#222 – The Expat Files: Hotel Security & Travel Safety in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder My thoughts ever straight Hi everybody I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files Living in Latin America the show that tells you what it's really like to live work play and or retire in Latin America I tell it just like it is so let's get started Welcome to the third installment of Johnny's essential travel kit everything you wanted to know about how to travel safe and secure Just like I do and I know when I say that I should knock on wood and there's plenty of rainforest hardwood left

[00:46] No matter what you've heard so yes, I will knock on wood And that's the kind of wood you'll never be able to afford if you buy it up in the first world But down here. I've got a few of those hardwood monsters growing in my own backyard Just like a lot of expats do and you know in the future I'm gonna do a whole program on that rainforest hardwood and all the really terrific things you can do with it down here For what you guys pay for solid pine you could choose from a dozen varieties of beautiful super heavy rainforest hardwood like for example Paloblanco teak and coba so when you guys up north read or talk about rare rainforest hardwoods Well, they're very pricey and rare to you maybe but down here. They're everywhere Okay, it's time to get back to part three of Johnny's essential travel kit now a lot of the stuff that I recommend isn't just for

[01:34] Traveling you carry it on you all the time whether you're going to a market a Walmart a hardware store Or just to a friend's house in fact any time you pop out of the house for a few hours or more Some of that stuff you'll always carry on you and the only time you take it off is when you have a shower or you Go to sleep some of the stuff like that hidden pouch and that zipper belt will become such a part of your daily routine That when you're not wearing it You'll feel a bit incomplete and that's a good place to be because you really should get used to having that basic stuff strapped to you 24-7 so let's move on to a few more things that you really should have in your kit first Let me set up a common scenario for you I'm sure you all know that if you stay in a three or four star hotel the door of your hotel room is going to be nice and solid and will have the regular lock and surely one on the

[02:23] Inside that you can latch yourself Or some kind of a solid security latch designed to make you feel that you've got some kind of privacy and that no one on The outside in the hallway who might have a passkey like all the maids have could actually walk in seen or unseen Well, don't be fooled by that inside locking mechanism Those things are very weak and easily defeated know that your door is never really secure Even if it's a five-star hotel No matter how many latches or keys or even electronic card readers or touch pads They may have installed on the inside or outside of your door The fact is you have to bring something of your own some kind of mechanism that you temporarily install yourself And if you think those little flimsy chain latch things and bar mechanisms that are equipped on most doors are good solid deterrence

[03:15] I can point to at least 20 websites that show you how to defeat those things from the outside In about three seconds while standing in the hallway That is once someone's open that main door lock for example with a passkey Once that doors open a half an inch or so There are a few sneaky little devices that crooks use to undo that stuff And then there's always brute force to like a swift kick But obviously stealth is the name of the game with hotel thefts thieves just don't kick down doors except in the movies Now you might be thinking so what the maid has a passkey and she's got to get in there that clean your room, right? And there the thing is generally when she's cleaning up You're out of the room with your belongings all nicely stashed on your body in your zipper belt

[04:03] And your hidden pouches and stuff like I recommend so you're not leaving anything behind for her to snatch Nothing really important or valuable anyway And by the way when it comes to lady travelers and expats when the maids cleaning up She might walk off with a bottle of your perfume or a few ladies chick razors But you know that happens to the best of us and it's not the end of the world But you see now most world travelers will tell you that it's not the maid you have to worry about Because she wants to keep her job, you know, even though she's only making a couple hundred bucks a month She really can't afford to get fired for stealing and that's especially true for maids and porters who work well off the high-volume tourist trail where there just aren't that many hotels and places for people to stay for the night and Therefore not a lot of careless gringo tourists with iPhones and five hundred other cameras either

[04:51] So off the tourist trail Especially in the medium and smaller towns if a maid or a maintenance man is fired for stealing the word will get out in a Hurry her reputation will be shot and you'll have a tough time finding a job in the area again However in high-volume tourist areas like Cancun Costa Rica Rio Playa del Carmen in Panama in those places It seems like there's ten hotels on every block So as you can imagine, it's a revolving door of staff changes all the time And it's not uncommon for a fired hotel employee to end up in an equivalent job in another hotel right down the street Now a lot of us gringos and expats are world travelers on a medium to low budget In fact, I think most of us are and looking for bargains

