Leaving luggage in the car

As Perry said, it's great that you've been lucky so far. I've done that too, taking the same precautions as you, and also been lucky.

The way I figure, no thief can break into every car, and the more cars are parked at a given location, the more the odds are in my favor. Absolutely never keep anything in sight, so a locked trunk is a safer bet obviously than a back seat. If I'm a thief going through a parking lot at some tourist site, I'm going to look for stuff I can see first. Park close to other cars and close to where people are likely to be walking or gathering; never park in a secluded, quiet, or dark area.

To a large degree, travel involves risk tolerance. Always do what's possible to mitigate risk, but if you're too risk-averse, you end up never traveling.

We had to leave luggage in our rental van several times. You could see our luggage no matter what we did. It had me worried but we were stopping almost every day for 2weeks. We bought 2 cable locks ( thick and visible ) and locked the handles of all 3 suitcases to each other then locked the luggage to parts of the car. If they wanted it, they would have to work for it hard. We had no problems. We always parked really close to entrances and hoped for the best. Worked out for us.

.I'll put me 2 cents in with this complaint.. So far i never had much choice in which type of car i got. For the most part , they were all hatch-back and wide open for the world to see.. yes it's a problem. Amen.
I think its a crap-shoot.

We have occasionally done it and followed the usual rules: the valuables including electronics, ID and prescription drugs go with us in a messenger bag, we don't open the trunk at a stop -- arrange trunk at a prior stop, we don't leave anything at all visible. So far so good. We also note the surroundings. A lot of shiny safety glass particles on the ground are a bad sign. We do know someone who had everything taken from their car at a tourist stop near a beach in Italy. We usually stay in one place for a stretch and day trip in an area so we don't have stops in transit. But sometimes in transit we will have our stuff in the car.

We've also been fortunate in having nothing stolen from our car despite lots of sightseeing stops en route. As others have noted, we try to keep things out of sight if possible, do not access luggage where we're going to stop and park in open, well-travelled locations if at all possible. We also leave our luggage where we're staying whenever we can, but that's only sometimes.
I remember being very nervous at a Bronze age round house site in England because signs warned against leaving valuables in cars. No modern buildings or other activity were anywhere nearby and we were the only people there. We finished our visit and found everything intact when we got back to the car. The isolation made it scary but might also be what made it safe. What thief would want to position themselves in a place where hardly anyone comes?
photobearsam, I like the idea of cable locks. I think I'll give it a try next trip.

I have left luggage in my car in France a lot without any issues. I do take some basic precautions. EVERYTHING is out of site. I won't take an SUV for example, I have to have a car with a real trunk and everything goes in the trunk when we leave the hotel and is not accessed again. (In other words I don't get to the parking lot, open up the trunk and root around for people to see we have stuff there!) I do generally rent from airports and drive a manual transmission so I have never had a problem saying "no I won't drive that" . (I do it in the US too. I can't tell you how many of my coworkers have had laptops taken from rental SUVs!)

I also remove the giant "HERTZ' or whatever bumper stickers. Yes you can still tell it's a rental from the bar codes, but there's not need to advertise for miles IMHO.

So far so good.

Getting a car with a 'real trunk' is very hard to do since rental agencies don't guarantee the model just an equivalent. We have booked what we thought was a trunk many times only to get yet another hatch back. Most cars in the rental fleets are hatchbacks with flimsy covers that make luggage obvious if it is bulky and pushes up the cover. There are areas where theft rings operate and unfortunately the casual passerby won't know where they are. We never leave valuables in the car, but replacing our travel clothing would also be very difficult. It is of no value to crook but very valuable to us since it wasn't that easy to assemble in the US and I am hard to dress in France. We are not fat, but I am a tall large woman for France where older women tend to run to the petite; finding what I need, particularly in rural France would be a challenge.

As Rick sometimes describes it, some parking areas (I saw them most frequently in Spain) have "Bogus Parking Wardens". They look like retiree men with inadequate pensions, maybe, in yellow construction vests. I feel much better about giving them a Euro or two because they would at least be nearby when a thief was casing the vehicles.

I would never leave things visible in the US, and the unemployment rate is much higher in Europe than in the US. I might add that meth and heroin are (in the US) just as serious problems in rural areas as in downtown cities. So there is no refuge from people who need a quick buck, in the worst way.

Hi Carolyn, I only wish I was given some warnings about luggage in trunk while site seeing. Now granted this happened in Ireland, but thieves broke into our trunk...not hatchback but trunk while we were site seeing. We did take all precautions and did not have anything valuable in the trunk...thank goodness. But the thieves don't know this. They stole all our luggage with hopes of finding something in them. We spent the next day and a half of our vacation with police making a report, sleeping in our same clothes till morning since stores were already closed, and then all next morning shopping for luggage, clothes & toiletries. Horrible experience. The police were great in Ireland and did locate my luggage by end of trip, in a ditch, with everything still in it. But the damage was already done. My husbands was never found.

Needless to say, I will never do this again. Go to your hotel first and then site see or skip those sites that don't make this possible....not worth the risk!