I have a decent amount of travel experience in a lot of different conditions, and I like to think I’ve learnt a thing or two along the way. Now, as I’m nearing the half-way point of my present trip and my little sister is preparing to head off to India, I thought I’d try and share some of my accrued wisdom.

What to Bring ¶

No one kitlist can ever be completely appropriate for every possible type of trip, activity or location. However, there are definitely some essentials that I would never want to be without, some almost-essentials that I would need a very good reason to forgo and some nice-to-haves that I would really notice the absence of.

The Ten Essentials ¶

The Ten Essentials are generally used in the context of more outdoorsy, remote expeditions, but I think it can still be a useful starting point for both packing and trip-planning. Different sources vary slightly on what they are, but the one I always remember (because it has a nice rhythm when spoken, and even a little bit of alliteration) is:

1. Fire
2. Water
3. Food
4. Fix it
5. First Aid
6. Illumination
7. Insulation
8. Sun
9. Shelter
10. Navigation

You should run through all of these headings in detail when packing, and rapidly when arriving at a new location.

Let’s go through each of these in turn:

Fire ¶

Whether you’re heading out into the woods or not, it is always a good idea to carry a lighter with you. From lighting gas stoves to starting conversations with smokers, a small disposable lighter takes up almost no space and often comes in handy. Unless you smoke or otherwise expect to use it regularly, I wouldn’t bother with something fancier like a Zippo, because the fuel’ll probably evaporate by the time you actually use it. Obviously, if you plan to fly anywhere, you’ll probably have to pick something up at your destination.

Water ¶

Carry a durable, solid water bottle, at least a litre—I use a narrow-mouth Nalgene Tritan. If you plan on doing a lot of hiking, I would also pack a water bladder as these flatten right down when empty and can contain several litres when full—I use a 3-litre Osprey Hydraulics. A hard bottle on its own is fine, but I would never bring a soft bladder on its own because if it bursts, you’re scuppered.

Also under this heading, and again possibly dependent on your destination, consider whether you have any means of purifying water. At its most simple this could be having the means to start a fire and boil some, but water purification tablets are also very lightweight, quicker and easier provided you can handle the taste. A water filter may be bulkier, but has the advantage of being reusable. However, I think the best option for most cases would be a Steripen, which tend to be pretty small, seem to work well and also look quite snazzy.

Lastly, in many places, get into the habit of asking whether the tap water is drinkable whenever arriving at a new place. This can vary between countries, regions and even individual towns; for example, the tap water in Panama is generally potable, except in the Carribean islands of Bocas del Toro.

Food ¶

Do you have enough food on you to last for the next 12–24 hours, depending on what you’re doing? If you’re going on a 12-hour bus ride, this might just mean a few snacks, but if you’re going for a 12-hour hike and something goes wrong, you might just appreciate having brought more than you anticipated needing. In the latter case, do you have the means to prepare it if necessary, or is it food that can be eaten as-is? There are plenty of foods that tend to go from the former category to the latter when in the wilderness, the classic being a tin of tuna or sardines (provided you have a way to open the tin).

Do you have a way of making otherwise unpalatable food more palatable to you? In my case, that means I usually have a bottle of strong hot sauce somewhere, which can also be handy for avoiding travellers’ diarrhoea (but can also, for some people, cause it). Pepper can also work for this.

When buying food, unless you’re certain you can rely on there being some means of refrigeration where you’re staying, stick to things that don’t need it. This can sometimes involve sacrifices, such as eating cereal with water rather than milk. Also, think about whether you have the means to eat things if there’s no cutlery or crockery available—I rather like this Regatta silicon folding mess tin myself.

Lastly, what goes in must eventually come out. It may be a little bulky, but you will definitely not regret having an emergency roll of toilet paper shoved down the bottom of your bag. A roll of bin bags never goes amiss, either.

Fix It ¶

Stuff breaks on the road, and if you can repair it (even just temporarily) it can be a real life-saver. At the very least this means carry a sewing kit, with which you can repair everything from clothing to your backpack. I also carry a roll of Gorilla Tape which comes in handy in all sorts of unexpected situations, including reinforcing a sewing repair. I also always carry a Victorinox Hiker Swiss Army knife and a tube of superglue. Test and sharpen any blades before each trip.

First Aid ¶

This covers everything from daily hygiene to medications and injuries.

