The Rise of Traveling

If you’ve ever traveled outside your home town or state, you’ve probably felt the sensational feeling that comes with experiencing a new place. This feeling explains why the world's airlines carried a total of over 3 billion passengers in a single year. 

Modern transportation has allowed us to see the world, experience new cultures, and connect with a variety of people.  It’s so popular in fact that, the U.S. travel and tourism industry generated over $1.6 trillion in economic output in 2017. 

However, with traveling and visiting new places means you’re exposed to a variety of health and safety risks. Not only is it important to be aware of what these risks are, but it’s important to understand how you can help mitigate them.

In today’s blog post, we’re going to be covering four important travel safety tips. Keep reading to learn how you can stay safe the next time you travel.

1. Perform Research

The first thing you should always do before traveling somewhere is to perform research on the place you’re traveling to and any stops you’ll be making. If you’re driving, pre-plan your stops, read reviews on hotels, and check local crime statistics. If you’re flying, read about the airline and any airports you’ll be stopping at.

While research can’t always prevent the unexpected, it can help you make smarter traveling choices. Read through the ZenLyfe blog to learn more about why we recommend research. 

2. Avoid Unnecessary Attention

While it can be excited to travel to a big city and dress the part, you want to avoid unnecessary attention that can make you an easy target of a robbery, sex trafficking, or other crimes. Instead of decking yourself out head to toe with the latest Gucci, try keeping things simple. It might be frustrating to hear but you’ll be less likely to be a target of a robbery. 

Unfortunately, sex trafficking is a real problem all across the country. These days, the horrible people who commit these vicious acts look for tourists in foreign countries that can be easy targets. Be wary of making a scene in a crowded place or showing off your luxury goods. Keeping to yourself can help prevent running into the wrong people.

3. Update Friends and Family

Whether it’s a friend or family member, you should always tell someone that you trust the details of your trip. There have been many instances were people go traveling alone without notifying anybody and go missing. If you don’t notify anybody it makes it hard for authorities to help locate you in the unfortunate case that something happens.

Updating friends and family can also come in handy if something happens where you can’t access a phone. For example, if you were unfortunately involved in a car wreck, shooting, or natural disaster, if friends and family know where you were, it can help easily reunite you with them.

4. Stay Aware

Staying aware is one of the most important travel safety tips. It applies to how you’re traveling, where you’re traveling to, and what places you go to and stay at during your trip. 

Suspicious Behavior

If you’re at an airport, hotel, mall, or any other public place you want to report suspicious behavior to authorities or staff members. You should have a reasonable concern as to what makes this individual suspicious. Simply their race, religion, sexual orientation, or age does not mean you can report them. Instead, focus on what this person is doing. 

Here is a great article that explains suspicious behavior. 

Bugged Hotel Rooms

Too many times you hear stories of people’s hotel rooms being bugged with microphones and cameras. There are a few tricks on the internet floating around that help you detect these things, but there is a great article on CNBC that shows you a relatively inexpensive gadget from Amazon to help you. 

Pickpocketers

Pickpocketers are very good at what they do, which is why most people can never tell when it’s happening to them. A few ways to help avoid this is to:

1. Don’t look like a tourist
2. Don’t keep valuables in back pockets or easy to reach areas
3. Keep your bags closed and in front of you on public transportation
4. Put locks on zippers
5. Keep smartphones off public dining tables

Why all of these tricks can’t guarantee you won’t get pickpocketed, they do lessen the chance that it will happen to you. 

Stay Safe While Traveling

Our goal at ZenLyfe is to keep you and your loved ones safe by providing free safety tips and tricks. Hopefully, with this blog post, you feel better prepared to travel, knowing you are doing everything to stay safe. 

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