How to Travel Safely

Many travelers today are quite knowledgeable about safety when traveling, but there are also many who do not give safety a second thought when planning their vacation. Travel safety can play an important part of having your vacation be a true fantastic experience or it can cause it to be a travel nightmare. Here are a few travel safety tips to help you:

Before you leave home:

Go through your purse or wallet and filter out what you won't need as you travel - take out any cards or credit cards you don't plan to use--is your Zellers card really necessary in the Caribbean? Do you need your Driver's License, or will you be chauffeured to the airport? Will you be using your library card? Do you plan on using your bank card, or are you just using traveler's cheques? These items are a headache to replace if lost or stolen. Also, thieves may be able to use information from these cards to initiate an identity theft.

Remove excess monies - if you are using American money, take out your Canadian cash (but leave some to perhaps pay for airport parking or vending machines).
• Ladies, take out creams, perfumes and hairsprays from your purse and delegate them to your check-in luggage as airport security may not allow certain items on the plane and will throw them away at check-in. Tip: find out what is allowed at particular airports - we ran into a problem in Panama where the airport staff threw out any aerosol cans (deodorant, shaving cream and such) from all luggage, hand or otherwise.

Remove any unnecessary keys from your key-ring. Do you need the key to the extra car with you? Do you need the garage door key, or will the one house key suffice? Again, these are difficult to replace if lost, or if your handbag is stolen a thief could logically break into your house when you are away with a house key and identification from your wallet.

Before traveling:

As much as possible, do not advertise widely that you will be away. Keep the information to someone you delegate to watch your house or pets while you are away. Here the problem could be that thieves have a free reign and empty house to loot while you are away.