For the former, always carry a pack of baby wipes. If you can’t access running water, you should at least aim for a ‘pits and bits shower-in-a-box every day to avoid bacterial growth and all the fun that comes with it. I’m sure it’s second-nature for everyone now post-COVID, but a bottle of hand sanitiser is also a good idea, both when on the road and when there is no hand soap in a bathroom. A couple small bars of soap is also handy to have, and/or a bottle of body wash. Depending on your hair, the necessity of lugging around shampoos, conditioners, etc. may vary.

I also carry a bottle of mouthwash and a roll of dental floss, but neither is essential; a toothbrush and toothpaste are, and I use a Philips One as it’s a non-bulky electric toothbrush that charges off of USB-C. I also like Salt of the Earth natural deoderant because your clothes will last longer without the aluminium used in antiperspirants. You should always have a set of nail clippers and a pair of tweezers, a razor depending on your hirsuteness and contraceptives at your own discretion. If your hobbies include menstruating I’ve heard good things about the Mooncup, but I lack personal experience for pretty obvious reasons.

You know what special medications you need, so make sure to bring those. Beyond that, I always carry the following (and you should do, unless you’re allergic):

• paracetomol/acetaminophen for pain relief;
• ibuprofen for both its anti-inflammatory effects and for the ability to double-dose with paracetomol for extra pain relief;
• Imodium;
• some sort of antihistamine (I use a prescription one, but if the over-the-counter stuff works for you then go for that);
• an antifungal cream for athlete’s foot; and
• an antiseptic cream (Savlon if you’re lucky enough to find it).

Generally, hope for the best but expect the worst. Carry hand san and purify water to try and avoid travellers’ diarrhoea, and bring Imodium for when that fails. I always pack a small first aid kit with a few bandages, lots of plasters, tweezers, a tick remover and a few other things. You probably also want some disposable scalpels for draining blisters, but remember they’re in there before you try boarding a flight.

I also usually carry a much larger one when going innawoods, and also just in my big bag as a spares box; just start with something BS 8559-compliant, and tweak it to your needs as you go. Check the quantities and expiry dates of everything before each trip, and make sure you know some basic first aid (or, at the very least, are with someone who does). And memorise the emergency services number for the country you’re in.

Insulation ¶

What is your plan for when it gets cold? A bunch of layers is better than a single thick jacket, as it allows you to mix and match to find your ideal temperature. Your needs here will depend on where you’re going (remembering that different places within the same country, or even the same region, might have wildly different temperatures). It will also depend on your own temperature regulation abilities; I generally run hot, so I make do with just t-shirts, shorts, vests and the inner liner of a £10 Mountain Warehouse coat that I’ve been using for a decade now.

Also consider insulation from water, both for you (i.e., bring a rain jacket, I use a Columbia Watertight II) and for your stuff (i.e., bring a rain cover for your bag). On the latter, bring a bunch of different-sized canoe bags for everything from your clothes to your electronics; this has the added advantage of keeping your kit organised.

I tend to lump all clothing under this heading: how many socks, pants, shirts, trousers, etc. do you need for the planned length of your trip? Can you bring enough (plus an extra safety buffer), or will you have to do laundry en route? Also, do you have a bag to keep your dirty laundry in? I use a Baggu, but a reusable plastic bag works just as well.

Lastly, think about what your clothes are made of. Merino wool-based items are particularly good for resisting odours, allowing you to wear them for a long time, but they tend to develop holes are a while; I’m a big fan of the S-70 socks, G3 boxers and T-OSS 170P Airknit t-shirts from LOOW, but the latter two seem to be out-of-production now.¹ If you are walking a lot and find yourself getting blisters, consider wearing two pairs of socks. Always pack a pair of flip-flips (or something similar, like Crocs, if you can bear the shame), both to have something easy to slip on your feet and to wear in communal showers to avoid athlete’s foot. Boots are a very personal choice, but I’m currently having a good time with some KEEN Targhee III Mids.

Illumination ¶

Let there be light, and let you not just rely on your mobile phone torch. A head torch is small and comes in very handy; remember to bring some spare batteries. If you expect that having light on demand will ever be essential, remember the mantra if you have one, you have none and pack spares. Also, consider a small mirror.

