3 Ways to Stay Safe While Traveling Overseas
By Burt Carey
Paris, Brussels, and now the U.S. government is ordering American families and non-essential personnel to leave southern Turkey. With terrorism on every foreign traveler’s mind, here are three simple things you can do to stay safe.
Traveling with family — and especially with juniors – or other companions can introduce several challenging scenarios in the best of worlds. Under duress or in any type of emergency, things can go haywire in a hurry.
- Teach Your Kids or Other Traveling Companions
- No one wants to be THAT parent that helicopters over their children and scurries them about like a Mother Hen and her brood. The key here is preparation. Don’t just tell your kids where to meet up in an emergency, make them go over the plan in detail. What little bit of scare you might put into them could save their life.
- Everyone on the trip should keep their cell or smartphone fully charged at all times.
- Kids should carry pictures of their parents. Parents should carry current pictures of their children. Friends should carry pictures of friends. Get it? You need pictures of anyone you know in country. Smartphones make this easy to do while you’re on your trip.
- Teach every member in your traveling party to stay aware of their surroundings and people moving about them. See a suspicious package? Tell someone. See someone who truly scares you? Leave the area.
- Use Government Resources
- Before ever leaving the USA, you need to see the website of the S. Department of State to check for any security concerns or other warnings that may have been issued for anyplace you might visit. The State Department also has a Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, which makes it possible for U.S. government officials to contact you wherever you are.
- Once you arrive in another country, check in with the U.S. embassy or consulate.
- Make copies of your passport, credit cards, medical card and itinerary. Keep one for yourself and give a copy to a family member or good friend at home. Set up a web-based email account (one you can access remote of your home computer), and then email copies of those documents to yourself.
- Think About Your Personal Safety
- Terrorists likely won’t look to steal anyone’s wallet or purse, but there are plenty of other scallywags who prey on unsuspecting tourists.
- If possible, try to blend in with the locals.
- Avoid causing scenes in restaurants, on buses or other public areas that would identify you as an American.
- And stay vigilant, watching your surroundings and making eye contact with people who approach you.
- Call it a day early. That party at the neighborhood pub may sound like a good idea at 8 p.m., but by 2 a.m. the streets are a whole lot darker and potentially dangerous.
Source: Baret News
