Somehow we never think that anything bad will happen to us on holiday. But what do you do
to help make yourself as safe as you can? I have beento Rio several times and to Cape Town- both are places where you have to have
your wits around you. In fact, when we were in Cape Town it was known as the
murder capital of the world ( not sure if it still is). The main thing we did
was to try to make us look like not a great prospect to mug! I left my wedding
rings in the room safe for the duration. When I went out at night I wore no
expensive jewellery but, and this is just as important, any costume jewellery I
wore did not look like it was worth anything. After all, you may not lose much
but that won’t make the whole experience any easier to get over. Money- we took
only what we needed for a night out. We actually took cash rather than credit
cards. I can’t actually say that we never carry credit cards at night. But we
only take one. We would have another one in the safe.
In countries where you are supposed to have ID we take copies of our passport main
page. We don’t usually carry our mobiles
at night. Nowadays you can usually easily find wifi within your hotel- no
looking for internet cafes! If you do use a computer to access your emails- make sure you log out! I have accessed my
gmail in a hotel in Mexico and found I was on someone elses gmail. I actually
emailed the girl and let her know that I was logging her off. I didn’t think at the time but I should have
gone on to fb to see if she was on there! Ipads and tablets- set your websites to not remember your username and passwords. My
husband managed to leave his ipad on a plane in Vietnam. As soon as we realised
, he had to go and change all his passwords.
Buses- I have heard accounts in Thailand and in Mexico of people having things missing
from their luggage that is put in the hold. A little girl or boy was thought to
have hidden there and went through loads of bags removing money or expensive objects.
These were local airport buses, and not Tour op ones. Ladies- if you take a bag out with you, just keep the minimum in it- comb and lipstick! If
you have money or keys, keep them in a money belt or somewhere which won’t be
easy for a thief to get. If you have a room safe, please use it. If anything goes missing that should have been put
in a safe, you may struggle to get anything from your insurance.You can never say nothing bad will happen but hopefully you can vastly reduce the odds.
Those are only a few tips, and I have mainly concentrated upon protecting your things
rather than yourself. Hopefully you can add further tips here.