A whole bunch of people saw the American tourist in Venice grab the woman who pickpocketed her by her ponytail. She held her there until the police arrived. There was a whole bunch of interesting aspects of this event. First, the tourist had her AirPods in in her purse so with the help of Find My Friends, she was able to track down the person who stole it from her. This was great thinking on the part of the tourist.
When traveling, you should keep some form of tracking device on your bags. This includes your luggage but should also include purses or backpacks. All of these items could be stolen. So if you keep valuable items in them, please add a tracking device to them. My favorite one is Apple’s AirTag They are inexpensive and they track down your items to 10 to 30 feet. This could come in handy. As an aside, some people also use the AirTags to track their keys when they lose at home.
The other thought that I had was a reminder to never leave all of your money, credit cards and passports in one place. If you lose them, you will have a terrible trip and it is a major challenge to replace all of these items when traveling. I have a few suggestions:
- Photograph and store copies (either in the cloud or have printed copies) of all of your important items like drivers’ license, passport, credit cards. Having these copies will help you when you need to replace them.
- Keep at least one credit card and some cash in a separate and safe place. If you do end up being robbed, then you have at least one form of payment that will allow you to continue your travels.
- Set up a Wise Account. If you are robbed and lose all of your credit and debit cards, you can still withdraw money from your Wise account. Even without your physical Wise debit card, you can use your phone’s mobile wallet (like Apple Pay or Google Pay) at a cardless ATM or by transferring funds to a linked bank account and withdrawing them there. For cardless ATM withdrawals, you have the ability to add your Wise debit card to your mobile wallet and then use your phone’s contactless payment feature at compatible ATMs.
The most important item that you will probably have is your smart phone. On it, you have apps that can help you in case you are robbed. These include Apple (or Google) Pay, Mobile ID for identification purposes, Debit Car Apps and links to your cloud storage.
My overall suggestion is to protect yourself when traveling. This may be a near impossible goal but there are ways to minimize the fallout in case you are robbed. If you plan then your travels will be less crazy in the event of unexpected turmoil.