No matter if you are travelling in your own country or abroad, safety should be one of your priorities. Nothing can ruin a trip more quickly than falling victim to petty crime, but unfortunately travelers are often victims of violent crime that can have devastating effects.
To help keep you, and your travelling companions, safer try following these ten tips.
Arrive at your destination during the day
Big cities can be eerily frightening at night. Small towns can look almost deserted. No matter your destination, arriving during the day allows you to get your bearings and acclimate yourself much easier than at night.
Be confident
Walk like you know where you are going with your head and eyes up. If you are constantly checking your bearings or your map you are going to draw instant attention. Map out your routes in your hotel room or in your car when no one can see you.
Carry a throw away wallet
When held up, a robber generally just wants some cash. If you have a decoy wallet with a small, but decent amount of cash and a few older membership cards (not credit cards) you can usually give this up and avoid the situation from escalating. You lose the money, but you don’t lose the documentation or credit cards.
Use the hotel room safe
Many people hate being squeezed for a few extra bucks by their hotel, but this certainly beats having your laptop, iPod or jewelry stolen by the staff or a thief that targets hotel rooms.
Ask the concierge
In larger cities, a dangerous neighborhood can easily be just a few blocks away from one of the nicer areas. Ask the hotel concierge about areas to avoid when leaving the hotel. They may even be able to alert you to some of the more common crime trends that have been on the local news.
Ease up on the alcohol
A person who is visibly tipsy is a much easier mark for any criminal than someone who is clearly sober. Add to it the tendency to make poor decisions when you are inebriated and you have a perfect mix for becoming a victim of crime.
Photocopy documents
While this doesn’t help prevent crime, it does help you recover faster if you are a victim. Having passport information, credit card numbers, driver’s license information, etc. at your fingertips will help you get back on your feet more quickly.
Divide up valuables
Packing all of your jewelry or electronics in one bag may make sense, until your bag is stolen. Keep expensive items separate so that thieves can’t snatch everything in one easy grab.
Consider credit cards over cash
Sure it may cost a bit more, but if your cards are stolen you can cancel them and dispute fraudulent charges. Once the cash is gone, it’s gone.
Avoid packing unnecessary valuables
If you don’t bring it with you, it can’t get stolen on your trip. If you don’t need something avoid packing it along just in case.
Bonus tip – Check your credit card statements closely after travelling. While it may be safer to use plastic over paper, credit card numbers can be stolen and used fraudulently. Make sure yours wasn’t lifted by a local by checking your account.
Jeff writes for the Consumer Media Network’s travel insurance blog where you can find more information about travel insurance and travel safety.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the post! Was sorting out the last minute things to remember before going for a vacation with family. But the safety of our family is the top priority. This post is a reminder to me to think about safety first. The points which you have sorted out are truly vital. Thanks for sharing!
Thomas@senior citizen activities for seniors´s last [type] ..Online Senior
Very sensible advice. This is one I will be recommending to my wife. She tends to do a lot of travelling in her job. But packs too much of jewellry. Also the card over cash has a great logic. Asking locals about places is good, but must share what happened with my friend’s wife. She had gone to Barbados for a business trip and asked the waiter in her hotel about which place he would suggest she visit in the little time she had off. He suggested Pine Row, she went to that place and was sadly robbed and attacked. When she confronted the waiter he said the place was safe in his view and after a lot of interrogation even by the police and hotel manager, nothing was proved, but the poor woman had to suffer as a result of the local wisdom. So I am a little skeptical about it. Otherwise great tips.
Jack@border patrol jobs´s last [type] ..Border Patrol Jobs- Past and Present
Must share the story when I went to Mexico recently and lost my baggage, I was left without my clothes and important documents that were in it. I was unable to drive my car, as I did not have my license. When I read your post I was reminded of it. Always while travelling remember to carry photo-copies and keep one in your hand baggage that is with you and the other in the bag. Originals with you are better than in the bag, so that they do not get lost or misplaced. Thanks for the other tips.
I think it does help you recover faster if you are a victim. Having passport information, credit card numbers, driver’s license information, etc. at your fingertips will help you get back on your feet more quickly.
