Where to Get Your Pocket Picked

September 11, 2009 | Uncategorized

Oh no, did I ever blow it.

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about a British company using pickpockets in London to put money back in people’s pockets (London’s Putpockets Unfair to Americans). In fact, I prodded officials at VisitBritain, the official British tourism promotion organization, to spread the wealth a bit, and pressure these modern day Oliver Twists to help Americans by putting a few pounds back into the pockets of U.S. tourists at London’s top tourists sites.

Yesterday, though, TripAdvisor came out with a survey of the top 10 places worldwide to get your pockets picked. And guess what — London didn’t even make the list.

Well thank you TripAdvisor for going all out to embarrass me.

First of all, you should understand that TripAdvisor’s surveys are polls taken on its website, not data collected from pollsters at hundreds of airports around the world. Still though, these polls do provide some insight into traveler’s perceptions, even if it amounts to no more than sticking your finger in the air to test the touristic winds. If you’re traveling anywhere you may find “TripAdvisor’s Top 10 Places to Beware Pickpockets” useful.

So where’s the best place to get your pockets picked? According to the 1260 people who responded to TripAdvisor’s poll, Las Ramblas in Barcelona takes the top spot, followed by Rome, Prague, Madrid, Paris, Florence, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, Athens and Hanoi, Vietnam.

Obviously all of these cities are places frequented by travelers. But so are places like New York, San Francisco, and a hundred other top tourist cities worldwide. Since not a single American city made the list, one can only surmise that 1) the people who take TripAdvisor surveys only travel to Europe, with an occasional side trip to Argentina and Vietnam, or 2) U.S. police departments are extremely good at protecting TripAdvisor survey-takers.

As for London, perhaps its roving band of putpockets has won the hearts, but not the wallets, of American travelers.

Jim Ferri