I half-jokingly state that if you aren't mugged or pickpocketed at least once during your travels, you’re not taking enough chances and not exploring far enough off-the-grid. The part of this that is the half-joke is the off-the-grid part. The reality is that if you spend a year traveling, the odds are stacked against you to have incident free travels. At some point you will wind up being the wrong person, at the wrong time, through sheer odds. You don’t need to be in the wrong place. I was mugged by a 14-year-old kid in broad daylight in Montevideo, Uruguay, the safest country in South America. It happens.
Prepare for a potential incident in advance. You need to purchase travel insurance. Whether you are pickpocketed in Europe or purse snatched in South America, travel insurance serves as a critical service to avoid any major disruptions to your trip. I recommend World Nomads. No affiliate links. Travel insurance is that critical that money should be made of the recommendation.
When a mugging occurs, your primary (and secondary and tertiary) concern should be your safety. If you've been mugged, do not acerbate the situation and attempt to retrieve your items by either confronting or chasing the mugger. With the element of surprise and local advantage, the mugger is in a clear position of strength. There's no telling what is around the corner or the danger that lies in the direction the mugger is heading. Don’t risk your safety or losing additional valuable items that may still be in your possession.
Once you are safe, head to the nearest police station to report the incident. Hopefully someone at the police station speaks English, otherwise you may need to wait until an English speaker arrives. I've filed police reports in Uruguay, the Philippines, and Hong Kong and never waited more than five minutes from arriving at the police station to explaining the details of the incident to an English speaker. Maybe I was lucky. Your experience may vary.
Before leaving the police station, be sure to obtain documentation that the insurance company can use to link back to the incident report—this could be a copy of a crime report or a tear off from the crime report with the case number.
After filing the police report notify your travel insurance provider of the incident. The insurance company will send an information package to the address associated with your policy. You will need to prepare a narrative detailing the incident, sign an affidavit, and mail both the police report documentation and the receipt for the items you are filing a claim. If you are purchasing expensive pieces of technology before travel, save the receipt in a safe but accessible location while you are traveling. Also scan the receipt and store it digitally. Be sure to make a copy of all the insurance claim documents and send the claim package with a trackable mail service. The insurance company will make you financially whole.
In Uruguay I had a camera snatched from my shoulder. Bummer but not really. I didn’t like the camera, so the mugger did me a minor favor. Fortunately, I had been backing up my photos every night. I was also four days away from returning home for Christmas. The timing worked out perfectly and I was able to purchase a new camera while I was home. If you are on a long-term vacation be sure to make a habit of backing up your photos every night. I had a standard routine of sorting the good photos and uploading them to Flickr every night or the following morning. If you do this the first night you arrive, it will become a habit, like buckling your car seatbelt. If your camera is stolen, the pain will be reduced.
A mugging may seem like a remote possibility, but I guarantee that if you aren’t mugged, you will be pickpocketed or a victim of theft. I don’t care how good you are at concealing your items, how self-aware you think you are, the pickpockets are better at picking than you are at security. The odds are stacked against you over the course of 365+ days of travel.
Keep your ATM and credit cards in separate locations and check those locations daily. I had a backup credit card stolen in Hong Kong out of a locked storage unit in a hostel room. Someone else had $500 cash and their passport stolen during the same incident. It happens. At least my stolen credit card was only one out of four credit and ATM cards I carried during the trip. Capital One quickly removed the fraudulent charges.
There is a security wearable option I like—the passport holder that goes around your neck, tucks under your shirt, and rests on your chest. It’s a convenient device. When I’m sleeping on a train or in a hostel, I trust those documents around my neck more than I do in my bag or a locked storage unit.
With pickpocketing, the pain is the hassle of restoring the stolen credit cards and identification cards, not the cost of the fraudulent transactions. You don’t need to worry about the misuse of the stolen cards, being liable for expenses you didn’t incur, or losing money, as the credit card company will reimburse you for any fraudulent charges—you just have a headache of reporting the incident to the credit card company and obtaining new credit cards. Keep your credit cards in separate locations. If you have a credit card and a debit card in a single wallet, and that wallet is stolen, but you have a second wallet with a credit card and debit card, you are fine. When I went out for the day, I kept my second set of cards locked in a storage unit at the hostel. If you don’t keep your cards separated and you lose all your credit cards, debit cards, and the ability to obtain cash, you need to stay put until someone in the U.S. can mail your new cards out. The positive is that you will have a great blog entry— “The Time I Survived (Insert City Here) for Two Weeks with No Cash.” With digital cash transfers now commonplace, hopefully this situation would not be as bad as it was in 2013.
Contacting the credit card companies to report stolen credit cards can be a headache. Before leaving on your trip, scan images of the front and back of your credit cards and store the images in a digitally accessible location. You will need to know your credit card numbers and the international number (not the 1-800 customer service number). Because you are international, you will need to use Skype or a landline to call the credit card companies because for security reasons an internet-based application, like WhatsApp will not work.
