{Living} The Facade Of Safety: Staying Safe At Home & While Traveling

Hey fabs. I started this post a couple of days after the Kim Kardashian West robbery in Paris and I wanted to share a few things that I have been thinking about.  In particular I want to talk a bit about the “facade of safety“. The facade of safety is something I think we all have especially in places that

are familiar to us, as apparently the private hotel that Kim was staying at was to her.

Granted because of her celebrity status there are lots of other security elements that Kim needs to address but I wanted to share a few things that I think are important for anyone, especially we women to be aware of.

I think we all need to remember that hotels, even private ones are not 100% safe and that we should be really vigilant about making sure that we take every precaution available to us.

When I stay in hotels I always do a walk thru upon entering and I use the security bolt or latch even if I am just in the room for a few minutes. It’s just always been a simple thing that I think you should do.

You should also take precaution when opening the door for hotel “staff”. Use the peephole, pay attention to what they are wearing and if you didn’t call for them or wasn’t expecting them, it is more than ok to talk to them via a closed, locked door.

I also think that hotels should be way more discreet with how they deliver room information to people when they check in. You don’t need everyone within earshot to know what room you are in.  And I don’t think that this is something that people really think about.

You also need to know how to reach emergency services when traveling. I read somewhere that Kim’s friend tried to call the police but could not. So while you can dial 9-1-1 in most of the USA and even Canada, there are a variety of emergency services numbers used in other parts of the world.

Unfortunately for Kim, she & all of the people who were traveling with her were probably being watched the entire time that they were there (even if the theory that it was an inside job proves to be true).  And while we may not be celebrities, there is always the possibility that someone(s) wishing to do us harm are watching us, frankly at all times, including when we are at home.



I travel solo a lot. My last solo trip to New Orleans was a couple of weeks ago & I stayed in Airbnb properties for the first time. I felt pretty comfortable doing so because the people I stayed with had great reviews but the possibility of something going wrong is potentially very high and that is seriously bothering me now that this whole facade of safety has been brought to the forefront for me.  But that does not mean that I would not use Airbnb again, it just means that I might not do it for my solo travel but I am not opposed to using it when I am not alone. Side note: The families I stayed with were great and I will be posting reviews soon.

I refuse to be turned into someone who is constantly afraid.  But Kim’s unfortunate experience definitely is a reminder that when I travel, especially alone, that while I try to keep my locations private until I leave them, I could be even more vigilant
about it.

And I get that sometimes you are traveling to take part in events, etc, so there is potentially always some information that will get out. But you should be cautious about mentioning things like “staying at the host hotel” and posting or snapping every move that you make and even if you do, you should probably hold off on posting until after you have left a location. I now do this with snapchat. I capture a snap but I have my phone in airplane mode so that it does not auto post. When I am ready for it to post, I take my phone off airplane mode and manually upload the snap.

Ironically this is something I had started to do even before the Kim Kardashian incident partly because of a KUWTK episode where the older sisters were trying to teach Kylie a lesson about being more careful about what/when she shares on social media.

You should also make sure that you are not unknowingly sharing your location via your cellphone by checking your location settings on it. You should do the same for the social media platforms that you use.

We live in a very social time and lots of us, especially bloggers, like to share with our online fam what we are doing. But we have to be aware that not everyone online following us is fam.

Another thing that people might not even think of that could potentially be security risks, are things like using ride share companies.  If we are honest, using them in general is risky because these people are not really vetted. And I will be honest and say that I tend to cancel rides if the picture of the driver doesn’t vibe with me and I also tend to prefer female drivers, whom I have had the least amount of “issues” with when using the services.

There is another level of risk added to the mix when you use the pool ride feature where essentially you are in the car with multiple strangers. God forbid you used this option to get to/from your home or somewhere you go often, like work and some creeper starts watching/stalking you.

Another area that we should think about is how we go about our daily activities, I know we all develop our routines, so we leave at certain times and take certain routes but it might be a good idea to mix it up a bit. Leave earlier or later some days and go a completely different route.

And just the other day a well known makeup personality posted that a Sephora employee took his information out of their database and sent him a text message. This is exactly why I only use my google voice mail phone numbers for things like that and my PO Box or a business for mailing and not my home.  Apparently, he contacted Sephora and cancelled the credit card that was in his Sephora profile but the whole event left him understandably feeling somewhat violated.

The potential for incidents like this is why I always try to use my Paypal account when ordering things online and I never use the save for future purchases option. We have seen too many incidents of stores getting hacked already and now employees are hacking accounts and contacting people?

I have only touched the surface of the types of safety considerations we should all take but I just wanted to at least plant a seed of awareness that would hopefully lead to all of us thinking about being more aware.

xx
Jaye

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