10 Safety Tips For Traveling

Introduction

Centuries ago, people traveled long voyages by sea knowing they might die along the way. Now, we might find ourselves sulking in misery because our flight to a different continent has been delayed a half hour. 

Modern conveniences created safer travel, but we still have the responsibility of looking out for ourselves in unfamiliar places. Part of having access to modern conveniences is understanding how to leverage them. With this knowledge, we can protect ourselves during new experiences instead of succumbing to the anxieties they might create. 

Before you travel, note these 10 important safety tips so that you can come home to dramatically relay the stories of your excursions to your coworkers.

Tip #1: Keep your money in a secure place

Money can’t buy happiness, but it makes up for this in keeping you well-fed, hydrated, and taken care when you’re galavanting through an unfamiliar city. Since it functions to ~keep you alive~, keep your money safe. 

Secure your money in a wallet or the back pocket of your bags. Your credit cards and cash are more vulnerable in the front pockets of your backpacks, where people can reach in without your knowledge. This goes for your phone, too— putting your phone in the front pocket of your backpack or the back pocket of your pants might provoke theft quicker than you can Google search “how to make sure my phone doesn’t get stolen.”

Consider filling a fanny pack with your valuables and strapping it across your body with the zipper at your chest. Your possessions will remain in your direct view and close to the body at all times. 

Pick-pocketers can ruin your day within the blink of an eye. If you’re prepared, they’ll be someone else’s problem.

Tip #2: Travel with others

What’s an experience without someone to share it with? As you’re standing on the roof of a building watching the pastel colors of the sunset dip and dive through the gaps in the skyline, your experience is only further amplified with a hand to hold.

From a safety perspective, it’s harder to break a bundle of sticks than a singular stick. Travel in a pack. What one person does not know, another person might, and this sense of teamwork works to combat all sorts of conflicts that come up during a journey. 

It’s especially important to stick to a group at night. Following a peaceful sunset, the descent into darkness provokes chaos and anarchy in some cities. Navigating the dark hours alone will make you vulnerable.

Tip #3: Share your location

It can’t hurt to share your location with your fellow travelers and your family and friends. You never know what might happen in an unfamiliar place. Also, knowing that others know where you are at all times will give you peace of mind.

There are a number of applications you can use to share your location. The best ones are Life 360 and Find My. SnapMaps is a great resource for letting your SnapChat friends see where you’ve traveled, but it does not always update until you reopen the application. If you haven’t enabled these updates in your SnapChat settings, reserve SnapMaps for social clout instead of safety.

Tip #4: Know where to find the police

Can you recite the phone number of a single one of your friends?

With contact lists in our phones, we no longer have to memorize and rehearse new phone numbers. Before you go somewhere, research the phone number of the police station in the area you’re visiting and make a contact in your phone for it. Whether you name the contact the police, the cops, the fuzz, the po po, or the boys in blue, make sure that it’ll only take you a couple of taps to contact them. 

Also, take a look at your maps application to locate the local police stations. At the end of the day, it’s better to take as many extra precautions as possible rather than to realize too late that you haven’t taken enough.

Tip #5: Research public transit

Unless you’re spending the full day in your hotel room, you need to know how to get around.

Because Rideshare applications exist almost everywhere, they serve as many people’s default mode of transportation. When using Rideshare applications, triple check that the license plate on your phone matches the one of the car picking you up. There are countless stories revolving around dangerous people posing as Uber or Lyft drivers and overcharging people for the ride or, in the worst situations, physically harming the passengers. Before entering the car, ask the driver who he or she is picking up and make sure they tell you the correct name before hopping in.

Besides knowing how to navigate, ensure you understand the culture of the public transit in the city you’re visiting. In many places, there are notoriously dangerous times to access public transit. Do a quick online search or reach out to locals to gather an understanding of the safest ways to get around according to the time of day.

For example, the subway system is an efficient and cost effective way to navigate New York City, especially to avoid the standstill traffic that riddles the streets. However, past 8 pm, many recommend walking or using rideshare apps instead to avoid dangerous encounters beneath the ground level. 