[05:37] We often find ourselves in a one or two star hotel. That's actually pretty decent since throughout latin america There are a lot of hotels that look scruffy on the outside But are quite nice inside some with huge well manicured tropical gardens and spanish courtyards There are tons and tons of one two and three star hotels like that And if you're a world traveler, you'll know about the rumors on how people's possessions get ripped off in hotel rooms Especially in the cheaper hotels with lower star ratings And yes, that does happen infrequently and surprisingly enough when that does occur Half the time the hotel guests can be right in the room when it happens And it's so stealthily done that the guest doesn't even know it happened until some hours later Over the years I can say I probably met a dozen travelers who've told me their story and how they were ripped off right while they were sleeping

[06:29] Taking a shower or just sitting out on the balcony or the patio Though about 80 percent of the time those stealthy thefts occur while the guests are sleeping and they sleep right through it How does that happen? Well, for one thing thieves who hang around these one and two star hotels have kind of a grapevine and know who are the prime targets You know nice luggage nice car nice clothes not to mention There's always a shifty employee or two on the look up for people with nice items like cameras and ipods, too They're also on the lookout for heavy partiers and revelers who obviously are going to crash like a log Dead to the world till 10 or 11 the next day. Now. Those are a stealthy hotel thief's prime targets

[07:15] And the stories that i've heard firsthand from people who've actually had that happen to them When I hear they've got their wallet or their laptop or their iphone stolen and they slept right through it Well, that just blows my mind Obviously a thief had slipped through the front door somehow Using a passkey or a mechanical device or even a credit card. Yes a credit card I'm sure you've seen how people break into rooms in the movies with credit cards You might have even tried it successfully yourself when locked out of your own door at home And really the only way a credit card slipped between the door and the frame will open the latch Is if it's an old wooden creaky door that's got a lot of loose play when you pull on the handle Now if you think about it There's a very large percentage of sloppy doors like that in one and two star hotels

[08:02] And you'll find those creaky loose doors in 100% of backpacker hotels, too So what that means is that every time you stay in a one or two star hotel Even if you're not a lush or a perennial partier You are at risk of being robbed in the comfort of your own hotel room So does that mean you should always stay in a high buck hotel where the doors are nice and solid? Not at all If you're smart about it that problem's easy and simple to fix Now there's this little device I carry with me every time I travel called Adaloc and it's so small that I can put it in the palm of my hand close my fingers and you'll never know it's there That's how tiny it is. It's partially metal and partially very tough nylon plastic and it lays almost flat So it's no bother or trouble at all to haul around with you

[08:50] In fact, if you've got a shirt or a vest with a lot of pockets, it'll fit in the smallest one with ease So why do I use this one when there are other models and designs out there? Well 20 or so years ago when I first left the states these things did not exist So over the years i've watched them come and i've watched them go I've tried them all and last one I use from walk about travel a completely different gadget all together It was all metal, but it turned out to be rather weak and not very well made It did the trick but I knew the metal parts would eventually fatigue and it wouldn't last forever It was under 10 bucks and it served me for a few years. So I can't squawk about it too much Now that one was very light in the streamline though There are some very heavy duty gadgets out there too at about four times the cost

[09:37] One of them in fact which works tremendously Well is about as bulky and heavy as a big padlock just not as light and as convenient as i'd like to see In my little travel kit and all these things are advertised as portable door locks But some of them to me aren't that portable and others are quite flimsy And what I suggest is you order and add a lock door lock in a two pack You got two of them then for like 30 bucks and here's how these things work Now, you know 99 of all hotel room doors swing in Into the room and that's the only kind of door these things will work with in fact the only time I've ever been in a hotel where the door swung the other way was in grease and in the orient Now if you think about it, that's a really bad and dangerous design When you open the door into the hall if someone's walking by you're gonna clobber them

[10:27] So much for third world building codes, huh? Anyway on your standard hotel room door when you close that door You know, there's always a little space between the door and the jam Sometimes that space is paper thin and other times it's quite wide up to almost a half an inch And that's where this little device goes between the jam and the door And not on the hinge side. Of course We're talking about the part of the door with the handle and the striking plate mechanism Our little ad lock device slips into the strike plate and you close the door on it push in a locking pin and No one but no one is going to open that door from the outside from the common hall With that little portable lock attached from your side of the room A passkey will never work

