Recently, I was traveling with a lovely woman who was recently widowed and had not traveled alone in a very long time. We were checking into our eighth or ninth hotel of the trip and I mentioned I was starting to have some trouble remembering what room I was in at each place. She said, “It’s written on the key packet.”
My response of, “You should never carry the key packet!!!” was probably a bit abrupt and startled her a bit.
Time for some hotel safety tips.
- Keep the key packet separate from your keys. That way, if you drop the packet, the keys will not be in it. Same if you drop the key, the person who finds it will not know what room they belong to.
- If the person at the front desk announces your room number out loud when handing you a key packet, ask to change rooms. Someone with bad intentions could overhear the room number and follow you to your room or worse. Instead, the person at the front desk should hand you the key packet and say something like, “this is your room number” while pointing at the key packet.
- If you get a creepy vibe from someone in an elevator, do not get off and go to your room. That person could follow you. Instead, wait until that person gets off and then go back to your floor or go back down to the lobby.
- If you lose your key and get another one, the front desk should ask you for ID. If you don’t have it, they should make the key for you and walk you up to the room where they can check your ID. If they don’t do this, and just give you a key, politely explain to them why that is not a good idea.
- Take a business card with the hotel information on it. That way, if you get lost, you will know the hotel address. A card is also good to show a taxi driver, especially if the writing in the country you’re visiting is different, like Chinese or Greek.
What hotel safety tips do you have?