The Holiday season is upon us and millions of people all over the world will be traveling in the next few weeks. Unfortunately, when we take a vacation, opportunities are presented to criminals. We want to make sure our clients and all travelers are safe this holiday season, so we have provided some holiday safety tips below:
- Copying hotel reservations, your passport, flight itineraries and other necessary information and putting them in a separate part of purse, bag or hotel safe in case your hard copies get stolen or lost.
- Calling your credit card companies and alerting them that you will be traveling internationally.
- Calling your cell phone service provider and discuss new phone plans for international travel.
- Providing a relative or friend with your travel itinerary and the name and phone number of any hotel or resort where you will be staying.
- Booking a hotel room that opens into an interior hallway. This makes it harder for strangers to know when you are in your room or not.
To secure your residence before leaving, you should:
- Take photos of your valuable belongings such as TVs, laptops, iPads, etc. Also, check that your home insurance covers these valuables.
- Put expensive jewelry or important documents into a storage safe in your home.
- Burglars look for clues to see if you are home or not. Don’t leave outdoor lights on 24/7, ask a neighbor to get rid of piled up newspapers and put lights on timers.
- Call the post office and stop the mail from being sent to your house while you are away.
- Keep some shades and curtains open to keep a normal appearance. If all blinds are closed, it looks like you are obviously not home.
- Don’t post about your itinerary or whereabouts on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
- Never leave a key under a doormat, in a flowerpot, in a mailbox, or on the ledge of a door. These are all obvious spots to look.
- Examine your house from the outside and make sure that valuables are not visible from the street. If so, move them away from windows.