[11:13] Someone would actually have to be out in the hall Kicking or pushing on that door so hard that they broke the door or the jam itself And that's not going to happen because thieves are stealthy. They don't like to make noise So any would-be thief in your hallway at two in the morning trying to get in is going to be baffled as to why that Door just doesn't open Especially if your midnight thief happens to be part of the hotel staff and has a passkey Then he's really going to be stumped and it's not complicated at all to put this thing on After you have done it a few times. It takes about 30 seconds and about 10 seconds to remove it There's actually a nice youtube video showing it precisely And that's what I really like about youtube though 95% of the stuff on there might be brainless garbage mixed in with that other 5% are do-it-yourself videos on practically everything

[12:03] But one thing you have to know this ad lock door mechanism doesn't work in 100% of the cases either But it works pretty close to 95% of the time in my travels and i've stayed at hundreds of hotels I'd say I couldn't attach the thing only about 10 times and the only time that ever happened Was because the door was set so deep into the wall that there was way too much distance Between that strike plate I was talking about and the edge of the door jam Which is about where you stick the pin to secure the thing So in those cases I just couldn't get the pin to go in because the deep well of the jam blocked it And I know it might be hard to picture that in your mind But take my word for it about 5% or more the time he just won't be able to get it to work

[12:48] So what do you do then go without and take a chance? Nope I've got a solution for that too Actually two solutions one so simple and cheap you won't believe it and the other is a gadget you have to buy But that's cheap too and you could use either or or both, but I guess that'd be overkill So let me explain first the cheap and dirty method using a common door stop Now, you know, if you go to any hardware store you could buy a door stop for maybe a half a buck But the key here is to locate one of those really flexible door stops That's so flexible probably made out of real rubber that you could bend the thing practically in half with almost no effort at all And it'll spring right back to its original shape Now I mention this because the majority of door stops out there are made of hard dark stiff plastic

[13:37] And those are no good for our purposes And here's why what you're gonna do is when you close your hotel room door at night You're gonna wedge that door stop as hard as you can under that door That way if some thief tries to open that door at night as soon as they push that door to open it That door stop's gonna dig in and that door won't budge Then that would-be thief in the hall with his pass key is gonna feel that resistance and it's gonna stop him in his tracks, too He's gonna assume the worst that someone's standing there holding it back and there's a very good chance He's gonna turn around walk away and look for a much easier target down the hall or on another floor And here's another thing about using one of those real rubber door stoppers in some of those cheaper hotel rooms The floors are rather slick So the door stopper no matter how rubberized it is cannot get a good grip on the floor and stop the door from opening

[14:29] So what do you do then? Well, here's another easy fix you remember when car tires used to have inner tubes in them Well, maybe you don't i'm showing my age here, right? Anyway, this is gonna sound awful nuts to you But it works you get a piece of inner tube rubber from any old truck stop or bike repair shop Some bicycle tires still use them, you know Anyway, you cut out a circle about as big as a large drink coaster And you pack that in your travel kit and that takes up no room at all It basically lays flat like a piece of cardboard or piece of paper And when you use that door stopper on your door You lay that little piece of inner tube rubber first on the floor and place that door stopper on it Then no matter how slippery that floor is that inner tube and that door stopper together are going to dig in and grip

[15:14] And if you're thinking now that johnny's nuts for carrying all that crazy stuff Or maybe you're thinking johnny talks a good game, but he probably doesn't have that Well next time you see me Just ask me about it and i'll show you my little kit and before I show it to you I'll make you a hundred dollar bet that i'm carrying all that stuff. That way you'll feel ridiculous and not me So that's the cheap and dirty way from preventing anyone from entering your hotel room without your permission Including the maids even if your little add-a-lot gadget won't work So now you're thinking why do you need that add-a-lock thing? If you could just use a door stopper and a piece of rubber inner tube Well, that's because that add-a-lot gadget is absolutely 100 secure once you've got it in place and the rubber door stop trick

