Hi all,

I'm new here and just wanted to add something if I may.

Security seem to be of great concern as it should be.One thing I have not seen addressed is PASSPORT SAFETY. I have relatives that work in the American Embassy in Madrid and they say be very careful with your passport. That seems to be a very valuable commodity as far as identity theft goes. They say to leave it in the hotel safe. When I'm there I keep my credit cards Passport etc. hanging around my neck under my cloths on my chest and never take it out in public. I've never been a victim of pick-pockets but be assured they are out there and they are watching to see were you reach for you valuables, so I just keep a few Euros (40-60) in my front pockets, so even if someone does get me they wont have all the important things.

I hope that helps or makes sense.

I was at the US embassy in Barcelona where they told me tha about 40 US passports A DAY are reported stolen. Mind you, that is only US passports and everyday.

If you have a permanent residence in country or a place to store your passport I suggest that you do that and carry around a Xerox copy. I’ve used a Xerox copy of my passport in many hotels in Spain and they have always been happy to accept it as ID.

I travel internationally a lot (100,00+ miles a year). This is not a problem peculiar to Spain. It is worldwide, a U.S. passport is a very sought after commodity by foreign thieves.

Another form of backup I might suggest is a scanned image of your passport and driver’s license stores in your email account. That way if everything is stolen you have a backup. This is most helpful when trying to process a new set of ID in the embassy.

It's the same everywhere. When I was in Russia, thieves were looking for my EU passport.

There is no such US embassy in Barcelona. There is only one embassy in each country, and it is located in its capital, Madrid in this case (at 75 Serrano street). Surely you mean the US Consulate.

Or it could just be Richie posting false information again???

richie wrote: ditravelphoto, I think the answer to your question above is... YES. richie is no longer allowed to post on this message board. I think it's clear what his motives are; to make Spain look as bad as possible with his lies and wild stories.

Saludos, MadridMan

Perhaps Rudolfo could ask his relatives at the embassy in Madrid about the average number of US passports stolen per day in Spain - not just Madrid or Barcelona. I would be interested in hearing the number. Based on the countless numbers of hours I spent dealing with paperwork and waiting in the embassy in Madrid (in the consular section, I should add ) I thought 40 sounded quite reasonable. The place is full of tourists who had their passports stolen - every day. The amazing thing was that every one of them seemed shocked that it happened to him/her. Rudolfo is right to warn about it. It's a real problem.

I was in the US CONSULATE in Barcelona today for about 20 minutes and there were 8 people who had their passports stolen. Luckily I wasn't one of them. I never carry my passport because I have an NIE.

Hi!

I thought that the Embassy's and Consulate's office is for, both, Lost and Stolen Passports . Otherwise, it might be considered a serious problem and a threat to the national security due to the fact that total amount of stolen passports is of 14.600 a year (on average). Which means, that American tourists are targeted by the mafias and the spanish authorities should, in that case, dump all the Lost & Found reports .