Sun ¶

As the famous song goes, wear sunscreen (although I freely admit that I’m bad at following that advice). Also, bring a hat: a baseball cap keeps the sun off of your face at least, a wide-brim hat keeps it off of everywhere. Remember that wearing long clothing can be a good substitute for suncream, as is staying the shade. And remember that how hot it is doesn’t necessarily tell you how much you’ll burn, as anyone who’s ever been skiing can attest.

Shelter ¶

Where you gonna sleep? What you gonna sleep in? This tends to be more of an itinerary-planning rather than a kit-planning heading, unless you’re camping, but it’s always worth keeping in mind. Remember that finding a place to sleep also often means finding a place to ditch your stuff before you go exploring. If you’re going out into the wilderness, this also includes your emergency shelters and the like.

Navigation ¶

How do you know which way to go? This can range from a map app on your phone to a paper map and compass, or maybe even a sextant for the more nautically-inclined. I’ll talk more about apps later, but at the very least you should always carry a physical compass in case of emergencies—I use a Silva Expedition 4. However, be careful what you store it besides and what you’re near when you try to use it, as a depolarised compass is no use at all:

Photo by the author

In the lead-up to a trip, this can also encompass learning how to ask for (and understand) basic directions in the language(s) of wherever you’re going. Also, throughout life in general, try not to just use map apps for everything; look up occasionally and try to get into the habit of navigating with road signs and other landmarks. Practice estimating distances and always identify a gone too far point at which to turn back and try again.

Other Things to Bring ¶

Depending on your own needs or preferences, consider also your means of communication; in 99% of cases this will just mean bringing your mobile phone, but don’t forget to bring some means of charging it (i.e., a cable and, if applicable, a plug adapter for wherever you’re going—I highly recommend the MyTravelPal Pro, as well as this advice about being a USB-C maximalist to reduce the amount of charging kit you need). A portable charger or two is also a good idea, and I’m currently carrying an iMuto 20,000 mAh X4L and a 🇺🇸4Patriots🇺🇸 solar-powered 🦅Patriot🦅 Power Cell (it was a gift) in case I can’t find an outlet to recharge with. Depending on the length of your trip and where you plan on going, it might be worth picking up a local SIM card to get some mobile data, unless you’re happy to bounce from Wi-Fi network to Wi-Fi network. Also, always bring a whistle, and put the emergency contact numbers for any relevant embassies or consulates into your phone.

Documentation is another heading to consider. This could be a notebook and pen (I like a hardcover classic Moleskine and a Pentel P205, natch, and you should always have a Sharpie to hand) for jotting things down, drawing, etc. This topic also includes photography and videography: again, most people these days will just bring a mobile phone with a reasonably-okay camera, and maybe an action camera like a GoPro depending on what they plan to get up to.²

It’s worth thinking about security too, although in terms of kit this generally just manifests as always bringing a couple of padlocks with me—an ABUS 165/40 for beef and a Wenger one for smaller locks. However, you should always be thinking about security both whilst planning and whilst actually on the trip, as I’ll cover later. Also, make sure you have a photo of your passport ID page and any relevant entry/exit stamps or visa details on your phone, and ideally a physical photocopy stuffed somewhere secure (although it’s not always viable to produce one once in-country).

Photo by the author

Money is another important consideration. Do some research on your destination: what currency (or currencies, e.g. Panama’s dual use of US dollars and Panamanian Balboas) do they use? Will you be able to use your cards outside of the major cities? Are there certain things (e.g. buses) that will reliably require cash, and what kind of cash will they require? Will your card even work in that country (e.g., in Cuba)? When taking cash out at a cash machine, consider fees that may apply (whether applied by your card provider or the country itself, or maybe even both) and whether it’s better to take out fewer, but larger, amounts. Consider whether notes in the local currency are water-resistant or not, and pack them appropriately. Also, do you need to tell your bank to expect a load of foreign transactions? Better to give them a heads up rather than finding your card disabled when you try to buy something.³

Lastly, consider entertainment. This will be very individual, so you do you; for me this means a deck of cards, some headphones and an e-reader (I had a Kobo Touch for years and loved it, and I wouldn’t touch a Kindle with a barge pole).

How to Pack it All ¶

How many bags you’re bringing and how big they are, as well as how much stuff you have to fit inside them, will again vary wildly based on what you’re doing. However, there are still a few good rules of thumb that I like to follow.