Edmund Marek´s last [type] ..How to do forex trading
A very important point you have made is about alchol. Often I have noticed on trips, people go crazy and spend a lot of money drinking, and instead of enjoying the beautiful scenery due to their excessive drinking people suffer from hangovers and fall ill as a result more on holidays. Arriving during the day helps prevent robberies, but must add that night rates are pretty good, it’s almost 50 % cheaper. Thanks for your useful tips, were very helpful.
Nice tips. Never would have thought to carry a decoy wallet.
Jeff @ Myrtle Beach Real Estate´s last [type] ..Buyer’s Advantage Program
I organise trips with my friends and have a lot of problems when it comes to ensuring that the trip is safe. There have been times that my girlfriend and I have sacrificed our sleep to ensure that the group has a safe trip. But the tips that you have given here seem very effective and could prove to be helpful to have a safe trip. With your suggestions, each one takes their own steps to ensure a safe trip. I am bookmarking this page and will send it to my friends who come on trips with me. Hoping that our future trips will be safe ones. Thanks for your helpful post.
While traveling, tourists robbing cases have increased greatly. You have suggested a good way to avoid this. I think the idea of dividing the valuables among the group is great! Going to keep this in mind when I’ll be visiting Egypt later in this month. Thanks for your valuable tips!
I really doubt the hotel safe being safe. The robbers are generally hand in gloves people. They often tend to know those safe combination, but if you mean that there will be more consciousness on the part of the hotel folks then you may be right in that regard. i was wondering if you were on a holiday, as there have not been many posts from you recently. Being confident and making it seems like you know what your are doing and at the same time saying ask the hotel staff are contradictory plans. The staff often are the ones who inform thieves about customers who can be robbed and tend to share the loot.
You have given perfect tips to make vacations one of the happy moments in life. Some bad incidents may ruin all the fun of vacations. Due to increasing incidents of robbing tourists, I was little worried about my Hawaii trip this February with my family. Thanks for your useful tips, this will atleast make my trip a stress free trip!
Travel is totally not my cup of tea. And whenever we have to make any trip, I get into a chaotic phobia of sorts. I begin to feel as though something bad will happen. These tips that you have given here seem like what I need to follow so that the risks of the problems that I encounter can be reduced. My family will be very happy that I have started to use the internet for help with my fear of new places and travel.
be carefull when travel alone… i really like the idea of bringing photocopy of ID, passport. It’s really usefull.. thanks for sharing this nice article
The Decoy Wallet is an excellent one. I am used to taking 2 wallets so that on nights out there’s no danger of losing cards that you don’t really need all the time on holiday, like driving licenses, but I hadn’t thought of the benefits of this in a theft situation.
Another good thing to ask the concierge is what cash points in the area are best to avoid. Certain streets/neighbourhoods may be notorious for gangs targeting people after withdrawing cash or your card getting cloned in the machine.
Excellent tips. I also prefer arriving at the destination during the day and as early as possible so that I could already start exploring the place all through out the day. If I arrive at night, I’ll just be paying for the accommodation without enjoying the place on that same date.
carrying cash is better i guess if u can keep it safe or travelers cheque coz sometimes the currency conversion rates are higher.
I will be traveling on Thursday and these tips can help me on my trip. I agree that credit card is much better than cash/money. Great post Jeff!
This is helpful among those who will travel. I like to travel around the world. I agree that these are the most important tips you should consider. My advice is that you should be always informed on the place you’ll travel. Don’t be innocent because there are a lot of bad people that is selfish and may harm you. Just be safe always.
Thailand has its fair share of problems for travellers but it’s definitely still one of the safest places to travel in South East Asia. The tip about not hitting the booze to hard is a good rule to follow where ever you go in the world and especially if you are going anywhere off the beaten track.
It amazes me some of the guys who get tanked up and end up going out with, let’s just say some woman who you wouldn’t want your mom to meet only to wake up being robbed. Another thing is of course the scam artists who lead guys into thinking that they have found their one true love only to be taken to the cleaners. http://www.thailand-lawyer.com/divorce-faqs.html“> divorce in Thailand with foreigners and Thais is on the rise all for the simple reason that most of the time the girls who are looking for western partners (not all of them) unfortunately see them as meal tickets