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This topic might be tough to talk about, but, when traveling, what have you lost? Did you get it back? How?
It might be helpful for those traveling for the first time so they are extra careful.
When I was traveling in Italy in 2008 with my family, our car got broken into while we were visiting the Vatican and all of our luggage was stolen, including our passports, the worst thing you can lose. We didn’t get anything back because police were extremely unhelpful but we were able to go to the consulate in Florence and get year long replacement passports. After that experience, I am always extremely careful about where I leave my passport and tend to trust myself and carrying it on me than leaving it in hotels if I am unsure.
I don’t think I ever lost anything abroad (luckily!). A few times I thought I lost something like my room key or shower card, but I had others to rely on and found them in the end.
Not personal, but my friend lost her wallet while we were abroad. She couldn’t remember how to get back to the restaurant she was at, so she ended up having to buy a new driver’s license and wallet when she got back in the states. Always pay attention to your surroundings and personal belongs, is the moral of that, I’d think!
Thankfully I’ve never lost anything huge, just small replaceable things like sunglasses or cheap jewelry and I wasn’t able to find them. My family has kept up with most of the important things for me like my passport, but when I went to Barcelona for a study abroad program, one of the girls in the program lost hers. So I made sure I kept my passport in one place and hid it well when I stayed at someone else’s home during a weekend trip.
I’ll add one with a happy ending: A certain Editor in Chief who will remain unnamed, left his cell phone in a museum in Hong Kong, only noticing hours after leaving it.
We called the museum and were told they did not find anything. Nonetheless we decided to go back and check and as we reached the customer service desk, we see one of the agents with the phone in front of her. He was very lucky.