Firstly, pack things in reverse order of how likely you are to use them. For me at the moment, that means my waterproofs and warm kit are at the bottom of my bag along with mementos I’ve picked up along the way, because there’s not much cause for the former during the tropical dry season and I don’t plan on doing anything with the latter except lugging them back home. Then I have some clothes, with underwear on top.

Secondly, think about how best to utilise the space. Rolling clothes up tends to take up less space then folding them or just shoving them in, though I hope you’re comfortable with creases. Take things out of boxes if you don’t need them (this applies to everything from electronics to medications), and squeeze the excess air out of any bags before stowing them.

Thirdly, think about how the weight in your bag is distributed, and the stresses it is likely to encounter. I know I said I keep mementos at the bottom, but if I had something made out of glass I wouldn’t want it a) to have the combined weight of everything else above it and b) to have it near the outside where it might smack into things, so I would try to pad it within some clothes somewhere towards the top.

Try packing and repacking your bag in a few different ways until you find a good approach. You want everything to be contained, with all lids and zips done up and nothing trailing out if you can avoid it. For a large bag, spend some time exploring all of the pockets (there’s usually more than you expect) and look up how you’re supposed to do the straps up for different levels of full-ness. Also, for the love of God neaten up any loose straps or you’ll look like shit and fully deserve to be sucked into an airplane turbine.

Here’s my main bag (a first-generation Regatta Survivor, capacity 85 litres, which I’ve being using for about 15 years now). Hopefully, this demonstrates all of these points as well as how to get away with breaking them: where I couldn’t fit the camera tripod in the bag itself, I have at least managed to strap it tight to the side and to catch the feet in a side-pocket to keep them from sticking out and getting caught on something.

Photo by the author

Finally, don’t explode your whole bag the moment you arrive at your accommodation. You never know when you might need to leave in a hurry, or in the dark, or both, and that is a recipe for losing things. As much as is practicable, only take something out when you need to use it and then put it back as soon as you’re done. Do up any straps or zips too, although it may be helpful to leave them open when something is waiting to go in (e.g., a towel is drying elsewhere) to give you a visual indicator that something is missing. Keeping things packed can also help with security, as keeping all of your shiny valuable things strewn all over your bed is an easy way to get them pinched.

Apps & Services ¶

There are a handful of apps that I would highly recommend to any traveller (or, in many cases, to any phone-owner in general). These are all available for Android-based phones, but if you use an iPhone then your mileage may vary and to err is human.

Your use cases may differ from mine so this isn’t an exhaustive list of good apps. However, there is one vital make-or-break thing to consider when evaluating any app: How well will this work when I don’t have an Internet connection?

For Finding Your Way ¶

• OsmAnd is my go-to mapping app, allowing you to download regions or whole countries in advance to then access offline. It uses data from OpenStreetMap, so you can also contribute back to by updating the information as you travel.
• Trail Sense offers several handy things, from logging a trail of waypoints for you to easily backtrack through if needed to timing how long to boil water, measuring how far away lighting is, flashing messages in Morse code with your torch, a spirit level and a whole suite of unit conversion tools.
• Rome2Rio is great for a first pass at how to get from A to B using different modes of transport, particularly public. It falls down a bit on the specifics of things like bus timetables in rural Panama, but it’s great for large trips (e.g., my upcoming voyage from Darién to Nicaragua) where these niggling little details are less consequential.

For Staying Alive ¶

• Survival Manual is an app that I’ve never used, but will always have downloaded. An offline-accessible copy of an old US Army manual, this can give you emergency tips on everything from identifying edible plants to building a generator.

For Money ¶

• Xe provides you up-to-date exchange rates for whatever currencies you want, as well as letting you access the last-saved values whilst offline.
• Starling is the best bank I’ve found for travelling, offering exchange-rate-only foreign currency transactions up to any amount, and the same for cash withdrawals. Monzo had the same offering except for a £200 cap on free cash withdrawals within a 30-day period, with nothing to compensate for that.⁴
• If you plan on making any money abroad, I’ve had a good experience with Wise.
• I track my finances with GnuCash, which is really handy for juggling different currencies, fine-grained tracking, etc. It’s also highly complex and has a steep learning curve, so I’m willing to bet this is overkill for most people. Thought I’d mention it though.

