[SirBill]

The thieves thank you for providing the link on how to break into your MacBook, since most thieves are not smart enough to do so... like you say they just want to wipe and sell it.

The iPhone should not need WiFi for Find My iPhone to work. But it probably does require you have data roaming turned on if you are not in your home country, did you have that disabled? They might have also shut down the iPhone.

Also having the Macbook join any open network it sees might bee a good security option for making it more likely it would contact a network to be found... though it's also a bit of a security risk by itself.

As you said, very good idea not to keep the backup drive and computer together. When I'm traveling if I leave the room without my computer, I generally try and carry the backup drive somewhere on me.