Pacsafe: Park and lock it. Not responsible.

The PacSafe gets a lot of discussion, and a fair bit of "love it or hate it". Joe E throws down some great pros and cons: Park and lock it. Not responsible.

The argument has not moved much in twenty years, which is unusual for a piece of gear. It is a steel mesh cage that goes over your pack and locks to something solid. It works exactly as advertised against a knife through the fabric and a walk-off, and it does nothing at all about the two things that actually happen: someone taking the whole bag while it is on your back at a station, and a hostel dorm-mate going through it.

The company is still trading and the range has grown into bags with the mesh built in, which is a better idea than the separate cage for most people because you carry it whether or not you remember to.

What has genuinely changed is the calculation. A stolen bag in 2003 meant a stolen camera, a passport and travellers' cheques. Now the expensive item is a phone, it is in your pocket rather than the pack, and the pack mostly contains clothes worth less than the lock. Spend on a lockable dorm locker and a cheap padlock, keep the passport and the phone on you, and the mesh becomes a nice-to-have rather than the thing that saves your trip.

Posted 08 May 2003 by Ant in BootsnAll Travel Community · updated by Chris