For Starting Conversations ¶

• BeWelcome is a hospitality exchange community that grew out of dissatisfaction with Couchsurfing’s purchase by, and subsequent running-into-the-ground-by, private equity ghouls. Use it both to meet locals and to find a place to stay. They have a mobile app, but I would consider it entirely optional.
• Tinder (and other dating apps, although this tends to be the most widely-used) is unreservedly absolute trash. The company behind it is disgustingly exploitative, the app itself is enshittified beyond belief and the premise itself is pretty bleak. That all said, there is a lot of money to be gained by developing ways to match up lonely singles, so there is a lot of time spent developing infrastructure for this; this is infrastructure that can then be repurposed for making general social connections, specifically with people nearby whom you don’t have the time to meet more organically. Some apps (like Bumble) do have specific modes for people looking for friends over dating, but I’m happy enough with the potential for either and have always been mostly heterosocial, so the fact that most of this infrastructure is designed to pair men and women is pretty convenient for me. That said, don’t be silly with it.
• Stellarium allows you to point your phone camera at the sky and learn about all of the different stars and constellations. I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t impressed by this, so it’s a great thing to have in your back pocket on a night out.
• I’m something of an expert on drinking games, and Picolo is certainly one of my favourites. It is varied enough that each game is different (meaning it can be played repeatedly with similar groups, unlike something like Never Have I Ever) and it’s simple enough for even the most enebriated group to grasp and follow. There are also expansion packs available for a fee, but you can usually find someone who has never heard of the app who can get the free trials. In my experience, Caliente gets interesting (but very much depends on your group) whilst Gettin’ Wild is just dumb (because nobody is going to get up and shit on the table because an app told them to, nor should they, nor should you want them to).

For Maintaining Conversations ¶

• Duolingo is not a very good app: after several months of using it to learn Spanish, I realised almost immediately after I arrived in Central America that I had learnt effectively nothing. The recent redesign has made it even less useful. Generally I’d say to avoid it, unless you can’t find any other learning resources for your target language. It also not terrible for learning new alphabets, but it doesn’t really add anything beyond normal flashcards.
• Language Transfer, on the other hand, is incredible: hours of free audio courses for various languages, all utilising the unreasonably effective Socratic methodology that Michel Thomas made famous. I learnt more and better Spanish in a couple of lessons with this than months of Duolingo or years of schooling. It also allows you to download the audio files to access offline, which is crucial.
• Anki is a general-purpose flashcard app which is excellent for rote memorisation. In a sense, it is a better way to target the one aspect of language learning—vocablary building—that Duolingo actually helps with. You can build your own decks (recommended) or download pre-made ones (as well as sync across multiple devices) with AnkiWeb. Works perfectly offline so it’s ideal for practicing on the bus; I recommend reading the documentation fully to really understand how it works, it’s not too complex but there’s some useful info in there.
• The unfortunately-named QuickDic is a lightning-fast bilingual dictionary app that allows you to download the dictionaries you need in advance and access them offline. It takes a little time to get used to the syntax and it generally requires you to understand the grammar of the language to use it effectively (i.e., only showing verbs in the inifitive form).
• SimplyTranslate Mobile is a privacy-preserving wrapper around Google Translate. This keeps Google from knowing what you’ve been searching for and, in my opinion, it has a nicer UI and is must faster too.

For Finding Things to Do ¶

• Workaway allows you to contact volunteer-stays all around the world for a reasonable annual fee. The site is well-moderated and I’ve had a lot of great experiences with it. They have a mobile app that I would recommend, because the site is absolutely not designed for mobile. It also shows you other Workawayers nearby, which I’ve used to meet people with some success.
• WikiVoyage is another fork, this time from WikiTravel. Varies in usefulness depending on where you’re looking at, but usually provides a good overview of how to get in and around, places to visit, eat and drink and safety points. Again, you can contribute back by updating things or adding articles for new places, provided you aren’t using an VPN.

For Documenting Your Trip ¶

• OpenCamera is the best camera app for Android that I’ve found, and the modified version that comes as standard with /e/OS is better still.
• Framelapse is a handy way to take time-lapse videos, which can be handy for capturing sexy sunrise/sunset clips.
• DeepSkyCamera is a good tool, provided your phone camera is up to it (i.e., allows exposures of at least 10 seconds), for taking pictures of night skies; I’d say it’s almost a necessity if you’re going anywhere rural with limited light pollution.
• Wayward is the app I use for tracking my own trips [full disclosure: I have also done some work on the app]. Polarsteps is another alternative I’ve heard of, but I’ve not used it myself. Both let you track your phone, upload photos and share the results with people back home.

