TRAVEL TIPS
AIRPORT SAFETY
- Keep your eye on your bags – especially a laptop computer or other valuable gear – at all times, and don’t let anyone but uniformed airline personnel handle or watch them.
- Be wary of mishaps, like someone bumping you or spilling a drink … they may be staged to set you up for a robbery.
- Clutch your pocketbook close to your body or carry your wallet in an inside front pocket … or wear a concealed money pouch.
- Record the contents of checked luggage, and carry valuables onto the plane with you.
- Don’t draw attention to jewellery, cameras or other expensive items.
Road Safety
- Study your route on a map before you start or use a GPS navigation device.
- If using a rental or strange car, make sure it’s in good operating condition and learn how to operate all controls before starting out.
- Keep maps and rental agreements concealed, and store luggage out of sight in the trunk.
- Keep car doors locked and park in lighted areas near entrances.
- Have keys ready so you can enter the car quickly… after checking the back seat and footwells.
- If bumped by another car, rather than getting out you might want to signal the other driver to follow you to a police station or other place where you’d feel safe.
HOTEL SAFETY
- Don’t leave your luggage unattended.
- Make sure your room has a peephole and deadbolt lock on the door and window locks… and use them.
- Caution hotel personnel against saying your room number within earshot of others.
- In case of emergency, know where exits, elevators and public phones are located.
- Leave valuables at home, or keep them in the hotel safe.
- If going out, ask hotel staff about neighbourhood safety and areas to avoid.
- If someone claiming to be a hotel employee shows up at your door unexpectedly, don’t let him or her in without first calling the front desk for confirmation.
- Don’t display your room key or leave it where it may get stolen.
- Make sure you use reputable hotels
- Ask for a room between the third and the eighth floors (few cities have fire equipment that can reach above the eighth floor and walk-in thieves are less likely to venture above the lower floors.)
- Do not hand in your passport unless required by law
- As a general rule, keep the door key with you
- Always accept assistance on check-in, allow the porter to open the room, turn the lights on and check the room to ensure the room is vacant and ready for your stay
- Before dismissing the porter always inspect the door lock, locks on sliding glass doors, optical viewer, door chain, guest’s room safe, deadlock bolt on inter-connecting suite doors, and the telephone.
- Familiarise yourself with exit routes and fire escapes, read the fire safety notice in your hotel room, count the number of doors or paces between your room and the nearest fire exit.
- Ensure that valuable and sensitive documents are kept in the hotel safe or a safe in your room.
- Use the door chamber lock or the privacy latch and keep the room door locked at all times and the curtains drawn at night.
- Upon entering your room ensure there is nobody else in it before locking the door.
- Keep the TV or lights switched on when you are not in your room.
- Keep your room tidy; an intruder will be far more easily identified.
- Keep your luggage locked.
- Be careful of giving personal information, home or hotel address or telephone numbers.
- Be discreet when using hotel telephones, they are not secure.
- Be careful how you open packages or envelopes sent to you at the hotel if you don’t know the sender.
- Unaccompanied female travellers should not hesitate to request hotel personnel to escort them to their rooms if they are returning home.
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Tags: buy back, holiday season, maxidor, personal security, security, security gates, travel tips