While visiting my brother in Bangkok, my dad had his wallet lifted in the city’s Skyrail. He had his credit cards (Capital One and American Express), his ATM card (Wells Fargo) and a BJ’s Wholesale gas card stolen. His headache started when he did not know how to call the credit card companies internationally. I tried calling on his behalf. Capital One was fine with me stating I was my dad’s son after I provided sensitive information and the cards would be mailed to my parent’s existing address on file, not a new address. Wells Fargo and BJ’s wouldn’t budge. It took a week for me to receive the Capital One cards. I mailed the cards via UPS on a Monday afternoon from Philadelphia. The cards reached my Dad in Bangkok by Thursday at noon Thailand time. The mailing costed $150. The end to end process, from the time he lost his card to the point he received the new one in Bangkok was nearly two weeks. He never received his Wells Fargo or BJ’s replacement cards until he returned home. He was fortunate my mom was traveling with him—she served as his backup wallet.
The lesson of my dad’s story is that it is extremely helpful to have someone in your home country who can help you in a messy situation—that way you could reach a major city where you could spend a week or two waiting for your new credit cards to arrive.
SECURITY TIPS
If you are planning to visit a remote, non-touristy neighborhood or area, run the destination past a hotel concierge or reception first. There are attractions in major international cities that are in bad neighborhoods and locals at the hotel or hostel can at least share an expectation about the area you are heading to and whether you should take extra precaution. Hotel staff will be more attune with the local news and know the neighborhoods that have higher levels of crime. Sometimes I think hotels can be a little too cautious but it's still a good idea to heed their advice in many situations.
There are clothes designed to prevent pickpocketing. Zipper pockets are a good defense. Keep your cards in separate pockets. If you have an affinity card, like a BJ’s Wholesale credit card, that you only use to purchase gas at BJ’s, leave that card at home.
Prior to arriving in a city, Google search “Scams in ______” and insert the city. Scam techniques tend to be city specific. Cairo has papyrus dealers. Shanghai has tea ceremonies. If you are in a city for more than a day or two you will be subjected to a city specific scam. Knowing the city specific scams in advance will help you distinguish between people who are friendly and those that are too friendly.
NOTE
I wrote this security essay after my incident in Uruguay to serve as advice for other travelers. I then realized I should have consulted an authoritative source. Security is a poor subject to provide someone with incorrect advice. I read the experts. My comments matched the experts. I added my anecdotes for context.
The limit to what I’ve mentioned is this information is written from a male’s perspective. If you are a woman, research female-specific safety concerns in addition to any cultural norms before arriving in a country.
FINAL THOUGHT
A mugging can happen anywhere. You shouldn't let one bad incident overshadow an entire trip or reflect poorly on an entire country. Uruguay is fantastic. I would return in a second. I want to purchase a house in Manantiales and live out the rest of my days on the beach. Someday. The mugging didn’t impact my perspective on Uruguay.
When a mugging occurs, your primary (and secondary and tertiary) concern should be your safety. If you've been mugged, do not acerbate the situation and attempt to retrieve your items by either confronting or chasing the mugger. With the element of surprise and local advantage, the mugger is in a clear position of strength. There's no telling what is around the corner or the danger that lies in the direction the mugger is heading. Don’t risk your safety or losing additional valuable items that may still be in your possession.
Once you are safe, head to the nearest police station to report the incident. Hopefully someone at the police station speaks English, otherwise you may need to wait until an English speaker arrives. I've filed police reports in Uruguay, the Philippines, and Hong Kong and never waited more than five minutes from arriving at the police station to explaining the details of the incident to an English speaker. Maybe I was lucky. Your experience may vary.
Before leaving the police station, be sure to obtain documentation that the insurance company can use to link back to the incident report—this could be a copy of a crime report or a tear off from the crime report with the case number.
After filing the police report notify your travel insurance provider of the incident. The insurance company will send an information package to the address associated with your policy. You will need to prepare a narrative detailing the incident, sign an affidavit, and mail both the police report documentation and the receipt for the items you are filing a claim. If you are purchasing expensive pieces of technology before travel, save the receipt in a safe but accessible location while you are traveling. Also scan the receipt and store it digitally. Be sure to make a copy of all the insurance claim documents and send the claim package with a trackable mail service. The insurance company will make you financially whole.
In Uruguay I had a camera snatched from my shoulder. Bummer but not really. I didn’t like the camera, so the mugger did me a minor favor. Fortunately, I had been backing up my photos every night. I was also four days away from returning home for Christmas. The timing worked out perfectly and I was able to purchase a new camera while I was home. If you are on a long-term vacation be sure to make a habit of backing up your photos every night. I had a standard routine of sorting the good photos and uploading them to Flickr every night or the following morning. If you do this the first night you arrive, it will become a habit, like buckling your car seatbelt. If your camera is stolen, the pain will be reduced.