Just for Fun ¶

• Geocaching is a the world’s largest treasure hunt. Sign up and hunt for caches, although be advised that they might not always still be where you think they should.
• The Degree Confluence Project is exactly my kind of pointless: a mission to document what exists at every single point of the globe where the latitude and longitude lines cross. Take a look at your destination and see if there’s any to bag (or update) near your destination, or launch an expedition specifically to catch an elusive one.

Staying Safe ¶

Travel can be risky. Everything can be risky. Again, it’s very dependent on where you’re going and what you’re doing. There’s also a lot of luck involved or, more accurately, statistics; you can’t make your own luck, but you can weight certain probabilities in your favour.

In this section I’m going to focus on staying safe from other people, rather than the elements. I’ve already touched on how to do the latter a bit earlier and, if you are planning a sufficiently risky backwoods expedition, I would hope that you already know what you’re doing or are with someone who does.

So, interpersonal risk. Violent crime and property crimes are two distinct phenomena, and I’ll address each separately. However, that doesn’t mean they never overlap, as in an opportunistic wallet theft following an assault or a purse snatched through the use or threat of violence. However, the distinction is that violent crime is motivated by the desire to do you harm, whereas in a property crime it is incidental and (often) optional.

Also, its worth nothing that none of these risks are unique to travelling, and the advice in this section should be applied in all walks of life. I would also highly recommend reading two books:

• The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, for an in-depth discussion about how to use your unconscious brain’s finely-tuned ability to pick up on bad vibes before you do to your advantage; and
• Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller, to understand what violence is, looks like and how and where it manifests, in the real world as opposed to in movies and martial arts.

What is Violent Crime? ¶

Violent crime qua violent crime is fairly rare. Obviously, this varies from place to place, but even in Tijuana—the current murder capital of the world—the homicide rate was about 138 per 100,000 people; high relative to other places, but the vast majority of people in Tijauna are not victims of homicide, and those homicides were not evenly distributed across everyone in the city, but rather were concentrated amongst those involved in some way with local gangs and their various illicit trades. The same applies to other violent crimes: even in locations with notably high rates, most people are not being raped, assaulted, etc. at any given time. This doesn’t mean you can’t end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there are certainly places in which you standing out as not-from-there can cause you to be specifically targeted (i.e., kidnapping for ransom or publicity). However, these are generally high-impact but low-likelihood events that you would struggle to guard against without substantial effort.

However, by following good personal security practices you can reduce your odds of being caught up in something like this as well as lower-impact crime. So do what you can to play it safe in general and don’t worry unduly about the kind of sexy headline-making worst-case-scenarios unless you have specific intelligence to suggest you might be at risk of them, whether from your own perception or from the suggestions of others.

What is Property Crime? ¶

The biggest threat from other people whilst travelling is against your stuff; that is, property crimes like theft and robbery. It’s not that these are exclusively or necessarily non-violent acts, but the risk (from the police, from bystanders, from the victim themselves) posed to a thief who physically attacks someone is, in most circumstances, going to outweigh the potential reward they can expect to get. The most likely type of theft, then, is quick, plausibly deniable and low-risk to the attacker: a picked pocket, a slashed purse or an opportunistic bag grab. To some extent, simple scams also fall into this category, but avoiding those tends to just be a matter of experience and the stakes are generally pretty low anyway.

It’s worth understanding what property crime actually is: osmosis for wealth. That is, if I have something and you don’t, you might be tempted take it from me. If I have lots and everyone around me has little, then even if most of them do not have or act on those temptations, a small proportion will. Understanding the motivation behind property crime (or, depending on your sympathies, expropriation) is useful for understanding how to make yourself less of a target, how to realistically assess risk and, if it does happen to you, how to put it into perspective.

Osmosis occurs because of, and its strength is a consequence of, the gradient between high and low concentration of the thing in question. Thus, you could try to reduce the effect in three ways:

• by lowering the (visible) concentration of wealth on your side;
• by raising the (visible) concentration of wealth on the other side; or
• by reducing the permeability of the membrane.

