I am making a series of videos that answer frequently asked questions that we get as full-time travelers.
The topic of this video is going to be safety and security, and I'm going to be answering the question:
When we told our friends and family that we were going to become full-time travelers, they expressed concern for our safety.
Some were worried about us being murdered or kidnapped or assaulted or robbed.
Well, I can tell you I've never been kidnapped, and not once have I ever been murdered.
But our traveling hasn't been totally incident free.
There was one time when we did have to leave unplanned where we were staying and move to a safer location.
I'm going to give you seven tips about how we stay safe while traveling,
and as i go through each tip i will tell you our personal experiences and stories about staying safe while traveling.
Some of our best travel experiences occur at night, but you do need to be extra careful after dark.
Don't miss out on nighttime experiences just out of fear, but do take some extra precautions.
Be aware of your surroundings and try to be with a group instead of being alone if possible.
It's also better to use a ride sharing service to get around town after dark instead of walking.
You do need to be careful with your alcohol consumption.
If you're a little bit tipsy thieves can see that you're not fully alert and they can take advantage of that.
Thieves would much rather steal your cash than your personal items, and if a thief knows you're loaded with cash you are more likely to be a victim.
Don't flash around loads of cash when getting out your wallet to pay for something.
Do be careful around ATM machines, although in my opinion I think it's safer to carry less cash even if that means you have to go to the ATM more often.
You are much more likely to be a victim of a scam than any kind of violent crime when you're traveling.
I like to look at the Tripadvisor forums and just scan through and see if there are any common scams going around in a certain area.
The most common scam that people complain about is being overcharged for something.
Now in my opinion that is not always necessarily a scam, it depends on the situation.
If you are being charged more than a local person for something, but you agree to that price ahead of time, then in my opinion that is not a scam.
However if you agree to a price for something then all of a sudden the price goes up, or you don't get what you paid for, then yes in my opinion that is a scam.
We have had two experiences with scams since we became full-time travelers.
The first was in Montevideo, Uruguay.
We went to the grocery store and when we got back to our apartment we looked at the receipt and noticed that there was a charge for a bottle of beer that we did not purchase.
We think the cashier somehow scanned a bottle of beer through the machine when we weren't looking and kept it for herself.
The second scam we had was with one of the major hotel reservation booking sites.
I don't want to say the name of the website because I'm tired of the hassles I've had with this company.
But we made a reservation for a fully refundable night in a hostel.
Due to covid-19 we had to cancel that reservation, the company did not give us our money back.
And after going back and forth with this company trying to get a refund for several months we finally just gave up and we were out about $20.
If you're staying in a hotel or hostel you can go to the reception desk to get help if you need it.
But we usually stay in Airbnb apartments and so it's good to know how to contact the police or an ambulance in case of an emergency.
If you stay in an international chain hotel they usually have safes that you can lock up your valuables in.
But we don't stay in hotels like that very often so what we have is this wire mesh cage that you see here.
It's called a Pacsafe bag protector and you can put your backpack inside and tie it up to something in the room and lock it up like that.
When we're out traveling I have been using this messenger bag here.
It has the same kind of wire mesh hidden inside of it,
but I'm actually going to throw away this bag because the wire mesh just makes it too heavy and this bag is falling apart anyway.
It actually started falling apart right after i bought it, it's got two broken zippers.
So i bought a new bag, it only cost like $5.
It's a cheap, very lightweight bag.
It doesn't have the wire mesh in it but I'm really not that worried about bag slashing, it doesn't really happen that often.
But if you are worried about that you can buy these bendable cutting boards and put them inside the bag to help protect the bag that way.
Now I do have one very traumatic experience with theft that I need to tell you about.
When i was traveling in India I went to do some laundry,
I hung up my clothes on the clothesline to dry, then I went to run some errands and when i came back one of my socks had been missing from the clothesline.
Now I'm pretty sure i know who was responsible for this theft.
There were some very suspicious looking monkeys that were hanging around when I was doing my laundry,
and I know that one of these monkeys stole my sock.
No, all kidding aside we have been very fortunate all the time we've been full-time traveling we have not had any problems with theft.
And probably the most important tip for safety and security is to research the safety in the country and the neighborhood you plan on going to.
For example our first destination when we became full-time travelers was Lima, Peru.
This city does have a reputation for being dangerous, but there are certain areas of the city that are much safer.
Again we like to look at the Tripadvisor forums, there's good information on safety there.
We also really like the Lonely Planet guides, they have great information on the specific neighborhoods.
You can also look at the U.S. State Department website, now I don't always think everything on there is accurate.
When you read the information on that website you would think that the entire world is filled with murderers and gang members.
But most countries aren't like that, I think they're just being a little bit overly cautious.
Our biggest issue with security occurred when we were traveling to Valparaiso in Chile.
This is a magnificent city but when we were there the port workers were on strike.
They were demonstrating and some of the demonstrations became violent.
They were lighting fires, they were attacking the police, some of them tried to break into our apartment building.
But we knew they weren't targeting us personally and so we just remained calm nothing bad happened to us.
But we did decide the next day that it would be better to leave and go somewhere safer.
So we did lose out on one night of our hotel but we always said our safety and security is much more important than our budget.
Now let me just say that the world is much safer than what you hear about on the news or hear rumors about.
I feel much safer traveling overseas than i do living in the U.S.
The rest of the world just doesn't have the same mass shootings or the gun culture that you see back home.
Thanks for watching everyone, be sure to check out some of our other videos that you see here,
and also be sure to take a look at our website at snailtravelers.com to find out more about our world travel adventure.