Its been over a year now since my backpack was stolen during our travels around Peru, and I'm only just now starting to get over it.
This long delay is not because I've been brooding over the fact that someone got the better of me and that I lost a significant amount of my belongings. I got over that one as soon as my insurance check was issued and I had repurchased my major electronics. No, the only thing that kept me upset for so long was that my bag also contained some very specific souvenirs that I simply could not find back home.
But as of now, just over one year later, I can say that things are finally coming together- and I have my friends and readers to thank for that dozens of times over.
The Global Travel Community to the Rescue!
When my bag was stolen, the hardest hitting items that I lost were shot glasses from each country we had visited since shipping our previous box (a few countries in South America), coins from all of the countries we had visited on our trip (because I never shipped them due to weight reasons), and a set of moai statues from Easter Island which I was preparing to ship home a few weeks later.
The shot glasses were easy to replace. I do not hold sentimental value on where I bought the shot glass and am merely interested in having one from each country I visit, so my family bought those as a Christmas gift to help finish my collection (I'm now up to 65 out of 67, Hooray!).
The coins were a little trickier, but a request out on social media put me in touch with fellow travel addicts who ended up acquiring coins from Mauritius, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Nepal, and a select few from Africa, which ended up returning most of the coins I lost.
Ironically enough, the country that I thought would be the hardest to get due to its remoteness, Mauritius, ended up being the first one that came through. For the cost of a beer plus postage, my friends were more than willing to help out and I am eternally grateful.
The most difficult item to repurchase was, without a doubt, the moai statues I purchased on Easter Island. These are large (roughly as tall as your hand), originally were eight in total, and rather expensive statues (~$70 combined). Throw in the fact that you can only get them on Easter Island, one of the most remote places in the world, and you found me with a hard issue to get around.
Not only did I have to find a friend who was going to Easter Island, but they also had to have the cash, available bag space, and time to go out on a shopping trip for me.
As you can imagine, this was a pretty challenging task.
Being friends with travel addicts, I did come across a few people in the last year who were actually visiting this incredibly remote island. The first friend I had who went couldn't get them as the vendor was closed on her last day when she went to buy (they do keep random hours at the best of times). As if it was a miracle enough that I knew just one person going to Easter Island within a year of me, another friend went a month later and ended up buying six statues from a vendor who had ones close to what I was looking for. Ironically enough, she mailed them from Easter Island and shipping was faster and cheaper than most of mainland South America.
Victory all around!
Reflecting on Being a Member of the Travel Community
This experience reminds me how much I love being a part of the travel community. Had I been the only person I know who travels, it would have been pretty safe to say that all of my purchases would have been lost forever (what are the odds I'll ever make it back to Mauritius or Easter Island?).
Instead, I feel quite fortunate to be friends with dozens upon dozens of travel bloggers, hundreds of others we've met on the road, and have a community here on Living the Dream who sent no shortage of emails offering to help out once we shared the story of our loss. If it wasn't for this outpouring of support that we received, we may very well still be upset over the loss of our backpack and those items we thought we'd never, ever see again.
A Call For Help! We Have a Few Items Still Outstanding
There are a few items from my collection that are still outstanding, and I'm looking forward to replacing them in the coming weeks and months. If you happen to be from the USA and are traveling to any of the following countries soon, I'd be more than happy to buy you a beer if you could help out with replacing the following for us:
- Coins (a selection of each size / value): UAE, Oman, India, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia
- Shot Glasses (will be ordering online): Easter Island, Liechtenstein
If you are, please email us at [email protected] so we can talk!
Overall, sometimes it pays to have friends who are addicted to traveling as much as you are. My biggest regret of this entire experience is not the original loss of these items, but rather that I cannot enjoy that repayment beer with most of these friends and travelers personally.
The pros and cons of being in a global community, I suppose.
