Summer Travel Safety Tips

You work hard all year to save for an amazing summer travel holiday for you and your family, so it’s important that you ensure it is as safe as possible. Summer travel safety tips are an important part of planning your summer vacation. With summer travel now cheaper than ever, and previously lesser known locations being visited. It can mean that you aren’t often as familiar with your surroundings as you may be with European destinations.

Our team has travelled extensively with our clients to provide them security and safety, whether on business trips, or family holiday. From our travels, these are our top 10 summer travel safety tips:

Write a full itinerary for your travel plans 

Before you even leave the UK, write yourself a full itinerary of what you are doing and when. This could include your own summer safety travel tips that you’ve previously learnt. Make sure that you include all of your travel details like airport transfers and excursion details. The more you can do in advance, the better research you can do from reading other persons reviews. Anything that you book last minute will always be open to extra risk. Whether it’s hidden costs that you don’t know about, taking you to locations that you hadn’t planned, or using vehicles that are not road worthy.

Always wear a seat belt or crash helmet

It does not matter what the local norms are, you must wear a seat belt if in a car, or crash helmet if you are on a scooter. All too often people just don’t do it as it might not be the norm in the country that they are in. People turn up in Asia who have never ridden a motorbike before and decide not to wear a helmet, as the locals don’t. This is the highest risk activity you can do.

Don’t hold all of your money together

When you are out and about on your summer travel, don’t hold all of your money together. Have a large amount of money in one location, your wallet for example. But have a smaller amount of money in your pocket. That way when you are paying for things, you aren’t always bringing out a large wad of money to pay for a coffee for example. Transfer money from the larger amount location into the smaller amount location discreetly when necessary.

Trust your gut instinct 

If you are in an unfamiliar with your summer travel location. On an unknown street at night, or a secluded area of the beach, and things don’t feel right for example. Then they are probably not! So act on your gut instinct. Try to go back the way you came as at least you have some idea of the route you have taken to get you back to safety.

If you get robbed let them have it

No this does not mean fight back! It means if someone tries to take your bag from you, or your wallet, just give it to them. It’s not worth the potential injury that you or your group might sustain should the altercation turn physical.

Shout for help

Whether it is a British thing and not wanting to cause a hassle, or whether it is from fear, most people in high risk summer travel situations such as a robbery, keep quiet. You should shout as loud as you can, that can be enough to deter a potentially hostile person from going through with their hostile act towards you.

Seek refuge in a hotel or bar

Hotels are often safe locations. They may have security, and are likely to have other people in them who are not locals. Plus they may have CCTV. So they are good places to seek refuge if you think that you are being followed. Bars are also a good alternative to a hotel.

Book taxis through your hotel

Booking a taxi through your hotel is much safer than hailing a taxi on the street. The hotel will normally have an agreement with a local taxi firm that they have vetted. Plus fees are often agreed in advance, so it’s saves you having to barter or getting scammed at the side of the road.

You will get scammed

Getting scammed in some locations is just a normal part of summer travel to those locations. Whether it is being over charged in a taxi, over paying as you haven’t calculated the exchange rate properly, someone taking you on an excursion to their friend’s shop, or not getting the experience that you paid for. It happens. But if it does, just accept it as a part of travelling to some locations and learn from it. Do not try and address the problem and cause additional confrontation. Instead, just try not to let it happen again.

Enjoy it safely and don’t get complacent 

Summer travel safety should be an integral part of your holiday planning, and should form part of your thought process while at your location. If in doubt, pause and reassess the situation before you go any further. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. But equally, not everyone is out to scam you, and most places that you travel are really safe. So enjoy, and learn from those occasions where you know you should have probably being doing something in a safer way.