Personal Safety While Travelling

Traveling should be something that is anxiously anticipated and enjoyed. Unfortunately there are also a lot of dangers and hazards that await the unfortunate, unwary and unprepared. This document will help you educate yourself on how to travel safely and without undue fear.

Terrorism, kidnappings, hostage takings, murder, human trafficking all has one thing in common. The answer is tourism. Each of these acts has at one time or another in our recent past been visited upon tourists traveling abroad. Not a very pleasant picture is it? So how can you travel and enjoy experiencing different cultures and reduce your risk of becoming a potential victim? It's not as difficult as it sounds. Personal Safety is the result of knowledge, assessment, planning, preparation and implementation. Follow the principles on these pages and you'll see how easy staying safe can be.

Pre-Travel

Your safety and security starts even before you leave for the airport. There are several vitally important pre-travel measures that you need to attend to prior to rushing off to enjoy the sun, sand and nightlife.

• Copy all of your important documents, passport, credit cards/bank cards, medical insurance, birth certificate etc both front and back. Ensure someone you can rely on (family/trusted friend) receives this before you leave. These are the people who would be contacted in an emergency. Always make sure that they have a copy of your itinerary.
• Do your research. Find out if there are any potential problems in the countries and areas you will travel to. You can research the area's you plan to visit at; http://www.voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/menu-eng.asp.
• Contact the Consular Affairs Bureau in Ottawa. They provide an enormous amount or resources when traveling abroad. Visit the website at; Contact the Consular Affairs Bureau at; http://www.voyage.gc.ca
• If you are going to be traveling for an extended duration or are going to be traveling in or through a country or region covered by official travel warnings; consider contacting Foreign Affairs Canada at; http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ and register as a Canadian Abroad.
• Jewelry, valuables, luggage should all be photographed before you leave the country.
• Contact the Consular Affairs Bureau in Ottawa and ask if there is a Canadian Diplomatic Office in the Country you are visiting. The Resident Diplomatic Office can provide a wide variety of services, advice and assistance while traveling abroad. http://www.voyage.gc.ca
• Take a Personal Safety and Self Defense course. Your training should focus on avoidance/escaping a dangerous situation. It should also focus on Reality Based Self Defense. This will allow you to quickly incapacitate an attacker and escape the area. Always run if you can and fight only if you have to.

Accommodations

Take the time to do your research in this area. Hotel safety and security can be very good. It can also be very bad to the point of being dangerous. The following tips are a good starting point when you are researching your accommodations.

• Try to find a hotel with has installed modern electronic guest room locks. The majority of these locks automatically change the lock combination with every new guest so there is little chance of someone having a duplicate key to your room. If you lose or misplace your key, ask to have your room re-keyed immediately.
• Ensure that any guest rooms/adjoining suites are equipped with a dead bolt lock and a peephole.
• Buy a "Bolt Buddy" or "Door Wedge" to keep your room secure when you are inside.
• Is there an adequate fire detection/suppression system? Each room should have a smoke detector with sprinklers systems installed in the hallways.
• Each room telephone should allow outside dialing.
• Guest phones located in hallways and lobbies should not allow direct room dialing. Anyone using the phone should have to call the operator and request a room by guest name, not room number.
• Always secure locks on windows and adjoining doors.
• Try to find hotels with well-lit interior hallways, parking structures and grounds.
• Ideally your hotel should have limited access to its structure. Limiting outside access removes a great deal of opportunity for criminals.
• The parking garage should not have elevators taking passengers to guest floors. It should only go to the lobby.
• Try to stay at hotels with their own security contingent.
• Is the hotel located in a high crime rate area, especially when traveling overseas? Check with the Canadian Consulate Resident Security Officer in that country and they can alert you of areas to stay away from.
• Request a room located between the 4 and 6^th floor Avoid rooms above the sixth floor-the maximum height that fire-department ladders can reach.
• Try to avoid taking a room on the ground floor that has doors and windows that open to the outside. Hotels with interior hallways tend to be generally safer. For security in motels, avoid ground floor rooms off the parking lot. If you are unable to get a room on a higher level, take one facing the interior courtyard.
• Rooms that are as close to the elevators as possible are safest but tend to be noisier.

Safety & Security

Regardless of your destination it is always a good policy to maintain good Personal Safety practices both inside your hotel and while out and about. Good Personal Safety practices are exemplified by the Personal Safety Triangle. This consists of Situational Awareness, Target Hardening and Emergency Response and Mitigation.

Situational Awareness: This is a state of heightened awareness, but should not be confused with hyper-vigilance. It means using all of your senses and intuition to examine the world around you and make tactical decisions based upon the data received. Part of Situational Awareness is learning to pay attention to the subtle environmental and non-verbal signals that are occurring around us all of the time.

