{"id":14088,"date":"2023-09-01T18:47:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T18:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/?p=14088"},"modified":"2023-09-11T13:51:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T13:51:30","slug":"travel-safety-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/fall-2023\/travel-safety-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel Safety Tips for Today&#8217;s Traveler in an Uncertain World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>When it comes to personal safety, Paxton Quigley is an excellent resource.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Quigley is the author of the women\u2019s gun self-defense series: <a href=\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/fall-2023\/bookshelf-fall-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Armed &amp; Female<\/a> (hardcover, E.P. Dutton; paperbacks, St. Martin\u2019s Press); Not an Easy Target (Fireside); Staying Alive: Armed &amp; Female in an Unsafe World (Merril Press); and Armed &amp; Female: Taking Control (Merril Press). She has taught personal protection strategies to more than 7,000 women in the U.S. and abroad.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14138\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/paxton-quigley.montage.600.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14138\" class=\"wp-image-14138 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/paxton-quigley.montage.600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/paxton-quigley.montage.600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/paxton-quigley.montage.600-300x260.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-14138\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Clockwise from left) Before learning to shoot firearms, Paxton Quigley earned a brown belt in karate. She briefly worked as a bodyguard for Yoko Ono. Quigley teaches a student firearm safety on the range. Photos courtesy of Paxton Quigley<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>No stranger to the media, Quigley has appeared on more than 300 TV and radio shows, including Oprah, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and NBC Nightly News.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Quigley was briefly a bodyguard for Yoko Ono and other high-profile women and taught self-defense to numerous celebrities, including actresses Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Geena Davis, and Judith Light.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Travel Safety Tips<\/h2>\n<p><p class=\"author-credit\">By Paxton Quigley<\/p>\n<span class=\"dropcap\">W<\/span>hen I walk into a large hotel, I often feel like I\u2019ve dropped into a mini city filled with hundreds of people from all over the world.<\/p>\n<p>Most of these people are law-abiding citizens, but just like in any city, there will always be the possibility that one or two of them aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>If you drive and park your car in the hotel\u2019s lot, park as close as possible to the main entrance or registration area, especially if you arrive after dark. Many hotels offer valet parking. That\u2019s fine, but make sure you\u2019re giving your keys to an actual employee of the hotel, as car thieves occasionally pose as hotel employees.<\/p>\n<p>Check for the hotel\u2019s emblem on the attendant\u2019s jacket or ask a few questions about the facility.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no way to be sure they are who they say they are, but if you feel uneasy for any reason, keep your keys, and talk to someone inside the hotel who can verify that the attendant is associated with the hotel.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a brief checklist for keeping yourself and your car safe. This list applies to hotels and motels alike:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Check your room for any issues or intruders. Familiarize yourself with your surroundings as you make sure the room is well maintained. Take a quick look behind the curtains, under the bed, in the closet, and anywhere else someone could hide. Check any locks in the room \u2013 door, window, or in-room safe locks. Make sure they work; if they don\u2019t, report the problem to the front desk and request another room.<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re traveling alone, consider buying a portable door stopper. (Check online, there are plenty for less than $20) As long as they\u2019re fully tightened, they won\u2019t wiggle loose. If you\u2019ve left your door stopper at home or don\u2019t have one, a chair wedged under the doorknob will do in a pinch.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t say your room number in public. Instead, use your surname. Even if you lose your key, you never have to tell the staff your room number \u2014 Just show your ID.<\/li>\n<li>Memorize your room number and toss the key card sleeve. If anyone finds your key packet, should you happen to drop it, they will have easy access to your room. An unmarked key card reveals no information other than the hotel\u2019s name.<\/li>\n<li>Check to see if your hotel offers a mobile feature that lets you use your phone as a room key so you don\u2019t have to keep track of your card and its tell-all sleeve.<\/li>\n<li>If you feel like someone has followed you either inside the hotel or outside in the parking area, continue to pay close attention. Stop by the reception desk and tell the attendant your concerns.<\/li>\n<li>Once you\u2019re in the elevator, push an extra button or two. If you are being followed, you will confuse any perpetrator watching the numbers from the lobby. To a certain degree, everything comes down to your judgment. You need to be aware of possible dangers.<\/li>\n<li>In a motel, check to see where your room is located. If all the rooms are on the ground level and have sliding glass doors, you might not want to stay in that facility.<\/li>\n<li>Most hotel security experts believe that the rooms closest to the elevators are the safest, and those closest to back stairs and entrances are the riskiest.<\/li>\n<li>If a fire alarm is triggered in a hotel, you\u2019re better off on a lower floor. Most fire rescue equipment doesn\u2019t reach higher than the sixth floor. But you don\u2019t want to be too low because a burglar is more likely to rob a room on the first two floors. Request a room between the third and sixth floors.<\/li>\n<li>Keep strangers out. In almost 100% of assault, robbery, and rape incidents at hotels and motels, the victim voluntarily opened the door to the attacker. Often, the attacker was impersonating a member of the hotel staff, usually a room service, maintenance, or hotel security. Criminals have been known to pick up the breakfast request menu hanging on the outside doorknob, then return in the morning pretending to be room service to gain entry.<\/li>\n<li>If you are going to request anything, call the front desk. If you want to be careful, have the clerk tell you the name of the person making your delivery.<\/li>\n<li>Most people would open the door for housekeeping. It\u2019s a judgment call, as I said before, but if you want to be extra cautious \u2013 maybe because you have something valuable in the room \u2013 I suggest you call the front desk in the morning and ask for your room to be made up at a particular time that\u2019s convenient for you. If you\u2019re worried about valuables, stay in the room while it\u2019s being cleaned.<\/li>\n<li>Never leave your door open, even if you\u2019re just going down the hall to the ice or vending machines.<\/li>\n<li>Be aware that the signs you hang on the outside of your door send a message to criminals: A Please Make Up This Room sign on the outside of your door indicates you aren\u2019t around and could invite thieves.<\/li>\n<li>A Do Not Disturb sign on the outside of your door indicates you are around, which in most cases, will deter them.<\/li>\n<li>Leave your lights on when you leave your hotel room. If the light is off when you come back, proceed cautiously. Either housekeeping turned the lights off, or there is someone in the room. Likely, it is the first scenario, though, in most hotels, personnel are trained not to turn off single lights when guests leave them on. If you feel threatened for any reason, do not hesitate to contact the hotel\u2019s security and have them check the room for you.<\/li>\n<li>Before using a health club or gym, check it out. It could be dangerous if it\u2019s in a remote area of the building or poorly attended.<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re attending a convention, be aware that criminals tend to see conventioneers as easy marks with loads of travel cash. When you leave the convention site, remove your ID badge. Not only does it label you as a stranger in the city, but it tells people your name and the name of the company you work for.<\/li>\n<li>When traveling abroad, make sure you have a copy of important documents like the photo page of your passport, credit card numbers, and any prescriptions. You can put these copies in your hotel room safe or leave them at home if there\u2019s someone there to retrieve them for you.<\/li>\n<li>Try to stay in hotels with 24-hour security. If you stay in an Airbnb, make sure the host has consistently excellent reviews and achieved \u201csuper host\u201d status.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For more information, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paxtonquigley.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.paxtonquigley.com<\/a>, or follow the author on Instagram at <a href=\"http:\/\/@Armed_and_female.\">@Armed_and_female.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>21 tips from personal safety expert, Paxton Quigley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2023","category-fall-2023-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14088"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14450,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14088\/revisions\/14450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}