[16:02] well If you push that door back and forth long enough and hard enough You can dislodge the thing not that any crook's gonna do that But that add-a-lot gadget gives you much better peace of mind Now there's even a third option if you can't get that add-a-lot gadget to work and you don't have a door stopper Or even if you do have a door stopper Well, there's another cheap little gadget that I drag along with me. That's an all-purpose alarm So you can hook it on your door or your computer or your luggage or your backpack or even attach it to a window And if someone tries to open that window even a crack that alarm goes off a nice piercing very annoying alarm too Which means you don't want to go around playing with the thing in the hotel room because it'll disturb people And one thing about windows especially in older hotels in historic districts and colonial areas

[16:54] You'll find they've kept these hotels in the same state They've been in for a hundred or so years and because that word maintenance isn't in the spanish vocabulary Often things are in a bit of a state of disrepair Especially in the one or two star hotels and that can mean the windows in your room are not very secure at all either And often your hotel room has a nice sliding or bay window and many of them have rusted or damaged hardware on them So even when you think you've got them secured any thief with a half a brain could wedge it open And sometimes in those one and two star hotels, you just blow on a window too hard and it'll open Now that brings to mind another good traveling tip when you're staying at one of these older hotels With a lot of windows and sliding doors just make sure you get a room

[17:39] That's not on the first floor because you know thieves want the easy way out. They don't want to take the high road They don't want to be second-story men if they don't have to and by the way insurance adjusters all throughout the world will tell you About 80 of all the break-ins occur on a first floor So if you're on the second floor You might not be able to stroll out into the garden or pick a few birds of paradise Off the patio through your sliding doors in the room But you'll also rarely be a target for a break-in through the garden side or patio doors Anyway, I have this little gadget that sounds an alarm called security plus personal travel alarm And it's about the size of a very small cell phone And it comes with a little clip and an island string that attaches to any door or window

[18:25] And the alarm goes off as soon as the door windows open In other words when something moves and dislodges that little metal pin from the unit that's attached to the nylon string Then the alarm blows now. The only problem with things like that is they're battery powered So you got that to deal with but i'm telling you right now you could find a hundred different uses for this thing For example, remember I told you a show or two ago about how to secure your items when you're at the beach Well, if you listened back to that show I talked about a cooler trick where you wrap a mini cable from a cable lot gadget A very inexpensive gadget I recommend that you order too Then you wrap it through your cooler or cooler handle then through one of the arms in a beach chair or around a palm tree Then your cooler and the valuables that are in it are going nowhere

[19:14] Well for some extra added protection You could hook this little alarm to that get up then if someone sat down in your chair or even touched your stuff The alarm would blow and i'll tell you what i've tried this and if you want to get everybody's attention on the beach You want to stop everyone from what they're doing and have them look at you all at once Just pull the pin on this thing and set that alarm off and as for me, I do pack the thing But I don't find I use it much at all But there are times when you definitely need it In fact that little cable lock unit that I described a few shows ago And this little alarm unit are the two best friends a backpacker could ever have Since they're always sharing bathrooms and sleeping in communal bedrooms And though backpackers seem to have an unwritten code of honesty

[20:01] Somehow every backpacker i've ever met has told me a story of something that's gone missing while he stayed at a hostel So what's that all about? I know I know blaming on the maids and the gardeners, right? Wait a minute. Did I say gardeners at a backpacker hotel? I doubt it And while we're at it This is a good time to talk about what you should do with your id documents Now no matter what you've read or what you heard once you're down here in latin america in a particular country And you're staying within that country's border limits. Let's say for example, you're touring honduras and only honduras It's a fact that you never have to carry your original id Documents with you like your passport or your driver's license All you have to carry around is a decent copy of them

[20:48] And look if you go into a hotel and they ask you for your passport and you produce a copy And they tell you they want to see your original passport and make a copy of it, of course Which most upscale hotels do these days and you know what? I absolutely hate when they do that Anyway, you just pull out that copy and wave it in their face Don't give them the original and if they give you any flack about it You just tell them to go to that good old u.s State department website and read the fine print and the warnings about carrying original documents in latin america In fact, they tell you in no uncertain terms not to do it. Don't walk around with your originals What you say you're not familiar with the u.s state department website? Oh, well, let me fill you in on that

