bienvenue à Paris
In our 30+ years traveling together and separately, my husband and I have not been mugged, pickpocketed, or scammed. This is due to a combination of being careful about our belongings, good situational awareness, and probably just dumb luck. Somehow, we’ve managed to travel safely all over the world, including in major cities like Barcelona, London, Rome, and Paris.
Meanwhile, we’ve heard plenty of stories from people we know, including a relative whose purse was stolen within two hours of getting off a plane and a former neighbor who had a bum bag slashed right off his body.
Unfortunately, we came close to breaking our streak a couple of weeks ago when we were in Paris.
We had been in Brittany and traveled to Paris by train. As always, we had packed light and we each were carrying a moderately-sized backpack (30L for me and 40L for him). I was also carrying an anti-theft sling bag but my husband had no bags or luggage. In fact, he didn’t even have his wallet in his pocket and had instead stashed his ID and money in a zippered hidden pocket.
When our train arrived in Paris, we then took the metro to go to our rented apartment. It was mid-afternoon and the metro was not terribly busy. We sat down for the duration of the ride and kept a close eye on the stops, talking very quietly to each other.
At our stop, a guy who had been sitting in the seat across the aisle from us got off the train before we did and both my husband and I vaguely noticed that the guy stopped to the side to tie his shoe.
This was one of those Parisian metro stations with stairs (not escalators) and elevators. Since we had been sitting on the train and then the metro for a while, we opted for the stairs. I was first up the stairs and my husband was behind me. We were partway up when I heard him say something and then someone else reply. I turned back to check on him and saw the guy from earlier. He was walking by my husband and apologizing for tripping and bumping into him.
You all know what happened, right?
The guy must have noticed us and our backpacks on the metro and decided we would be good marks. He got off before us, as I mentioned earlier, but then dropped back to “tie his shoe” while we passed him. Then he hung back a bit and came silently up the stairs behind us. Once no one else was around, he bumped into my husband as if he had stumbled.
My husband, meanwhile, had just remembered a moment before that he had put his phone in his left pocket instead of somewhere more secure. So when the guy fell into him, my husband immediately slapped his hand against his pocket…
…where he felt a hand trying unsuccessfully to slide in.
The other guy apologized for falling into him and headed up the stairs ahead of us. It all happened in an instant and I didn’t even realize what was going on until my husband told me while we continued walking up the stairs.
When we got to the top of the stairs, the other guy passed us as he headed back down to the trains; presumably to try again with someone else.
In the end, nothing of ours was stolen, for which we are relieved. My husband was careful to keep his phone in a zippered pocket and if mine wasn’t in my hand, it was either in a secure pocket or zipped in my sling bag.
How about you? Have you been mugged or pickpocketed while traveling? What do you do to keep your stuff safe when you’re in situations like this?
Wow! That's some impressive situational awareness in action!
We have been very lucky in our previous travels, visiting Paris and Rome in the off-seasons. I knew about traveling with hidden money pouches, but this was all before the days of cell phones. It is obviously a whole new ball game out there.
In Cape Town, someone took a small digital camera out of my sweater pocket. I felt it and saw someone hurrying away so I caught up to him and demanded he give it back. He apologized and gave it back to me.