Like it or not, as someone (I assume) from a highly-industrialised or first-world nation you represent a huge amount of wealth just by existing, without even getting into the specific value of all the things you’re carrying with you. As such, there’s an inherent limit to how much you can lower the concentration on your side, particularly in places where your foreignness is a stronger signal of potential wealth than what you actually have with you. Similarly, unless you plan on only visiting the ritziest parts of other highly-developed nations, affecting the other side of the equation requires large-scale global economic changes that are likely beyond your ability alone, and certainly in the time between now and your departure.

What I’m getting at is that the gradient exists, and exists stronger in certain places than others, and you probably can’t do much about it or the behaviours it causes as an individual. But you can do something about the membrane.

The permeability of the membrane affects how easily transfer can occur. The more useful relationship to bear in mind, then, is risk vs reward from the perspective of the thief. For most people most of the time who might otherwise be tempted, the risk of stealing tends to outweigh the reward of it. However, if you increase the potential reward (e.g., by walking around in designer clothing) or reduce the potential risk (e.g., going somewhere secluded, leaving things laying around), that calculus will shift.

For example, in some places the risk of police intervention or legal consequence is far lower than you may expect from back home. Also, how welcome you are can also have an effect: if you are well-liked and integrated into the local community (particularly if staying somewhere for a long time), the risk of the community turning against the thief is greater than if you are only socialising with other foreigners, or have managed to make the community hostile towards you (e.g., renting an AirBnB in Barcelona, committing cultural faux pas or just generally being a pain in the ass in a way that would turn people against you in your home country as well).

In addition, desperation can also shift the balance of priorities, and when they have nothing to eat people will risk death for bread.⁵ That is the extreme case, though. For the more common risk appetites out there, there are some obvious things you can do to lower the promise of reward or increase the percieved risk.

Don’t Make it Easy ¶

Opportunistic thefts require opportunity, so deny that as much as possible: don’t leave valuables out of your sight unless they’re locked away or at least hidden; don’t leave your phone sticking out of your back pocket, just waiting to be grabbed; don’t give your phone to strangers no matter how much they insist they just need to use it for one call. Next, particularly if you’re in an area with a lot of other potential targets (read: tourists), make yourself look less obviously vulnerable: don’t have a bulging wallet showing through your skinny jeans; don’t walk around looking clueless staring at the map app on your phone; don’t keep touching the pockets containing your valuables to reassure yourself that they’re there (and signalling to anyone watching where the good stuff is located). Tuck your zips inside the pockets if you can, wear backpacks on your front (or carry them by the handle) when in heavily crowded areas like subway cars and give your shoulders a good wiggle every now and then (unpredictably) if you can’t for whatever reason.

Walk around confidently, and if you’re lost, walk confidently until you can find somewhere secluded to check a map, even if it means walking the wrong way for a little while. Look up and around often and keep a good level of situational awareness at all times, whether that’s in a crowded bus or sat at a cafe. Try to travel in a group if you have one, or at least vaguely near one if not. If you can, speak in the local language as much as possible to show that you are comfortable doing so and can understand what others might be discussing around you.

The goal of all of this should be to make it clear to any bears watching that you can probably outrun those around you.

OPSEC ¶

Operational security (or OPSEC if you’re a cool security person who likes to sound like some sort of super-spy hackerman) is all about keeping sensitive information out of the hands of dastardly sorts. In a travelling context, this means always bearing mind why someone is asking about something and generally playing your cards close to your chest. For example, is someone asking where you’re staying just to be friendly, or because they want to stop by later whilst you’re out?

There’s no clear line between an ideal level of paranoia and an excessive level, so you kind of just have to figure out your own happy medium, but I generally always give vague descriptions of where I’m staying (unless I have a good reason to be precise, like to a taxi driver) and am very hazy about my schedule (again, unless I’m trying to arrange to meet someone). In some places, you might want to take this a step further and ensure you vary your routes to and from your accommodation, to mitigate against the risk of setting a predictable pattern.

And, whilst you should of course never lie to immigration or border people, unless you are going to work formally in exchange for money you should probably not let on to people in uniforms that you are volunteering unless you’re confident that it’s okay. Visas are weird, and for all intents and purposes you are a tourist and you are travelling, that’s all they need to know, I am not a or your lawyer, etc.

