I had my mobile phone stolen from the dashboard of my truck as I opened the door to buy a ticket at the Bara ferry crossing into the Gambia.

The truck was surrounded by kids/teenagers trying the door handles and lockers, later heard from a fellow traveler some of their group had the ropes securing items to their roof rack cut and cases dragged off.

I Ended up staying the night at the port, where the locals tried to sell my sim card back to me.
A couple of days later in a market in Banjul I saw my phone on a popup phone & sim stand, I bought it back for a couple of quid and used it for the rest of the trip.

Call it an "involuntary safe keeping fee".

Next time, maybe get one of these? A dye detonator that can also detonate by GPS and also fire off a flare that burns for four minutes:

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Blog: www.bamakobyvespa.no
My Youtube Channel

Never had a problem while on the road - the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania.

Had an attempted mugging in Rio once - should have known better than to be downtown on the weekend - they failed and came back later and apologised (!)

Had a phone stolen in the Claro office in Bogotá - I was replacing my phone with a new one, the new one disappeared while going through the process!

All the rest of the incidents were having items stolen from checked baggage at MIA - I never check bags through MIA now - this has happened a few times. It’s the only airport in the world where this has happened to me. Having said that, TSA has routinely damaged checked bags to open them - they have never been locked - just vandalism!

In terms of precautions - in some places (Brazilian cities for example) I use a cheap plastic watch and carry a second "giveaway" wallet with a little cash (never had to give it away so far). The obvious practices - no jewellery, no expensive cameras, no obvious laptop bag) in these areas. Secure parking in countries where secure car parks are everywhere - they're there for good reason. When in Africa it's common for kids to "guard your car" (or bike) for a small fee - I always do this - it's not really necessary but it's an accepted way to get some cash flow into the community.

Inside of 110`000 Overlanding Kilometers travelling by 4x4 it once happens at 2015 in Peru. Normally we Overlander did stay in our car, but at that night I was out for Dinner.

Im a very touristic small town named Puno (at the tikitaca lake) somebody did smash the sidewindow of the parked car and did steal what he can get with less time.

In my eyes is a touristic town mostly a bit more dangerous, compared to leave the vehicle 3 days remote, when you like to hike.

By travelling by 4x4 - you carry a lot, and there is usually also enough to steal

They did steal a lot. Even a running satellite Livetracker which I did use to keep mom more relaxed at home. It was heavenly raining and is was already dark - as we did start to follow the thiefes by car.

We did use our smartphone, to follow the livetracking unit, hoping that our datapackage will keep us online.

What we did? What happens? It was an adventure, if you like you can read:

Adventure-Overland: Von Arequipa nach Puno

I suggest to use an translator, than it is in german language.

I dont worry more since then. A delayed theft protection for the vehicle, a good insurance and a good backup plan (Data, Documents, Cash) is everything you need.

In a global world you can restock anything with DHL International Business Express (2 days). As long it is on stock somewhere in the world, you will get it in 7 days too in the 2nd world.

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Only ever had 1 item stolen in all my years of touring, and that was a tank bag in Peru as well. It was one of those moments when I was away from the bike for a few seconds.... lesson learned.

Looks like me and Surfy owe some thanks to the tracking Gods! :-)

Fortunately, the perps had no idea that my Garmin InReach was sending pings back to a satellite and I was able to track the location of the tank bag.

With the aid of some cops and a local motorcycle group, I recovered the tank bag. Now that was one crazy night!

Fully story below for anyone interested:

https://genxrider.com/garmin-inreach-explorer/

So posting a link to more in-depth details of being robbed (the topic of this thread) is clickbait?

I'll let the admins of this site decide if it goes against their TOC's, feel free to delete the link.

Also Cholo, I responded to your PM. Thanks.

I also contribute to this site. I post information or answer questions that hopefully help.

I posted a link to my website, not my YouTube channel. Both are hobbies (zero income), which I do for fun and to give back information to anyone that is interested.

If what I posted is against the TOC's of this site, then I will let the admins take appropriate action. And that ladies and gentlemen, is my point of view :-)