I fully support those tourists who fly into a city with no plans, just wanting to see where life takes them and who they meet.
HOWEVER!
While it might be an *experience* to get scammed while on vacation in a foreign city, you can still learn what some common crimes and tourist scams are before you go.
Stolen Passport
Our second morning in Rome, we had a bit of a difficult time checking out because Danilo (the hotel proprietor) was busy helping another couple who had just had one of their passports stolen.
On their first morning in Rome.
She had a backpack on, and in the airport (or some other crowded place), she was approached (read: surrounded) by 3 men talking to her very friendly-like. I think they were asking her questions, trying to offer to help her, basically distracting her as much as possible while one of them picked the pocket on her bag.
Moral of the story: PAY ATTENTION to your surroundings.
Gypsy Pickpockets
We actually saw fewer gypsies than I expected. But nevertheless …. assume they are everywhere.
Rick Steves has this great story where he (in doing research for his book), walked up to a gypsy woman to give her money – just to see how she worked her magic.
This gypsy woman was holding a baby in one arm and using the other arm to collect (beg for) change.
Rick Steves walks up to her to put a Euro or something in her cup, and as he walks away realizes his wallet is gone!
How did she do it?
The arm holding the (real) baby is a FAKE! She basically has her real arm underneath, free to pick the pocket, while the begging AND the baby distract you.
Genius, really.
Andrew kept a wallet-sized phrasebook in his pocket just to see if someone would try to steal it.
Questionable Taxis
There are taxi stands for a reason.
Specifically at the airport, people (who see vulnerable American tourists as money trees) will try to waive you into their unlicensed taxi. Telling you that you can skip the line, that they’ll give you a deal, etc.
But when you get INTO the taxi they’ll take you who knows where and charge you any amount they want, *pretend* to not speak English, etc.
The state-authorized, licensed and regulated taxis are all marked, and there are taxi stands EVERYWHERE to pick one up.
*sidenote* A taxi in Rome legally cannot charge more than 40Euros from the airport to the city.
Street Performers
Oh wow – these guys.
These street performers *look* innocent and harmless, but that makes them worse!
Between these guys looking like *statues* and the gladiators at the Colosseum, they are everywhere.
My solution is to just not make eye contact.
As you walk by, he stays mostly still (like a statue, right?) but kindly puts out his hand to shake it. Because you’re a visitor to his city, and he’s a friendly street performer, right?
Wrong.
As soon as you take his hand, he pulls you in tight “for a picture” (like this poor woman in the photo above) and LITERALLY will not let go until you or your friend put money in his cup (on the ground at his feet).
Yup. Gouging you for a tourist photo you don’t even want.
The gladiators can be worse since they have swords!
SO!
Lesson? Pay attention. People know you’re a tourist. Research what scams are common and popular in the place that you’re going so you can best be on the look out for them.
It was actually kind of fun (and sad) to watch this woman get taken in (for who knows how much $) because she just didn’t know better.
so interesting. I’m glad nothing bad happened to you two.
Very informative and a little scary! Why don’t they get those “performers” off the street? I’ll have to read up on Bosnia and Amsterdam. I wonder what they warn about for the U.S.?
Remind me to tell you the story about when D and I were scammed in Rome. Man oh man…it still weirds me out…
Yes, there are so many scams going on and thievery in Rome it’s ridiculous.
One has this idea about Italy from the movies but I found out the hard way that it’s not like that at all.
Quite a dirty place with mostly nasty people.
Some beautiful sites though, just a pity the ‘gate keepers’ are doing such a lousy job.