A mugging may seem like a remote possibility, but I guarantee that if you aren’t mugged, you will be pickpocketed or a victim of theft. I don’t care how good you are at concealing your items, how self-aware you think you are, the pickpockets are better at picking than you are at security. The odds are stacked against you over the course of 365+ days of travel.
Keep your ATM and credit cards in separate locations and check those locations daily. I had a backup credit card stolen in Hong Kong out of a locked storage unit in a hostel room. Someone else had $500 cash and their passport stolen during the same incident. It happens. At least my stolen credit card was only one out of four credit and ATM cards I carried during the trip. Capital One quickly removed the fraudulent charges.
There is a security wearable option I like—the passport holder that goes around your neck, tucks under your shirt, and rests on your chest. It’s a convenient device. When I’m sleeping on a train or in a hostel, I trust those documents around my neck more than I do in my bag or a locked storage unit.
With pickpocketing, the pain is the hassle of restoring the stolen credit cards and identification cards, not the cost of the fraudulent transactions. You don’t need to worry about the misuse of the stolen cards, being liable for expenses you didn’t incur, or losing money, as the credit card company will reimburse you for any fraudulent charges—you just have a headache of reporting the incident to the credit card company and obtaining new credit cards. Keep your credit cards in separate locations. If you have a credit card and a debit card in a single wallet, and that wallet is stolen, but you have a second wallet with a credit card and debit card, you are fine. When I went out for the day, I kept my second set of cards locked in a storage unit at the hostel. If you don’t keep your cards separated and you lose all your credit cards, debit cards, and the ability to obtain cash, you need to stay put until someone in the U.S. can mail your new cards out. The positive is that you will have a great blog entry— “The Time I Survived (Insert City Here) for Two Weeks with No Cash.” With digital cash transfers now commonplace, hopefully this situation would not be as bad as it was in 2013.
Contacting the credit card companies to report stolen credit cards can be a headache. Before leaving on your trip, scan images of the front and back of your credit cards and store the images in a digitally accessible location. You will need to know your credit card numbers and the international number (not the 1-800 customer service number). Because you are international, you will need to use Skype or a landline to call the credit card companies because for security reasons an internet-based application, like WhatsApp will not work.
While visiting my brother in Bangkok, my dad had his wallet lifted in the city’s Skyrail. He had his credit cards (Capital One and American Express), his ATM card (Wells Fargo) and a BJ’s Wholesale gas card stolen. His headache started when he did not know how to call the credit card companies internationally. I tried calling on his behalf. Capital One was fine with me stating I was my dad’s son after I provided sensitive information and the cards would be mailed to my parent’s existing address on file, not a new address. Wells Fargo and BJ’s wouldn’t budge. It took a week for me to receive the Capital One cards. I mailed the cards via UPS on a Monday afternoon from Philadelphia. The cards reached my Dad in Bangkok by Thursday at noon Thailand time. The mailing costed $150. The end to end process, from the time he lost his card to the point he received the new one in Bangkok was nearly two weeks. He never received his Wells Fargo or BJ’s replacement cards until he returned home. He was fortunate my mom was traveling with him—she served as his backup wallet.
The lesson of my dad’s story is that it is extremely helpful to have someone in your home country who can help you in a messy situation—that way you could reach a major city where you could spend a week or two waiting for your new credit cards to arrive.
SECURITY TIPS
If you are planning to visit a remote, non-touristy neighborhood or area, run the destination past a hotel concierge or reception first. There are attractions in major international cities that are in bad neighborhoods and locals at the hotel or hostel can at least share an expectation about the area you are heading to and whether you should take extra precaution. Hotel staff will be more attune with the local news and know the neighborhoods that have higher levels of crime. Sometimes I think hotels can be a little too cautious but it's still a good idea to heed their advice in many situations.
There are clothes designed to prevent pickpocketing. Zipper pockets are a good defense. Keep your cards in separate pockets. If you have an affinity card, like a BJ’s Wholesale credit card, that you only use to purchase gas at BJ’s, leave that card at home.
Prior to arriving in a city, Google search “Scams in ______” and insert the city. Scam techniques tend to be city specific. Cairo has papyrus dealers. Shanghai has tea ceremonies. If you are in a city for more than a day or two you will be subjected to a city specific scam. Knowing the city specific scams in advance will help you distinguish between people who are friendly and those that are too friendly.
NOTE
I wrote this security essay after my incident in Uruguay to serve as advice for other travelers. I then realized I should have consulted an authoritative source. Security is a poor subject to provide someone with incorrect advice. I read the experts. My comments matched the experts. I added my anecdotes for context.
The limit to what I’ve mentioned is this information is written from a male’s perspective. If you are a woman, research female-specific safety concerns in addition to any cultural norms before arriving in a country.
FINAL THOUGHT
A mugging can happen anywhere. You shouldn't let one bad incident overshadow an entire trip or reflect poorly on an entire country. Uruguay is fantastic. I would return in a second. I want to purchase a house in Manantiales and live out the rest of my days on the beach. Someday. The mugging didn’t impact my perspective on Uruguay.