December: Holiday Travel Safety
As you are probably already aware, the holiday travel season is in full swing! Many of us will be traveling away from home for an extended period of time to visit with friends and family at Christmas. There are plenty of hazards associated with winter traveling {traffic, snow, ice} that you shouldn’t have to worry about keeping your identity safe. Even if you prefer to not leave town during the holiday hubbub you may still visit loved ones just a few streets over, making yourself a prime target for identity thieves. This month, LifeLock‘s goal is to share tips about safe holiday travel. If you’re ever wanting great tips to protect your identity you should visit the LifeLock for Life game on Facebook! It’s filled with useful tidbits of knowledge to help keep you safe and the theme of the game changes each month. This month, of course, is about holiday travel.
I wanted to share with you a few of my favorite tips that I picked up this month while playing the LifeLock for Life game on Facebook. Some I had never heard of before and some were great reminders that I hadn’t thought about for a while.
1. Put your office’s address on your luggage and not your home address. Isn’t that a clever idea! I’ve never put my address on there because I didn’t want random strangers, potential thieves, to know my address where they could go and rob even more but this way you’ll still get your lost luggage returned to you without risking your security. Brilliant!
2. Have your children memorize their address and phone number. In the awful situation that you are separated it’s important for them to know how to get in touch with you. I’m astounded at the number of young girls I work with in different ministries who don’t know their full address and phone number. I’m talking 5th graders! It’s important for your kids to know this information so don’t just assume that they do.
3. Be aware of ATM skimmers. This one kind of freaks me out. Apparently, smart thieves can install small devices on ATM machines that are capable of taking your personal information when you make a withdraw. My husband always monitors our bank activity closely, very closely, multiple times a day even but with the hustle and bustle of travel we’re going to have to make it a point to slow down and monitor it. Many banks even have downloadable apps so you can monitor your activity on the go. We need to check into this for ours!
4. Keep a safety candle and dry matches in your car. This one wasn’t on the game but it’s an extra measure that my family has taken this year to stay safe. We’ve had some transmission problems and we just got ours rebuilt and put back in. I feel like our car is safe to travel in but if it’s not, I don’t want to be stranded along the side of the snowy road without any heat. We’re traveling with luggage so we’ll have plenty of additional layers if needed and I always keep a blanket flat in the back of my trunk for emergencies. The safety candle will burn slower than a regular candle and we put in a baggie with a small box of matches and put it in our glove box. We don’t have to think about it any more but it’s there if we need it.
Keep these reminders from LifeLock in mind as you enjoy the tinsel, lights, cookies, and traveling associated with the holiday season. I personally want to wish you a very Merry Christmas from my family to yours!!
As always, their best tips can be found in the LifeLock for Life sweepstakes, or by Following LifeLock on Twitter, and of course LikingLifeLock on Facebook or Joining the Circles on Google+.
I’m a proud LifeLock ambassador and member. This post on behalf of LifeLock. Opinions are my own regardless of compensation.
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