Stripes Japan: 9 Travel Tips and Lessons Learned

Above, a Japanese business hotel room. Everything in your luggage accounted for? Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Have you ever gone on a vacation or business trip and found that your luggage had been lost or stolen, or valuables (jewelry) had been stolen out of your check-in baggage or some other mishap?

Well, Stripes Japan has nine good tips (from learning the hard way) that will help prevent or, at the very least, minimize any misfortune.

They begin with:

I wouldn’t trade the thrill of traveling for anything, but as joyous and fulfilling my worldly adventures have been, I had my fair share of mishaps and less than favorable travel moments. After a decade of independent travel around the world, I think it is time to share some of the lessons learned and tips I have accumulated thus far.

I will share their first tip so that you'll get an idea on what the other eight will be:

Lock your suitcases 

There were couple of occasions when my checked in luggage was opened and things – mainly fake jewelry – were stolen from my suitcases (beware of Ukranian Airlines!). Since then I firmly decided not to take any chances and make sure to put a special little padlock on my suitcase. It is cheap and doesn’t require particular effort, so I’d rather do that than have something taken out of my bag again. Another way you can secure your bag is to have it wrapped in plastic wrappers available at the airports.

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