I was cleaned out years ago in Mexico while car camping

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Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!

I can appreciate your anger and the problems it caused you having been the victim of theft, but is it fair to tar the whole of Romania and Romanians with the brush of all being thieves? As can be read here such incidents can, and do, occur in many other countries. It may be preferable if respondents were to share practical security measures we could all employ when travelling (I am not making the distinction between developed and developing countries as western Europe is far from crime free).

Geez, that's the exact opposite of the opinion I formed of Romania after touring through the country on my moto last summer. I thought it was a delightful country, full of very friendly people, and in general, a far, far safer place to be than (for example) downtown London, downtown Paris, or downtown Los Angeles.

I think that the original poster might have been just a little bit naive 'free camping' (sleeping rough) in a country that has just gone through tremendous social and political change, and not taking appropriate security precautions. There are a lot of people in Romania who have been 'left behind' by the rapid modernization of the country and the tremendous growth taking place in the Romanian economy. This is no different than what happened in East Germany when the wall came down, and equally no different than the fate of many poor and/or uneducated people in first world countries such as England, France, or the USA (the cities I cited above).

I mean, heck, you could probably sleep rough in rural Nebraska and never be bothered, or sleep rough in Switzerland and never be bothered, but I can think of a heck of a lot of places in some of the most affluent countries of the world where you would be considered 'fair game' if someone with an empty belly found you sleeping rough.

Lastly - I usually slept overnight at a pension or farmhouse when I toured through Romania - average cost per night was about $12 or so. That included the shower in the morning, and a secure garage or farm outbuilding to park my moto in at night.