hotels

General Hotel Safety Tips
General Hotel Safety Tips 300 300 Greg Ellifritz

My friend Annette Evans has penned two excellent articles on travel safety in hotels and airports.  The information in these articles is valuable both if you are traveling out of the country or staying stateside.  Check out the articles linked below.

 

Travel safety: hotel and vacation rental edition

Thoughts on airport safety and security

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Hotel Safety
Hotel Safety 750 385 Greg Ellifritz

My friend Daisy posted a useful article yesterday on her The Organic Prepper website.

It’s a rare long form article discussing a lot of different aspects regarding hotels and travel safety.  The author, Fabian Ommar, lives in Brazil and has traveled widely and survived some long term economic collapse scenarios.

Now that travel is starting to come back, I think you should probably read through the article before your next vacation.

The Essential Guide to Hotel Safety While Traveling This Summer

If you enjoyed the article, you might also like the author’s book about Street Survival.

Don’t Use Your Hotel Safe
Don’t Use Your Hotel Safe 800 450 Greg Ellifritz

I once strongly advocated for storing money and passports in a hotel safe while traveling in a foreign country.  I think very differently now.

 

What changed was that some traveling companions of mine in South Africa had several hundred dollars taken out of their locked room safe.  The thief opened the locked safe, stole the money, and re-locked the safe.

 

 

It ended up being a member of the housekeeping staff who stole the money.

 

You know there are members of the hotel staff who have the master key or master code to open every safe in the event a guest forgets his combination.  How secure do you think they keep that key/information?

 

Even without the key, one can make an educated guess about the combination and be successful.  Read the article below for more details.

 

How To Deal With Stolen Cash From In-Room Safe? (Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok)

 

27% of hotel safes are programmed with one of these codes.

 

I stopped putting my valuables in hotel safes.  Instead, I lock them in my luggage with a non TSA-approved lock.  I think that would be your safest bet.

 

 

 

Building Floor Confusion
Building Floor Confusion 480 640 Greg Ellifritz

Just a quick note to remind you that in some foreign countries, the floor numbering of multi-story public buildings (like hotels and offices) may not be the same as it is in the USA.

When I was in Mexico last week, I checked into my hotel.  The desk clerk explained (in perfect English) that my room was on the first floor and pointed me towards the building where the room was located.

 

I wandered all around the first floor and couldn’t find my room number.  Then I saw this sign,

 

 

My room was on the first floor…the first floor up from the “ground floor.”  In America, we would have said that my room was on the “second floor.”  I’ve experienced this in several South American and European countries as well.

Common Hotel Scam
Common Hotel Scam 585 391 Greg Ellifritz

If you ever stay in hotels, you should read this short article.  This is an extremely common scam.  I’ve responded to complaints of this happening more than a few times in my police career.  Interestingly enough, this scam is probably more common in the USA than in foreign countries.  Many locals in foreign countries don’t have the English language skills to pull this one off.

 

Be especially alert for calls like this in the early morning (4am-6am).  That’s when I’ve seen this scam happen most often.  People are drowsy and less aware when they have just been awakened from a sound sleep.

Hotel Safety
Hotel Safety 965 543 Greg Ellifritz

Generally good advice here. I’m not particularly worried about being bugged, but keeping radio and tv on makes it appear that the room is occupied, thus discouraging petty theft.

I don’t copy the fire escape routes, but I do check the escape routes. They will often be blocked or locked in third world countries.

 

A Hotel Safety Checklist for World Travelers From a Former CIA Operative

Securing a Hotel Room
Securing a Hotel Room 1000 512 Greg Ellifritz

When most of you travel, you stay in a hotel or rental house.  Have you ever considered how you might best secure your rented dwelling?  The following article provides you some good tips and is worth your read.

 

Checking In: Securing Your Hotel Room Against Attacks and Intrusion

 

 

Hotel Room Safety
Hotel Room Safety 877 491 Greg Ellifritz

There are some very slick hotel room security hacks in this piece.  They are useful no matter if you are traveling domestically or internationally.  Check out the article.

Just The Tip: Hotel Room Security

 

 

 

Safe Hotel Rooms
Safe Hotel Rooms 634 419 Greg Ellifritz

Google Hotels
Google Hotels 1279 576 Greg Ellifritz

This might be an exceptionally useful resource for those of you interested in getting good hotel deals.

 

Google Hotels: A Best Features Guide & Slick Tips

 

This site may revolutionize the choosing of foreign hotels when traveling.  I urge you to check it out.