Hotel safes are WAY too vulnerable (do this instead)

Instead of playing pirate and treasure chest, you could just leave your docs at hotel reception safe.

Smart bloke. should consider a career in detective work 👍😎

Dude you’re just showing ppl where to look …

I have a better idea, my passport and credit cards stay in my pocket all the time when im sleeping, under my pillow, that's it no safe no blinds no BS

What if you are hiding something heavier and bulkier

How about updating of super code? Then when you leave you will change it back to default.

How about under the bed ?

Agreed. Never trust the hotel safe. Think about it. Hotel cleaning staff have to reset the safes after every time a guest checks out. So they all know the super codes. I worked at a hotel when I was in college and can confirm that we were taught how to access and reset safes (along with how to open a dead-bolted door from the outside) because sometimes guests forgot their stuff when they checked out. So we'd have to open the safe and mail their stuff back to them if they've already left on their flight.

Brilliant idea, still a viable place to use. HOWEVER, I never ever leave my passport behind, ever. And some extra local cash (a significant amount).
In any foreign country encounters with police are always a possibility (hopefully remote) without those two items a person is sunk.

U r saving lives

Thank you very much, you saved me a lot of time

You could booby trap the clip by installing a tiny spy cam across the room. If the wallet is taken and an employee took it—you then have proof and they can be fired by management. (Assuming that is, that management is not working with the thief and already getting a cut.)

Just bring a lockbox in your luggage thats locked to your suitcase.

The clip didn’t hold my 16” MacBook Pro to the curtain. Now the thief can steal a broken MPB. :-P

I still use hotel room safes. But I always take a video and/or photo of all the items I have placed in the safe. In the event that someone decides to open up my safe and take my things. I will have actual proof that I have things in there.

Good trick!

what if you foget your wallet

The other option is leaving a dummy wallet in the safe. An old used wallet with a few dollars, fake cards etc.

I think your passport may be visible from the outside of the sliding doors or window though

Excellent thinking outside the box! I just did two weeks in Thailand and came up with another effective technique, I opted to keep my stack of cash hidden inside the room safe. I did it by using magnets to securely hold the cash to the inside top of the box, when you slide it all the way up against the front it's virtually impossible to see, especially if the safe is mounted at waist level. I left a couple hundred dollars in small bills in the safe in plain sight as a decoy but the main stash was totally hidden from staff and lady visitors while still being easily accessible to me. I was also thinking about mounting a hidden spy camera aimed at the safe to capture a thief in action

If you follow some OSINT podcasts, one suggestion is to have a printed sign that says "Recording On Going" and put that on your bed in good view. If you have a hidden cam (so cheap to buy online) you can actually have one in there recording any movement.

I travel a lot and I haven't done that suggestion yet. What I do instead is if I'm going to a dinner and I don't want to carry my laptop with me, I leave it on the front desk of the hotel. They have a safe there and you will get a claim stub for it so you can get it when you get back. For passports, wallets - I just bring it with me always.

You should really really make a video about best carry on luggage!

This is kind of bad advice because then you Are risking leaving your passport behind when you change hotel rooms? You should clip it to your dirty clothes or something

that clip idea is amazing.

Love your channel and incredibly insightful travel/efficiency tips! Could you talk about good travel insurance and esims sellers (if you know of any) for Malaysia, Singapore and Japan? I know you've been to all those countries multiple times and I'm a first-timer for the first two. I'd really appreciate this and any other advice/tips you might have about travel to those countries/SEA for first-timers!

Two things: if you are afraid you will forget your passport when you leave, whether in the safe or in another spot, set an alarm on your phone. Second, hotel employees are usually not stealing things, but when the rooms are open for cleaning, they aren't checking IDs for anyone that comes back to the room. That is a bigger threat to your belongings.
Love the safe demo! Now everyone is going to be recoding safes! 🤣

Yo I wanna see a video of you showing your 5 panel hat collection 🙌

The safe works in so much as travel insurance usually only covers items left in the room in your hotel safe. If you stash your iPad somewhere you think is clever and it gets stolen then tough luck claiming for it. If it gets stolen from the locked safe then it’s an easy claim.

I know this hotel HAHHAA😂

Hotel staff’s watching this vedio : hmmm interesting

I love the idea of hiding the passport, but i would probably forget it when leaving 😂

This is indeed a very practical way to hide valuables, I like it. If you do have the budget for it, you could also invest in a Vaultek LifePod to store and secure valuables when traveling. They are pretty portable and TSA friendly. Granted, it might be too bulky but if you have to or like to travel lite, then the binder clip idea should work fine.

make more videos like this

There has never been a time when I felt the need to leave my wallet and or passport in the room. Those items are always on my person when I leave the room.

yes, that works all very well until you forget that you put your important passport in the curtain when you leave

Great tip on the room safe! Did not know that! However, with the curtain crease hiding spot, tbh, I'd be too worried about leaving my passport behind when I checked out. 😆

mantap bang

Thanks for the hack code! 😂
Same here, never trust the hotel safe.
In fact, I bring my passport and credit cards, cash with me at all time.
One never know if SHTF, would one still have time/resources to go back to hotel to retrieve the passport, especially when need to leave that country ASAP.
Thanks

thanks to you now everyone know how to crack a hotel safe .... hahahha ... you're still advised to put your valuable belongings in the hotel safe though because the hotel have an insurance on it and will cover theft ...

I don't think I've ever left a hotel without my documentation on my person. I kind of rely on safes for valuable yet replaceable items, my camera, Nintendo switch, etc.

That's some James bond shit right there 👍

What reasons would you not bring your passport or wallet with you while traveling

Holy shait if that is the case in most hotels then that is so wrong!!!

Holy wow! Thank you for the information, next time I fly out of country, I will definitely rethink the safe….

Clint Emerson did a great job of explaining where things are good to hide in a hotel room, but the fact that you can hide your passport (or anything else valuable) behind the curtains is new to me. Thanks for this new way of looking at hiding things! 👍👍👍

Security by obscurity. Well used approach for everything from physical security to cybersecurity. Far less useful for the latter. Just remember that it is only good for criminals doing a quick superficial search but for the most part this is perfectly fine.

How about asking the hotel manager to change the super user details if they're default - then if anything happens you'll both know only compromise would be from them in the senior management - heck they might even thank you and reward you for pointing it out to them

Wow. Thx fir info

Seems like the easiest way to forget your stuff to the hotel room