Holiday Travel Security
By TorchStone VP, Scott Stewart
As we approach the 2024/2025 Holiday season, many people will be traveling. Indeed, some estimates indicate up to 50 percent of all Americans will travel during the 2024 holiday season. Some will head to the slopes, some to the beach, and yet others will visit family. But no matter where your holiday travel plans are taking you, there are steps you can take to help ensure your trip is safe and uneventful while your home remains secure.
Planning Your Trip
The first step I advise anyone to take before going on a vacation to research the location as thoroughly as possible in the time they have, using all the tools at their disposal.
There is an incredible amount of information available on the internet and many times a simple search of the neighborhood or street name will uncover a great deal of material about a location including background history and geography, neighborhood guides, news stories, gossip websites, and blogs.
Street-view photos can also convey a great deal of useful data.
Quite often a basic internet search will also take you to a map of the area, but if not, you should go to Google Earth or another mapping tool to get a general overview of the area using the map, satellite, and street views.
A search for the city or neighborhood name and crime data can also be useful. Many municipalities publish their crime statistics by neighborhood, police precinct, or zip code. Some places will even provide searchable crime maps that can help highlight crime trends and locations.
However, in places where crime data is not readily available, real estate tools can often provide a helpful way to obtain that information.
For locations outside the U.S., the U.S. State Department and U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office provide useful crime and safety information, as do their Australian, Canadian, and other foreign counterparts.
Other Preparations
Crime and terrorism may grab the headline attention, but statistically, travelers are far more likely to be impacted by things such as traffic accidents, fires, and illness than they are an attack.
In terms of driving hazards, before travelling you should research the following to help determine what ground transportation to use on your next trip:
- Is public transportation safe and dependable?
- Are taxis or rideshare services safe and honest?
- Does my hotel or resort offer trusted transportation?
- Does the country have and enforce basic traffic safety laws? Are drivers required to obtain any type of permit/license or can anyone get behind the wheel? Are cars required to have seatbelts and undergo regular safety inspections?
- Are roads well maintained? Are they lit at night and have reflective lane markers? Are hazards and turns well-marked?
- Does the country recognize foreign insurance policies? Is its legal system fair to foreign citizens?
- In a worst-case scenario of an accident, are medical services able to respond quickly and effectively to a roadside emergency?
In many cases, it is physically— and legally—safer to take public transportation, a taxi or other private transportation than it is to drive oneself.
In terms of staying safe from the threat of fire, taking some simple steps such as performing a hotel or resort safety check, traveling with some easy-to-carry items, and knowing what to do in case of a fire will go a long way in helping you prepare to survive a fire.
I also recommend traveling with stop-the-bleed materials and a basic travel first aid kit containing items such as alcohol preps, antibiotic ointment, hydrocortisone cream, burn and blister cream, gauze, moleskin, a variety of Band-Aids, a triangular bandage, tweezers, safety pins, and a thermometer.
The kit should also contain a prescription antibiotic for severe dysentery, as well as loperamide, Pepto-Bismol, diphenhydramine, pain reliever, and allergy medicine. (If you have severe allergic reactions to things such as bee stings, nuts, or seafood, you should also carry an EpiPen at all times.)
If traveling abroad, we also highly recommend you research the health care system in your destination and confirm health insurance coverage there including medical evacuation if needed. In many cases, it is advisable to purchase a travel medical insurance policy to ensure you can get access to coverage while avoiding costly up-front medical charges. Medical evacuations can sometimes run into the tens of thousands of dollars so it is good to purchase a policy that will also cover them.
Do Not Publish Your Plans
As we’ve noted in our monthly executive protection reports, the homes of many athletes and celebrities are being robbed while they are known to be away due to their published game or tour schedules. There have also been many examples of celebrities and other people being targeted while they were traveling due to information they posted online. The high-profile robbery of Kim Kardashian in Paris in 2016, is a vivid illustration of this threat.
The same perils can befall non-celebrities if they publicize their travel plans and note that they will be away from home for an extended period. Therefore, we advise people to only post vacation plans and photos of their vacations after they return home. Beyond that, it is always prudent for people to be as “gray” as possible on the internet to avoid giving criminals information that can be used to target them.
Travelers should also attempt to be as gray as possible while on vacation. This means understanding the culture and customs of the location you are visiting so that you don’t stand out from the crowd or offend the locals.
We also recommend that people who are traveling arrange to have their mail and other deliveries held or arrange for someone to check for and retrieve them daily.
Before leaving home, travelers should ensure their residential security measures are adequate and that their security system and other residential security measures such as smart home monitoring devices, locks, lights, etc. are working and engaged.
Mindset
A key step toward protecting yourself in an unfamiliar location and mitigating the impact of a hostile action directed against you is adopting the proper mindset.
One aspect of this mindset is accepting the fact that we live in a violent world and that anyone can be targeted.
This realization helps protect against denial: “It can’t happen to me, it can’t happen here, and it can’t happen now,” and helps people more rapidly recognize danger, which is an important key to avoiding or surviving an attack.
The second element of a good security mindset is for individuals to accept responsibility for protecting themselves and those they love.
As demonstrated repeatedly in crimes all over the globe, victims simply can’t rely on the authorities to protect them from all threats. Indeed, in most cases, the incident is over well before the police can respond.
Deciding to avoid dangerous places and situations is also part of a solid security mindset. In many locations, it is simply dangerous to drive on the road or walk on the street at night. Many tourists who are victimized while on vacation are targeted for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because they’re incapacitated due to excessive alcohol use, or because they are in an establishment or area where drugs or sexual services are sold. Drink spiking is also a very real danger in many tourist destinations, to include domestic ones. It is far better to just avoid such situations.
Adopting the proper mindset also involves choosing to practice an appropriate level of awareness for the situation one is in. This is especially important when people are in new and unfamiliar environments.
Travel can be fun, educational, and exciting, and taking these steps can help avoid troubles that can totally ruin a vacation experience.