We had a fun time in Paris with the family, but on our last full day of exploring the city, someone attempted to ruin our fun by picking my pockets.

How I Think It Happened

I spent much of the time mentioning to the kids and my parents in law to watch their pockets in crowded areas. Of course, advice only works if you listen to it and naturally while I was the one trying to get others to be aware of their surroundings, it was me who ended up being the victim. I believe it happened while on the metro.

Char was pretty tired and took frequent naps, mostly while on the metro. She hasn’t used a stroller in a couple of years now and so the only way to accommodate her sleep schedule was to carry her in my arms. It generally was an efficient way to move around and enabled us to see the city without having to constantly go back to the hotel to nap. On the last of exploring the city, I later realized I was missing a wallet.

I can certainly see how I would be viewed as an easy target, carrying around a 35 pound child in my arms and focusing more on the comfort of my child than anything else. I don’t recall anyone touching my pants. The most I can recall is maybe it was timed with when Char’s feet tapped against my body. I have to say I’m impressed it happened so smoothly to where I can’t recall an exact moment.

What I Lost

So I mention I lost a wallet—but what was inside it? Honestly, nothing substantial since it was just canceled credit cards. I’m sure it’s obvious when reading the blog that I sign up for many credit cards to help fund comfortable travel for the family. Once I find no more use for the credit card, I cancel it. In the past, I would spend time cutting up the cards, but I recently stopped doing that—in part because it’s tiring on my hands to cut up so many cards and in part because so many cards these days are made of metal and can’t be cut with scissors.

Just a bit of a disclaimer if you decide to do this yourself: please only do this with a card account that’s truly canceled and closed. If the account is still open but the credit card company sends over a new card because the expiration date needs to be updated, I wouldn’t use the old card in this way. I’ve found that sometimes the old card details still work for some time after the new card is issued to replace the old card.

The wallet itself I wouldn’t place a value on it. It’s a wallet I picked up years ago and was collecting dust. I was considering trashing it anyways as I’ve been trying to rid my house of things I don’t need. I do have other wallets laying around at home, so no harm was felt. I had my real wallet on me, placed in a secure location on my body and nothing else was taken from me—just this decoy wallet.

Why Did I Bring a Decoy Wallet

It might seem strange that I would bring a decoy wallet with me on a trip, but I do have two purposes on why I would bring it. The first is for this exact reason. If someone attempts a steal on me, I want to place it somewhere a bit easier to access than my real valuables. My thought is that the person pickpocketing me would feel satisfied with the lift and wouldn’t hit a target more than once.

The other and perhaps more important reason I keep a decoy wallet on me is if someone decides to rob us while we are out. I’m not looking for trouble, especially with the rest of the family in tow, but I didn’t want to happen to walk down the wrong street. With a family in tow, we could be viewed as an easy target. If someone is looking for valuables, I would reach into my pocket and produce a wallet with credit cards that look legitimate and hopefully buy us enough time to get away.

I wanted to keep this decoy in an easily accessible place where I wouldn’t show off anything else I’m trying to keep hidden. Also, I normally keep a five-euro bill in that decoy wallet to help with the story that it is my main wallet, but I actually needed to use those five euros for some children activities we did a day earlier.

I also have some old cell phones lying around the house–I might need to plant one of them on me to help save my real cell phone in the event someone does try to rob us.

How I Further Minimize Risk of Pickpockets

I’m sure most of the advice out there is fairly obvious once you see it. I try not to keep anything in my pants pockets aside from my decoy wallet. Everything I have is safely secured in interior zippered pockets. I also have a jacket that has about twenty zippers in secret locations that Jenn likes to make fun of, but it’s useful when dealing with sticky situations. I may have to bring that one out of retirement for the next trip to a city with a high concentration of petty crime.

Of course, I would say the difficult thing is always making sure you’re consistent with any method used to counter theft. It’s a bit inconvenient to always place my phone in its normal hiding place when I know I will be using it again shortly. It’s also tough to make sure it doesn’t look obvious things are piled into a single pocket, making it a tempting target for any would-be criminal.

Kids add a separate problem as they don’t have a belief there are nefarious people out there. Getting them into a seat on the metro keeps them out of the crowds. We try to avoid the crowds as much as possible by visiting popular sites at less popular times. And we just try to inform the kids about situational awareness, asking them what a bad guy would take from us if they had the chance and how they might prevent it. Over time, they’ll get it figured out.

As much as Jenn wants to think this was some social experiment to see if someone would pickpocket us, I’m just trying to put us in position to make it through some sticky situations. And I feel I’m going to continue bringing decoy wallets or phones especially to places considered high risk of pickpockets.

Have you been pickpocketed before?

Suggested reading:

• Destination Spotlight: Paris, France
• Exploring Paris With Children
• The Travel Gadgets That Make Our Travel Easy