Crab Tacos at Joey's Restaurant in the Shops at Don Mills plaza. Had a fabulous dinner with Zeekid and Mel today!

Hung out with my Carps, Dave Liang and company, as well as travel bugs Zeekid and Mel this weekend. Our conversation was mostly about my trip and where I will go as my excitement can hardly be contained. All through the past few days, I’ve been learning about what can be done to keep my gear safe.

Safety was a big concern and we talked about various ways people can steal your gear. One popular way of stealing gear is for the perpetrator to slice open your bag with a knife and scoop up the content the falls out. Alternatively, they might try to cut off the strap all together and make off with the entire bag!

Enter PacSafe, a bag with stainless steel wire mesh built into the fabric to prevent aforementioned theft. The “slash proofing” of the bag allows users to have peace of mind while carrying the bag on your back. The slash proof straps also prevent your bag from getting whisked away from your body.

While there have been some reports (including the comment on the Amazon site) about potentially poor build quality on the bags, there have been other reports about people trekking across the globe for at least a couple of years with the bags. Moreover, there have been numerous accounts found about how the Pacsafe system had saved their trips.

One such traveller on a bus recounted his story about how his PacSafe DaySafe prevented a ruined vacation. Compare that to the story of this poor unfortunate soul (fourth post on the site) who had his camera bag opened while he slept and his camera removed and replaced with two water bottles. The dexterity of the thieves sound amazing!

There was another story of Amanda who was in Malaysia and her PacSafe saved the day.

I was thinking of the PacSafe external wire mesh, but I was told by the staff at MEC that it was a hassle to use and that I might refrain from using it after a while.

However, I just put in an order for a DaySafe 100 which contains a TravelSafe inside, which would at the very least allow me to lock up the valuables if for whatever reason I can’t carry them with me. The TravelSafe is actually designed to be inserted into the DaySafe which would make it easy for me to lug my valuables around securely.