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.
Looking for an inspiring underdog or a glass slipper lying around in San Antonio? This year's version of the Final Four is not for you.
Fittingly for an NCAA Tournament in which big schools from big conferences took record numbers of spots in the first week, then hogged them all for the Sweet 16, the last week will bring a collection of all four teams seeded No. 1 to the sport's biggest stage to play for the title.
When Florida meets Auburn in an all-Southeastern Conference clash and Duke faces Houston in a meeting between the Atlantic Coast and Big 12 conferences, it will mark only the second time since seeding began in 1979 that all four No. 1s have made it to the final weekend.
The last time it happened, in 2008, one of the teams was Memphis, which hailed from Conference USA.
This time around, there are no mid-majors or small majors. Only the best teams from the best conferences — except the Big Ten, which will hasn't had a team win it all since 2000 — who also have the nation's best players.
Here's a look at the best player on each team (for Auburn, Duke and Florida, they are AP All-Americans ), along with another who might make an impact in San Antonio once the games start Saturday.
Broome hit his elbow hard in the second half of the Tigers' 70-64 win over Michigan State. He left the court, but then came back, saying team doctors told him there was nothing wrong. He averages 18 points and nearly 11 rebounds and had 20-10 games in both wins this week. Clearly, his health will be a storyline.
If NBA scouts only look at backup guard Pettiford's tournament, where he has averaged 17.2 points and sparked Auburn on a huge run in the Sweet 16 win against Michigan, they'd pick him in the first round. If they look at his overall body of work, they might say he still needs work. Either way, he could be a difference-maker over two games.
There are times — see the 30-point, seven-rebound, six-assist skills clinic against BYU — when Flagg just looks like he's toying with everyone. There are other times — see Saturday's win over Alabama — when he looks human. Which is more than enough, considering all the talent surrounding him.
Maluach is 7-foot-2 and has a standing reach of 9-8. If any opponent overplays him, they can expect a lob for an alley-oop dunk. He shot 12 for 15 over Sweet 16 weekend, and pretty much all the shots were from 4 feet or closer.
Clayton made the tying and go-ahead 3s in Florida's ferocious comeback against Texas Tech. He finished with 30 points and his coach, Todd Golden, said, “There’s not another player in America you would rather have right now than Walter Clayton with the ball in his hands in a big-time moment.”
During one two-game stretch in February, Richard had two points in one contest and 21 the next. During another, he scored zero, then 30. Fill in the blanks here, but he could be a big factor for the Gators either way.
Fittingly for the team with the nation's best defense, a player who only averages 5.5 points could be the most valuable for the Cougars. Tugler is on everyone's all-defense list, and for Houston to have any chance at stopping Flagg, it'll have to figure out ways to use Tugler to do it.
Cryer is Houston's leading scorer at 15.2 points a game. If the Cougars end up as national champs, it will have to be because he played the two best games of his life.