We didn't carry a lot of gear while travelling, but what we did bring was really valuable to us. Here are some of the theft-deterrent tricks that we used for our trip.
Laptop Stickers
We wanted to bring Jen's MacBook Air with us, but we were concerned that it was easy to spot and snatch. As a deterrent, we decided to cover it with stickers to hide the fact that it's a shiny new laptop. The stickers hide the Apple logo and when the laptop is closed on a table, it's so thin than you barely even notice that it's a computer.
Hidden eBook
We brought a Kindle because it saved a lot of space and weight compared to a stack of travel and reading books. From reading other travel blogs, we learned that Kindle screens crack rather easily. We looked around at expensive covers and came up with the idea of just hiding it inside a used hard-cover book. This way, if we accidentally left it out in our room, it would just look like a regular book. It took a bit of work, but it really worked great!!
Two extra things we did to help enhance the cover:
1) We put velcro on the back of the kindle and inside the cover so that the Kindle didn't fall out while reading with the book upright.
2) We glued a stretchy band to the back of the book, which wraps around the front cover ensuring that the book remains closed while carrying it.
While in Bali, we actually did end up cracking the Kindle screen.. but the flaw wasn't with the cover! We were reading so much there that we decided to take the Kindle out of the cover and... accidentally sat on it… :( If it had been in the cover it would have been fine! ...lesson learned!
Map Wallet
Wallets are really easy to identify and tend to be a key target for thieves. Before we left, we found a wallet (at Chapters!) that looks just like a folded map. We thought it was quite clever since if you take it out in public or accidentally leave it on the table in our room, it just looks like a typical tourist street map.
Secret Pockets
Lastly, the secret pockets: this was by far the best thing we did...
On our previous trips we always wore the typical under-clothing money-belts, which are annoying/uncomfortable to wear and... aren't so secret anyway (since most tourists wear them and the belts are easily spotted when you lift your arms).
For this trip, we decided to buy a smaller version of those under-clothing pockets, removed the straps, and sewed a long strip of velcro to top. We also sewed the opposite strip of velcro to the inside of each of our shorts and pants and... Ta-da! Interchangeable secret pockets that are significantly more comfortable to wear and sit on the inside of your normal pant pocket so it just looks/feels like you have stuff in your normal pant pockets!
If you are doing a long trip and want to do this, here are some pointers:
1) Sew the non-scratchy strip of the velcro to the inside of your pants! This way, if you decide not to wear the inside pocket, the scratchy velcro won't drive you insane!
2) Only sew (and re-enforce) seams on the top edge of the velcro strips:
- On the pants/shorts because will allow you to more-easily flip out the secret pocket from your pants when you need money.
- On the secret pocket because if you sew both the top and bottom of the velcro strip, some currencies won't fit properly into the pocket.
By the way, the idea behind having a secret pocket is to carry/store larger amounts of money around (and credit/bank cards)... we almost never expose the hidden pockets in public. We still always carry and use our normal wallets with enough spending money for the day.. it sorta acts as a decoy so that if we do get pick-pocketed, we'd only lose a day's worth of cash.
Hope you enjoyed the post! Travel Safely!