Avoid getting taken!
How single travelers can stay safe in other countries
Mar 1, 2019, 7:33 am
Avoid getting taken!
Jovan Abernathy is an international marathoner and owner of Houston Tourism Gym. To claim your free tour, contact her at info@tourismgymhtx.com
You know the scene in the blockbuster hit, Taken, when Liam Neeson travels to Europe to rescue his daughter who has been taken to be put into the sex trade. Once he finds the bad guy, he uses clever trickery to identify him. This is where Liam utters the iconic line, "I told you I would find you." This, of course, is followed by fighting. It made for great cinema, but most people don't have a kick-ass dad like Liam Neeson and most people definitely do not have time to get abducted and sold into the sex trade on their dream vacation? Little did they know that a good itinerary would have made everyone's life easier. (And for a very bad movie). Because I care, I'm going to tell you how to construct a good itinerary that will be your first line of defense while traveling abroad.
It is not a pleasant thought that bad people exist in this world and are waiting to take advantage of you, but the fact is bad people exist in this world and are waiting to take advantage of you. So, you have to be prepared. You also want to travel as efficiently as possible so it helps to have all the information you need in one spot. Your friends and family need to be able to track you wherever you have been and are going. Here are the tools you will need to start.
Your passport
Look at the expiration date. Is it valid? To be valid for travel, a passport has to have enough time on it for you to go on your trip, come back, and still be valid for six months after that. If this is not the case, then you need to renew it. You will also need at least two pages of blank pages for stamps. If you don't have a passport, then why are you still reading this? Go to your local post office and get one.
Give yourself plenty of time for thorough research.
Research
I'm not talking about the Lonely Planet/ Rick Steves research. I'm talking about travel advisory sites. Most countries have one. Ours is Travel.State.Gov. This site covers everything that you would need to know about the country you are traveling to from the population to climate and more. Do you need a visa to enter the country? What vaccines do you need and when do you need to get them? Recent terroist activity? Currency exchange? Crime rate? Natural disasters? And local laws? (Whatever happens in Bangkok, stays in Bangkok is not exactly true). Make notes of all these things.
Flight information
Once you have all your flight information finalized, gather it together. Start with the departure from your city. What airline are you using? What is your departure time? What gate? Where do you land next? What is your arrival time? What is your airline number? When do you return? Basically, every and any bit of information you can give, give it (Just in case you get taken).
Transportation and hotel information.
How are you getting to your hotel? Most times, hotels have a pickup and drop off service. This is good to use because the driver and times are easily tracked. Add your hotel information to your itinerary. While you are there, get the name of the person that you made the reservation with and the name of the person who will be checking you in when you arrive. Write the names of these people down. Be sure to include what their position is at the hotel.
Activities
List all the things that you plan to do on each day. List the mode of transportation that you will be using such as a train to hop from town to town. Include train or bus numbers and companies. If you are going on any tours or taking a cooking class, you should include all contact information.
Now it is time to make copies of your itinerary and the first two pages of your passport and give them to your closest friends and family and keep one for yourself. As a final touch, include the names and contact information of each person who received your itinerary so they can all communicate (just in case you get taken).
If you are jet setting around Europe or wherever and will be hopping from France to Spain to Italy for example, repeat all of these steps for every country you visit. Be sure to repeat these steps until every leg of your trip has been documented. I know it is a really tedious task, so don't wait until the day before you leave to start.
Be home before the street light comes on.Here are some final tips to remember.
Houston Texans receiver Stefon Diggs will miss the rest of the season after tearing the ACL in his right knee Sunday.
Coach DeMeco Ryans made the announcement Tuesday, calling Diggs being out a huge loss.
“It hurts our team to hear that news,” Ryans said. “He’s been such an important part to our team and just everything that he brought, not only on the field, but off the field. The energy, the leader, the way he worked every single day. He brought a lot to our team and we have to pick up the slack — a lot of guys have to pick up the slack.”
Diggs suffered the non-contact injury in the third quarter of Houston’s win over the Colts on Sunday. He was running a route and pulled up and grabbed at his right knee before falling to the ground.
The 30-year-old Diggs had 47 receptions for 496 yards and three touchdowns in eight games in his first season in Houston after a blockbuster trade from the Bills.
“It's not easy," quarterback C.J. Stroud said. “It's not something that I have a whole bunch of words for. I'm just ... trying to just wrap my mind around what happened but it's tough. You try to think positively about it but there's not a bunch of positive thoughts and I just really feel bad for him.”
Diggs is a four-time Pro Bowler who has had at least 1,000 yards receiving in each of the past six seasons, highlighted by his 2020 season where he led the NFL with a career-high 1,535 yards.
The injury is another blow to a team that is already without leading receiver Nico Collins, who is out at least one more game after being placed on injured reserve with a hamstring injury.
With Diggs out, the Texans will need Tank Dell to take on a bigger role in the offense Thursday night when they visit the New York Jets. Dell’s production has dropped off this season after a standout rookie year where he had 709 yards receiving with seven touchdowns in 11 games before breaking his leg.
He has 229 yards receiving this season and scored his second touchdown in Sunday’s win which improved the AFC South-leading Texans to 6-2.
“Once you lose one of the star players, everybody has got to step up,” Dell said. “Even if you are one of the star players, you still have to step up and do more and produce more. I know all of us are more than capable of doing that. So we are going to try to go out there and make plays.”
The Texans also have receivers Robert Woods, Xavier Hutchinson and John Metchie, but none of those players has contributed much this season. The three players have combined for just 146 yards receiving.
“Other leaders have got to step up,” Stroud said. “We need a leader in that room to step up now since (Diggs) and Nico are both out.”
Stroud added that he has full confidence in his remaining receivers and knows they'll take advantage of their opportunities.
“That means a lot,” Metchie said. “It shows that my teammates have a lot of faith and belief in me based off the work that they’ve seen me do. And for me, it just means that when I get out there, I’m just going to ride as hard for them as they do for me.”
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