Target Hardening: Target Hardening is a series of steps or actions that place concentric rings of security around you. It involves realistically looking at what potential threats may affect you, and planning strategies to reduce the risk of a specific threat occurring.

Emergency Response and Mitigation: These are the actions that will be taken to implement all of the planning and decisions that you made in the previous two steps. It is vitally important that the solution is appropriate for the threat, (i.e. barricading a hotel door may be a great way to deter burglars; however it's also a great way to get stuck if there's a fire).

Be aware of cultural differences and respect them regardless of your feelings towards them. Try to dress as a local, especially for women. Many of the fashions popular in Western culture (Baby-t shirts with the belly showing, tight or revealing clothing) may place you at risk. In many cultures a woman displaying herself in this manner may be perceived as a prostitute or as someone who is sexually available. If you are in a Muslim country, wear the head scarf. Your right to dress the way you see fit will be a small comfort if you are assaulted as the result of your fashion choices.

After checking in;

• Examine the locks and be sure they are functioning properly.
• Make sure that the phone in your room works and can reach an outside line.
• Read the emergency evacuation route on the back of your door and familiarize yourself with the route. Could you find your way out in the dark? There should always be two fire exits in case one is blocked.
• Carry a portable flashlight for emergencies. Small tactical flashlights are also excellent improvised self defense tools.
• When you enter your hotel room, make sure the door closes securely and that the deadbolt works. Keep the deadbolt and safety bar on at all time. Use your Bolt Buddy or a Door Wedge to ensure that the door is secure.
• Place your room key in the same place every time, preferably close to the bed.
• If you have to leave the room in a hurry due to an emergency, you won't have time to be searching for your key. Also, you'll need the key to get back into the room.
• Always keep your room door locked even when you are in it.
• Verify any calls from maintenance, security, house keeping for requests to enter your room. Take the employee name and verify the request with reception before allowing them into your room.
• Ensure that the Hotel's information security policy is good. If you called the Hotel and asked to speak to yourself but said that you couldn't remember the room number would they say "She's in room 564", or "I'll put you through". Hotels should never give out guest information to anyone over the phone.
• Women should insist on being accompanied to their hotel room. Their room should also be checked to ensure that it is empty.
• Be aware of the other passengers on the elevator.
• Try to be the last to board the elevator and push your floor button last.
• Stand next to the controls. If you have to fight you can push random buttons until the door opens.
• Keep your back to the sidewall.
• If someone suspicious boards an elevator, exit as soon as possible.
• Leave your TV on when you leave the room. It will make it appear occupied.
• Ask maid to make your room up during breakfast. Place "Do not disturb" sign on door. If you want maid service, call to housekeeping and tell them to make up the room but leave the sign on the door. The sign is valuable when you aren't in the room because it gives the impression you are still inside.
• Always use the security vault in hotels. The in-room safe is adequate sometimes. The ones least recommended are those that take standard keys (usually overseas). Preferred are those that have an electronic combination lock. The front desk deposit boxes are usually safer but more inconvenient.
• Don't display you guest room key in public or even inside the hotel or at the swimming pool.
• Use the "Do Not Disturb" sign on your room when you are out. It makes the room appear occupied.
• Take a minimum of cash, and only enough traveler's checks for that outing.
• Invest in a good money belt for your valuables and cash. Conversely women can sew a small pocket into their bra or underwear to carry valuables.
• Carry "bait money" for potential thieves. This is where a fake wallet is great. Leave a few dollars and those plastic credit card inserts that they send with it for a thief to steal.
• Never surrender your passport.
• Watch what you are wearing. Jewelry and high priced clothing are clues to potential criminals. Don't set yourself up.
• If you valet park your car at the hotel, and valet driver puts a card on your dash, make sure it does not have your room number, always keep it private.
• Always walk in numbers at night, especially in hotel parking lots
• Don't leave anything of value in your car.
• Park as close to an exit as possible.
• When approaching a car, always have keys in hand.
• Be aware of vulnerable areas such as the hotel's gym. Does it have an attendant? Consider that most hotel gyms are in the basement and they only have one entrance. Being alone in this type of place can make you extremely vulnerable as a target. Hotel laundry rooms would also fall into this category.
• Women should keep purses close to their bodies not loose around or dandling off a shoulder. Keep it in front of you with a hand on top of it. Do not feel awkward to ask for an escort to your car. It is recommended to use the valet service at night.
• Should you run into problems with local law enforcement and are arrested. Contact the local Canadian Diplomatic Office. They will contact friends or family, assist you in making arrangements for a lawyer. If you are convicted, they can assist you in making an application for a transfer to a Canadian prison under the "Transfer of Offenders Treaty".
• Consular emergency services are available 24 hours a day. In an emergency you can make a collect call to Foreign Affairs in Ottawa; the number is (613) 996-8885.

Kerry Sauve

http://www.streetsensesafety.ca