It’s safer to be flipped off from the driver’s side of another car than it is to deal with face-to-face encounters with people who aren’t sober.

Tip #6: Respect the culture

Locals will respond differently to your road rage in New York than they will to your road rage in Texas. The potential consequences of one heavily outweigh the other.

Avoid (even unintentionally) disrespecting the area around you. Understand that every region of the world abides by different social rules and etiquette. Some deal with disruptions to the status quo more drastically than others.

Learn as much as you can about respect for new cultures not only to stay safe but also to befriend the people around you. The more friends you have, the more fulfilled you’ll be. 

Tip #7: Use Exchange Zones

Exchange Zones are secure, convenient locations that allow people to drop off and pick up items asynchronously. With personalized access codes for individual compartments, Exchange Zones can enhance your safety as you travel.

A bag might have helped you prepare for a trip, but it can also get in the way. For instance, a walk in the park with a roller suitcase turns from tranquil to intolerable. Or a happy hour after a work event might cause you more stress trying to find enough space between bar stools for your briefcase. Why incite more stress when you just wanted to take the edge off? 

Exchange Zones give you a way to store your items in a safe place so that you can feel protected.

Sometimes you pipeline from over-pack to broken-back— having a full backpack might cause an unnecessary struggle. When you store your belongings in an Exchange Zone, your experiences will become hands-free and back-relieving, allowing you to better appreciate your trip.

How to Use Exchange Zones

1. Download a Relai App: Located in any app store, search and download SHIFT.

2. Choose an Exchange Zone: Review the list of operating Exchange Zones and choose the one that fits best into your itinerary for drop-off and pick-up.

3. Choose a Time Block: Decide how much time you need for item storage to ensure that your item drop-off and pickup runs smoothly in the midst of your schedule.

4. Navigate to the Exchange Zone: Copy and paste the address of the Exchange Zone into your maps application and follow the route.

5. Drop-Off and Pickup: Follow the in-app prompts to safely store and retrieve your items.

Tip #8: Download electronic versions of your documents

With AI, a parallel of the human brain is starting to have a digital presence. Everything is digitized. Because of this, we are less reliable when it comes to keeping track of our smaller items, like IDs, credit cards, and passports. Our key fobs and coupons are always at risk for survival as we condition ourselves to focus our attention on digital assets.

Keep a digital copy of all of the documents you need for the trip. It’s devastating to lose important documents you waited weeks or months to receive, like a passport, but when you ensure you have copies to exhibit to government officials, you’re more likely to make it home without much of a hassle.

Digital documents might save you from panic and exhaustion and they take seconds to download into your mobile device.

Tip #9: Be aware of your surroundings

Not only do you look more confident with your head held high, but by looking up, you are more accountable for your awareness of the world around you. You make yourself an easy target for reckless pedestrians, drivers, or bikers when you read text messages in the middle of the crosswalk. 

The less you see of the world around you, the more vulnerable you are. You have a limited attention span, so while you’re walking, keep your eyes on the people and places around you. 

Not to mention that you’ll miss out on the value of your surroundings with your head down. You’ll miss pieces of art, architecture, fashion, food and drink places you didn’t know about, and strangers who smile at you and brighten your day.

You have all of the time in the world to respond to emails and scroll through social media, but you don’t have forever to explore an area you don’t live in. 

So think like a unicorn and have your horn pointed to the sky at all times.

Tip #10: Trust your gut

If you ever have that gut-sinking feeling that something isn’t right, trust yourself. Go somewhere else. Your gut is your second brain. It houses anxiety and fear-based reactions, and anxieties and fears exist to warn you that something may not be right. 

Life is about taking chances, but the risk of your safety is rarely worth any reward.

Conclusion

Knowledge is not only power but armor against the unknown. 

At the end of the day, the most important part of a trip is the ability to come home in one piece and relive every incredible moment. And spend hours showing everyone around you hundreds of photos they didn’t ask to see. And bask in the online attention you get from the highlight reel you posted on Instagram or Facebook. Seriously, how can you know how many likes and comments you got if you don’t come home safely?

The more you have to worry about, the less space your mind has to immerse itself in the present moment. 

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