Safety

Common Hotel Room Key Mistake That Could Compromise Your Safety

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In hotels, some reflexes feel so obvious that they become automatic. Yet a seemingly minor detail about your key or room card can give an ill-intentioned person the information necessary to locate your lodging. A very simple precaution can reduce that risk as soon as you arrive. And it isn’t the only check to perform before you settle in.

Never keep the key with the room number

After a long journey, we often drop our belongings in the room and instinctively keep the magnetic card in its case. A case that frequently bears the room number, sometimes accompanied by the hotel’s name or logo. Information that could prove fatal for you. If the card and its case are lost at the same time, these details can indeed allow someone with ill intent to determine where the corresponding room is.

The U.S. Department of State therefore recommends always carrying your room key separately from the sleeve that displays the room number. A particularly simple precaution to adopt, but one that prevents giving a stranger two essential pieces of information at once: how to access the room and its location within the hotel. This recommendation is also listed on its page dedicated to safety in accommodations, which gathers several traveler precautions.

Because without the room number, a card found on the street or in a public place does not necessarily reveal which door it belongs to. It is precisely this association that poses the problem. “If these elements are lost together, another person could identify the hotel and the room associated with the key”, explained a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State to Travel + Leisure magazine.

The correct reflex, therefore, is to remove the card from its sleeve as soon as you arrive in the room. To avoid forgetting the number, you can note it on your phone or photograph the sleeve, provided you keep these details on a protected device.

And if the card itself disappears, it’s best not to wait. “A traveler who loses a key should immediately inform the hotel and ask that it be deactivated and replaced”, advises the State Department spokesman to Travel + Leisure. A new card thus enables the old one to be neutralized.

A few checks to perform upon arrival

Yet the key is only one element among the precautions to take in a hotel room. Once you step inside, a few minutes are enough to verify that essential equipment is in place and that the space doesn’t show any obvious problems.

The U.S. State Department specifically advises ensuring the room’s phone works, that the locks are functional, and that smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are present where required.

It also recommends a quick sweep of the room. “Upon arrival, check behind the curtains, under the bed, and around the room to make sure it’s safe”, says the American administration’s site. The aim is not to turn every hotel stay into a meticulous inspection, but to quickly spot any unusual situation.

Travelers are also urged to be mindful of any “unusual” electronic devices present in the room and to verify that the curtains can be fully closed.

These steps take little time, but they can help prevent unwanted surprises during vacations or business trips. More importantly, they remind us that in a hotel, prudence isn’t limited to dangerous destinations; it also begins with the most ordinary habits.

In the same series “Our Travel Tips”:

Airplane: the photo you should always take before checking in your luggage

Here’s why you should never recharge your phone at an airport

This new airport scam could get you detained abroad

How to better handle long-haul flights? The secrets of a flight attendant

This often-forgotten detail can invalidate your passport before a trip

Lost passport abroad: the steps to return to France without panicking

Hotels and Taxis: The Hidden Price Women Pay for Safety When Traveling Alone

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When you’re a woman, traveling alone can sometimes be pricey. More expensive than for a man. In London, BBC journalist Lorin Bozkurt recounts that she was offered two types of capsules in a Piccadilly Circus hotel, those small design spaces where a bed simply fits in. The ones reserved for an exclusively female clientele were priced at 45 pounds (about 52 euros) per night, while the others, mixed, were priced at 35 pounds (about 41 euros).

Yet no extra comfort accompanied the first offer, aside from a corridor accessible only by card and, above all, the promise of feeling safer for an extra 10 pounds. This difference illustrates what some specialists call the “avoidance tax”, akin to its marketing cousin, the “pink tax”. Female travelers do not necessarily pay more for the same trip than their male counterparts, but they often make different decisions, motivated by safety, which can end up increasing the bill.

The luxury of having peace of mind

Better-located hotels, a taxi rather than public transport, travel insurance or an extra charge for an earlier early check-in during the day… Expenses pile up. And they aren’t necessarily the same for men. Carried by the British broadcaster, a study from the Safer Tourism Foundation shows that “64 % of women avoid walking home alone at night abroad”, compared with 43 % for the opposite sex.

Nearly half of women also forgo wandering the backstreets of an unfamiliar city at night. “They don’t travel less because they are less adventurous than men. They operate in an environment where the risks are different”, explains Stephanie Boyle, director of the Safer Tourism Foundation’s She Travels Safe campaign.

Safer, therefore more expensive

For women accustomed to traveling solo, these precautions eventually become reflexes. Jen Kaarlo, who has 53 countries under her belt, tells the BBC she plans all her movements in advance. After experiencing several troubling incidents, including being drugged without her knowledge in a bar in Paris, the young woman avoids “any risky situation”. In Panama, she even preferred to pay nearly $200 extra (about €173) to ensure she wouldn’t have to share her sleeping arrangements with strangers during a trip to the San Blas Islands.

Jodie Hughes, who has been traveling alone since the age of 19, makes the same point. She says she used to favor youth hostels to save money, but now chooses other options because a women-only dorm can be more expensive than a mixed dorm. “I’d rather travel less often, but when I travel, I want to be safer”, she says. At Generator Hostels, whose Bruges property has been singled out, it is explained that women’s rooms are “in high demand” and that their prices reflect that demand.

“Safety should not be a competitive element. It shouldn’t be something that lets companies think they can charge more because they are safer”, replies Stephanie Boyle. Beyond the price of rooms or transport, these precautions also carry a less visible cost. They force travelers to plan more, sometimes give up going out, or choose a more expensive option rather than a spontaneous one. The question is therefore no longer only whether one can afford an extra expense, but whether one can afford not to spend it. “The mental load, I think, is the heaviest of all”, confesses Jen Kaarlo.

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