The whole purpose of a babymoon is a little R&R before a baby makes rest and relaxation a thing of the past. The best travel plans involve more than reservations and itineraries, though. Keep these tips in mind to safeguard your money and your identity while traveling. Doing so might make the return as restful as the journey.
Your Travel Plans
- Social Media: Don’t publicly broadcast your travel plans. Reveal your babymoon plans only to trusted friends and family members and do so privately. Thieves troll social networks looking for travel plans so they’ll know exactly when a house is vacant and ripe for robbery.
- On the Job: If your incoming phone calls and email correspondence will be answered by your secretary, assistants, and/or co-workers, ask them to say you are out of the office at the moment. Ask them to never reveal you are out of town or that you will return on a specific date. This is, again, a signal to would-be robbers looking for your empty home.
- Voice Mail: Whether it’s at home or on the job, make sure your welcome message doesn’t reveal travel plans or dates, either.
Your Money
- Banks and Credit Cards: Financial institutions that issue credit cards usually look for unusual activity. They’ll freeze the account to protect you. Let them know when and where you’re going before you leave so they’ll accept your out-of-the-ordinary electronic transactions without interruption.
- Travel Light: Take only the cards, cash, and identification documents you’ll need. Leave extra cards and ID data at home but make sure you’ve got at least two cards of different types; some merchants only accept MasterCard, others Visa or American Express.
- Divide to Conquer: Don’t put all your cash, credit cards, or ID in one place. If that single stash gets stolen or lost, you’ve lost it all. Put some cash in your pocket, your spouse’s pocket, his wallet, her purse. Divvy up the plastic so someone will have a card if the other gets lost or stolen.
Your Identity
- Take Copies: Copy important phone numbers, account numbers, health and auto insurance ID cards to take with you. Leave as many originals at home as possible. Give a copy to a friend or family member to act on your behalf if you cannot.
- Downsize Mobile Device Data: If you carry your life on your smartphone, make it less smart so thieves cannot take over your entire life with ease. Download all extraneous info onto an SD card or external hard drive. Keep only the data you’ll need while enjoying a safe babymoon.
Your Home
Stage Your Home: Make it appear that someone is home. Recruit someone to collect your mail, take out the trash, turn your lights off and on, water the yard.
Source: Huddleston, Cameron. “How to Avoid Getting Ripped Off While Traveling.” Kiplinger. The Kiplinger Washington Editors. Jun 9, 2014. Web. Jun 18, 2014.