sort of security with your secret pockets, they might think you're a little bit weird and suspicious if they pat you down and find secret pockets in your clothes. Another way to fight against theft while traveling is to carry dummy items. For example, you could carry a dummy wallet or a dummy phone that you take with you when you're out in the streets. In Latin America, I carried around a dummy wallet with an old expired ID card and a credit card and a little bit of cash for over a year, but I never got robbed and eventually got sick of carrying two wallets everywhere I went. I do still have a street phone for when we're in Colombia though. I didn't actually buy a new phone for this, I just kept my old phone after I upgraded. Now one warning here is you're not going to want to make your dummy items too crappy. If you get robbed by the wrong person and you hand over an old 20-year-old Nokia brick phone, that might just piss them off even more. Okay, so now that I got you all paranoid, there's one important thing to remember and that is to consider all these tips, but don't be so paranoid that you let it negatively affect your trip. The trick is learning to be cautious without actually worrying. For example, there's a difference between getting in the habit of hiding your MacBook inside your pillowcase every time you leave your accommodation and actually worrying about your MacBook every time you leave. One is caution and the other is unnecessary stress. In the end, all you can do is your best when it comes to preventing theft and try to remember that things are just things and if something does get stolen, you can always replace it. So don't let the thought of losing them take away from your trip. Preventing theft is only one safety issue that you need to be aware of when traveling around the world. For the other tips, make sure to watch this video next. See you later. Bye bye.