Where's the safest place for your valuables? Mark Alsip found out the hard way — and at the worst possible time. Alsip, a computer programmer from Lexington, Ky., was in St.
Maarten with his girlfriend. When he arrived at his hotel, he got out. But his camera bag stayed.
"I was preparing a surprise marriage proposal," he says. "I left a very expensive diamond ring and my passport along with my camera bag sitting in the back seat of a taxi van." Alsip says he violated the first rule of traveling with your valuables: Always keep them on your person.
You'd be surprised how many people lose their valuables on vacation Valuables get lost on vacation. A lot of valuables. I talk to travelers every day who have misplaced something while they are on the road, and they wish they had known how to avoid it.
"Based on our internal data, the number of traveler-impacting events is on the rise," says Frank Harrison, the regional security director of the Americas for World Travel Protection . "From criminal assaults to petty crimes like pickpocketing, a myriad of crime-related events can cause these travel interruptions." But there are other rules, from where on your person you should put your valuables (and where not to put them) to the safest places to store them in your hotel.
I'm going to focus on valuables such as money and jewelry in this article, and in part two, I'll offer expert advice on passports. Oh, and of course I'll tell you what happened to Alsip's marriage proposal. Rule #1.