Before your trip

• Copy all credit cards, airline tickets, passports and important documents, front and back.
  
• Jewelry and luggage and all valuables should be photographed prior to trip.

What to look for in a safe hotel:

• If possible, select a hotel with has installed modern electronic guest room locks. The majority of these locks automatically change the lock combination with every new guest so there is little chance of someone having a duplicate key to your room. If you lose or misplace your key, ask to have your room re-keyed immediately.
  
• Is each room equipped with a dead bolt lock and a peephole?
  
• Fire sprinklers in hotel rooms, hallways, and meeting rooms likewise for smoke detectors. If each room is not equipped with a smoke detector, are sprinklers systems installed in the hallways or is your only hope the local fire department.
  
• Each room's telephone should allow outside dialing.
  
• Guest phones located in hallways and lobbies should not allow direct room dialing. Anyone using the phone should have to call the operator and request a room by guest name, not room number.
  
• Secure locks on windows and adjoining doors.
  
• Well-lit interior hallways, parking structures and grounds.
  
• Hotels that have limited access to hotel structure, generally the more limited the access; the less likely a trespasser will enter.
  
• The parking garage should not have elevators taking passengers to guest floors. It should only go to the lobby.
  
• Does hotel provide personnel trained in guest security and available for escorts to rooms and auto when requested?
  
• Is the hotel located in a high crime rate area, especially when traveling overseas? Check with the US Embassy's Resident Security Officer in that country and they can alert you of areas to stay away from.

Room Selection

• Maximize safety and security. Select a room located between the 4th and 6th floors. Avoid rooms above the sixth floor (the maximum height that fire-department ladders can reach). For some fire departments overseas, and within the United States, they do not have equipment to reach hotel floors above the 6th floor
  
• Whenever possible do not except a room on the ground floor that has doors and windows that open to the outside. Hotels with interior hallways tend to be generally safer. For security in motels, avoid ground floor rooms off the parking lot. If you can't get a room on a higher level, take one facing the interior courtyard.
  
• Guestrooms that are as close to the elevators as possible are safest, but tend to be noisier. (CONTINUE...)