[21:34] It's that website that we long-term expats love so much Simply because with all the bad press it gives latin america It keeps those hordes of gringos from coming down here and ruining our own little paradises Oh, and by the way for all you wannabes out there who send me the occasional excerpt and warning coming from the u.s State department website about countries here in latin america Sometimes I can't make out if you're making fun of the website or you're actually trying to get me to believe their crap Anyway, it's always been really amusing to us long-term expats since our relatives and friends up in muwaukee and cleveland Keep trying to remind us about what the u.s state department says And what I always tell those people in a nice way, of course Is that if you believe what the u.s government's telling you then you deserve to live out the rest of your life in cleveland

[22:23] Anyway, if any official or any hotel anywhere Asks you to produce your original passport or driver's license You just refer them to that u.s state department website that says We advise you do not carry any original documents on you when you're traveling throughout latin america and guess what? That'll shut them up in a hurry And isn't it ironic really the state department by saying those things is inadvertently advocating our privacy rights. Now, isn't that cool? Because you see I don't want anyone to hold my passport driver's license or other id document originals Except me and the fact is nearly every hotel that you're going to these days No matter where you travel they'll ask you for your passport and keep it there until you leave

[23:12] And in the first world like the united states and europe, they'll often tell you it's hotel policy And I say you can pack that policy right alongside your flaming hemorrhoids, buddy I'm not staying in your dump. I'll find someplace else. I'm not gonna let some stranger hold on to my documents But unfortunately these days in a first world that seems to be the rule more than the exception But thankfully down here in latin america We've got that lag time effect going for us and that good old u.s state department website Now basically I found if you are touring one particular country Like for example peru the only time you really have to have your original documents Is when you go to a bank and transfer a wire of money And if you're driving a car then you'll need your license Of course and the only time you'll have to produce your real passport is when you're going across borders

[24:02] And if you're actually opening a bank account in your name and not an sa corporation Which we've talked about a few times before Anyway, most long-term expats down here in latin america go that extra step and have the copies of their id documents Their passport license and stuff notarized and certified by a local lawyer for about 10 bucks Then it'll have all those nice seal stamps and signatures plastered all over it because that's what they do when they certify things down here Then if a cop or a government official or a phone company representative or an electric company guy Ever asks you to produce your documents. No one will ever give you any grief about it They'll accept those documents as proof of your identity in a second So once you've got your documents certified like that and you're carrying those around

[24:50] I still recommend that you have a tiny little flash drive stuck in your hidden pouch Where you have high resolution scans of your documents in color and they should be encrypted Just in case you lose or misplace that flash drive And what if something bad does happen to your real or certified documents? Who knows? Maybe you did forget it at the last hotel. We all do dumb things, you know Anyway, if you have your nicely scanned documents in your little flash drive with you at all times You can always pop off to the nearest cafe internet and have some nice copies printed out again and recertified Another option is to do a nice high quality scan Encrypt them of course and put them up on the internet on your own email site or on one of those free internet storage sites

[25:36] Like dropbox then they're there all the time in case you need them But use very strong encryption because they're now somewhere posted up in the ether world forever more And in a future show i'll be talking about encryption and i'll give you a couple of good links So stay tuned for that. Oh and by the way for all you people who've sent me emails asking about luggage locks Forget about it airport luggage thieves know just how to get around those things They don't break or pick your locks They find other stealthier ways to get into your luggage And you never know about it till you get home or to your hotel and you find there's something missing These days of course since your luggage is all x-rayed picked through and scanned There's a wide range of airport personnel who know exactly what you've got

[26:23] And if you think all these guys are grade a solid citizens Just ask some frequent flyer if he or she has ever had anything stolen out of their luggage or a bag That's never been recovered Well that's happened to me twice. How about you? In one case I lost a piece of luggage completely on a flight from panama to vienna and funny enough They tracked it down to a theft on the european side and the second time I was a victim of luggage theft I still can't figure out how they did it I had a bag in the overhead compartment and when I got it back to my hotel a phone an mp3 player And guess what my swiss army knife went missing now I know just how they did it someone used a sharp instrument and made a slice alongside the seam

[27:09] But I still can't figure out the when and the where of how it was done because that piece of luggage Was with me during the whole trip and never out of my sight Except of course when it was in that overhead compartment But no one entered that compartment except me And where did it happen on a flight from london to costa rica and it happened you guessed it at the costa rican airport south of the border down mexico way You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you each week from somewhere south of the border And don't forget you can email me on anything at all about latin america the expat files at gmail.com See you next time on expamels

[27:55] Ah