It was five in the morning, and I was fourteen thousand kilometres from home, in a place where I don’t speak the local language.
I should have been in that early-morning, brain-fog state — gently being ushered into the day by the light of the sunrise and the sounds of the ocean. Instead, my heart was hammering, my brain was stuck in panic-freeze mode, and I was pacing back and forth with no clue what to do next.
One moment, I had been barely awake, reaching for my phone on my bedside table. The next, I was scrambling around my room, searching for a phone that wasn’t there — and staring at the empty space where my laptop should have been.
When your tech is stolen far from home, you don’t just lose devices.
You lose access to your digital life. Your communication channels are cut off. Your identity and financial security are suddenly at risk. And your sense of safety can feel completely shattered.
Last week, I wrote about preparing your digital life for emergencies. In this follow-up, I’m sharing a ten-step guide to the minutes, hours, and days after your phone, laptop, or tablet is stolen while travelling.
Step 1: Breathe
When you discover your devices are gone, your brain may go straight into shutdown mode. Let it have its moment.
Sit down. Drink some water. Take a few slow breaths. If you can, reach out to a loved one who can offer emotional support and help keep you grounded.
Giving your nervous system a few minutes to settle will lead to clearer thinking when it’s time to make decisions about your devices and your accounts.
Step 2: Write down what was stolen
You’ll soon need to switch into reporting mode, and under stress, memory becomes unreliable.
Take a moment to write down everything you can remember, including:
- Make and model
- Serial number or IMEI
- Colour of the device and its case
- Identifying features (cracks, scratches, stickers)
- When and where you last had the device
This information will be invaluable when speaking to police, hotels, insurers, and your mobile provider.
Step 3: Report the theft to relevant parties
The sooner local law enforcement is involved, the better.
If you’re staying in a hotel or resort, report the theft to them first. They can often help you navigate the local reporting process and, in some cases, get word out through local networks. If you don’t speak the local language, your hotel or resort may also be able to assign a staff member to act as an interpreter when speaking with police.
When you speak to police, be sure to ask for a written report or incident number. If you plan to make a travel insurance claim, this will be required.
Step 4: Mark the device as lost or stolen
Your top priority is preventing unauthorized access.
Use Find My (Apple) or Find My Device (Android) to lock the device, enable location tracking if it comes online, and prevent access to your account. This step also makes it extremely difficult — and often impossible — for the device to be resold.
Step 5: Contact your mobile provider
Notify your carrier that your device has been stolen and ask them to:
- Suspend your phone number
- Blacklist the device’s IMEI
This prevents calls and data usage, and — since many countries now share IMEI blacklist data — may prevent the device from connecting to cellular networks altogether. Most importantly, it blocks SMS-based account authentication.
Step 6: Secure your financial accounts
If possible, immediately change the passwords for:
- Banking apps
- Credit cards
- Payment services
If you can’t do this safely, contact your bank and ask them to:
- Temporarily disable online banking access
- Place fraud alerts on your account
- Freeze transactions not made with cards physically in your possession
Step 7: Secure your tech ecosystems
Lock down the operating systems tied to the stolen devices by changing the passwords on your Apple, Google, Microsoft, or other platform accounts.
You may encounter security waiting periods. They’re frustrating — and they exist to protect you.
Once access is restored, review your list of trusted devices and remove the stolen ones (but do not remove them from tracking).
This step also includes securing your email. Email is often the master key for resetting banking, social media, and operating system accounts. Change your email password and log out of all active sessions.
Step 8: Change cloud storage and social media passwords
Many people don’t store sensitive documents directly on their devices — but they do store them in the cloud, which their device may already be logged into.
Change passwords for any cloud storage or social media accounts not already secured. If you stored items such as passport photos, travel insurance documents, or credit card images, consider placing fraud alerts or beginning document replacement.
Step 9: Monitor for location pings
If lost mode is enabled and the device comes online, you may receive location notifications by email or on linked devices such as a tablet or smartwatch.
Screenshot or save these alerts and provide them to local law enforcement.
Step 10: Ignore messages from “whoever has your phone”
You — and people in your contacts — may receive messages designed to scare or pressure you into unlocking your device or removing it from your account.
Do not comply. Do not click links.
You can forward these messages to law enforcement, but otherwise ignore them. Be aware that they may arrive weeks or even months after the theft.
Final thought
No matter how careful you are, it isn’t always possible to prevent theft while travelling. If this happens to you, it is not your fault. There is not always something you “could have done” differently.
But once the theft is discovered, you can prevent it from turning into financial loss or identity theft.
If you ever find yourself pacing in a foreign country with your brain stuck in blue-screen mode, I hope this article gives you something solid to hold onto — and a clear path forward.