Haha, This Isn’t Even My Final Bag! ¶

Think about where you are packing your most valuable items (passports, money, electronics, etc.), especially when on the move. This depends somewhat on how many bags you have, but on my current trip I have one large rucksack (my aforementioned Regatta), one large daysack (a 16-inch Wenger Legacy—thanks, previous employer!) and one small daysack (an Osprey Ultralight Stuff Pack) that packs up tightly when not in use. As I’m travelling on a lot of buses lately, this means I have one bag that I have to put in the luggage compartment and which, as a result, contains mostly clothes and other things that I could fairly easily replace or live without. This is my low-security storage.

My big daysack then comes on-board with me, where it can sit on the seat beside me, under my legs or (if needed) on my lap; this bag never leaves my sight and contains most of my valuables. Anyone wanting to get anything from this bag will have to come through me, and if that happens then losing some cash probably the least of my concerns. This is my medium-security storage: it would be a mighty pain to lose it, but it won’t put me at much personal risk, just major inconvenience. It is also big and heavy: if things were going really south I can always ditch it as a distraction whilst I make my getaway, and in a really last resort I could always try to clobber someone with it.

Lastly, I have a pair of Lee Wyoming cargo shorts that I usually wear for long journeys. These things come with an absolutely bewildering numbers of pockets, each with a different method of fastening, which is both quite handy and also allows me to keep my really-valuable things on my actual body. If someone starts frisking through those, then I’m really in trouble, and even then there’s always the chance that they will miss some pockets and leave me with at least some spending money, or my passports, or something. This is my high-security storage. If I lose this stuff, I’m about as screwed as one can be whilst still breathing.

Once you’ve internalised this idea of varying levels of security, you can start to get more strategic with it. Put some cash in your medium-security storage and some in your high-security, and then you limit the risk of a single robbery taking all of it. In my case, I can do the same with passports. If your accommodation doesn’t have a secure locker, then you can hide your medium- and high-security storage behind the low-security storage and hope that someone grabbing something opportunistically will grab what is most obvious. Padlocks are a double-edge sword: on the one hand you want something secure, but on the other you must consider the psychological aspect of highlighting where something valuable is stored by having the fanciest lock in the building. If the thing you are padlocking has canvas sides (e.g., a tent), you might as well just be trussing up a suckling pig. Ultimately, it’s best to think of a padlock as primarily an alerting or delaying device (as kicking a door in is noisy and picking a lock takes time); consequently, they’re not much use if there’s no-one around to hear anything or a thief has plenty of time (although, depending on your lock and the sophistication of the thief, picking may be more or less of a viable threat).

Mindset ¶

Once you understand that an thief is mostly likely aiming to a) grab something of value b) at minimum risk to themselves, you can bear that in mind when assessing your own level of risk. For example, a threat of violence is not always a guarantee of one, and de Becker goes into this in much more depth in the book mentioned above. However, consider also the risk of misjudging the situation compared to the actual value of what you might stand to lose.

Now, much like the shits, at some point you will probably get something nicked despite your best efforts. If you’re lucky it’ll be something easily replaceble like cash; if you’re not then it’ll be something like a passport that requires more effort to replace. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to be happy about it: if I lose my laptop, I will be extraordinarily annoyed and it may well drastically shorten my trip. But, I also know that as much of a pain as it may be, I can also afford another one, as well as a last-minute ticket home, and I will be able to recreate everything important with a bit of effort. So, if/when a theft happens to you, take it on the chin as part and parcel of travelling (or the negative economic externalities that you’ve spent your whole life benefitting from finally coming home to roost, if you prefer to better contextualise it) and move on with your life. Remember that sometime you do just meet an arsehole, whether in your home country or abroad, and resist the urge to conclude that your experience is necessarily proof of some inherent nefariousness of the people and place it occured in. And, perhaps, figure out how to contribute towards reducing those gradients that led to the act of osmosis in the first place.

And, lastly, I want to stress that you should not walk around assuming that everyone around you is constantly looking to rip you off or steal things. That is not a mindset that is conducive to a good travel experience, or to being a particularly pleasant person to be around. Most people are genuinely nice and helpful, or curious rather than suspicious, and most of the time everything works out fine. In particular, most of the best experiences I’ve had have been the result of putting myself out there, talking to people, being curious about things and, yes, taking more than my fair share of risks.

Knock on wood and all that, but in my many years of travelling I have yet to personally encounter anything worse than the odd rip-off taxi fare, and that’s just par for the course. But don’t let optimism become naivete, and if you think you would kick yourself for not doing something if something were to go wrong, then just do it.