Business Travel – Part 3, Minimize Your Safety Risks When Traveling

If you’ve ever had your wallet or purse stolen, you know what a nightmare the whole process can be. Hopefully you’ll never encounter theft during your business travel, but since you’ll likely be visiting more airports, using public transit, and staying at hotels, it’s a good idea to try to minimize your risk.

• Use a computer lock. If you’re bringing along your laptop, remember the cable lock for when you have to leave your computer in the hotel room.

• Leave valuables at home. There’s no need to bring your expensive jewelry or electronics if they aren’t required for work. Even though most hotels have in-room safes, they aren’t always reliable. Most safes have a default code to open them, and unfortunately some hotels don’t change the default code from all zeroes.

• Use public Wi-Fi cautiously. Hackers can access what you are doing, so be careful not to enter banking or personal information. Wait until you are on a secure network or at least switch over to cellular.

• Clean out your wallet before you leave. Try to take only the cards that you’ll actually use on the trip. If your wallet is stolen/lost, it’s much easier to cancel one or two cards, then to track down debit, retail, insurance cards, etc.

• Leave copies of your passport or driver’s license at home or with a relative just in case you need to access them.

And lastly, when staying at a hotel, don’t leave your room key in the envelope with the room number on it. That’s asking for trouble. In the event that something bad does happen while traveling, DCS consultants can take advantage of our Consultant Services Division that’s dedicated to help easing your travel woes.