It is not surprising that the act of stripping down and spreading out your belongings in multiple bins, then sending them through the scanner while you are distracted with the full-body scanner or the pat-down means no traveler can keep an eye on all their stuff. Some would (and do) say “Of course this scenario leads to thievery – it’s bound to happen!”.

According to the TSA’s own blog, written by Bob Burns, 381 TSA workers were fired for theft between May 1st 2003 and September 2012. Some of the TSA criminals who were caught spent years swiping personal property from the very same public they are supposed to protect and selling it to pad their wallets.

Mr. Burns’ limited attempt to repair the public perception of the TSA as a bunch of criminals well deserving of the title, “thousands standing around’ resulted in even more anger from the public to the tune of 114 sizzling comments.

These days, it’s hard to say which group the American public hates more right now: Congress or the TSA, both of whom were created to protect us. In an effort to be fair, there was also a story this year of a TSA agent reuniting a pile of cash with it’s rightful owner.

The truth is that many travelers have a lot on their minds when they’re going through security – one of the most pressing being ‘Am I going to get through security in time to make my flight?’ The following are 6 steps to minimize the risk of losing your belongings to the TSA agents.

1. Don’t put anything of much value in your checked luggage

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – checked luggage is just for the stuff you can afford to lose. If it’s important, carry it with you and don’t lose sight of it (yeah, we know that’s hard while going through security). This means iPads, laptops, cameras, jewelry, etc. go in your carry-on or on your body when you travel.

2. Get organized before you leave the house

The lighter you pack, the easier this is, but when you’re packing for a trip, spread all your stuff out on the bed like it would look on the conveyor belt and weed out anything that’s unnecessary and could trigger the alarm.

Put those items that must be pulled out of your carry-on and dropped in a bin easily accessible – as in the outside pockets of your bag.

3. Make a list and keep it in your pocket

Paper IS still one of those things that can go through the scanners with you, so use an index card or sticky note to make a list of the items you will be dropping into the plastic bins and verify you have all of those before you leave the security area.

You could put this list on one of your electronics, but those have to go in the bins. Of course, if it didn’t show up on the other side, then you’d certainly know you had a problem. It’s your call.

A standard traveler list would look something like this:

• Wallet
• Keys
• Passport
• Shoes
• Jacket
• Cell phone
• Laptop
• iPad
• Jewelry

Once you get through the scanner, you can more easily count off what you dropped into the bins and if something is missing, address the issue right away.

4. Empty your pockets into something else

If you put your belt, heavy jewelry, phone, and whatever else that’s rattling around in your pocket into a separate bag – a zippered plastic bag works great here – while you’re standing in line, then it’s a little safer than rattling around loose in a bin. This is particularly important with smaller electronics and jewelry – you know, those small things that are easy to pocket and re-sell? It’s also easier to grab and start running if you’re short on time.

5. Remember kindergarten and use the buddy system

If you’re traveling with someone – or can make a quick friend in line – you can buddy up and watch each other’s stuff while the other is going through the scanner and vice versa.

Make a point of this in line and it could catch on, which would also work to keep the TSA agents aware that you’re keep an eye on them.

6. Take your time and check your list

It’s almost impossible not to feel rushed at the security checkpoints, but it is OK to slow down a bit, pay attention to where you’re putting what and double-check you have everything before you leave. Is wallet in the bin or in your backpack? for example. Where is your iPod and your cell phone?

Once you get on the other side, whip out your list and give it a quick scan while you’re putting on your shoes again.

Got everything? Good, you’re cleared for go.

Traveling anywhere has its ups and downs, but if you can set aside your expectations and throw caution to the wind, you just might enjoy an experience you never knew was possible. After all, the more you travel, the better you get at it.

For many travelers, the best travel plan gives them a basic idea of where they’re going and what they want to do and see with the flexibility to adapt to changes that occur on their trip. So, this post is for all those travelers who want to expand how they travel and try traveling a little differently.

The following are 4 travel risks that we should all consider at one point or another in our lives. Sound crazy? Well, it is – a little, but how many of us have become extreme travel planners who don’t allow for the day to take us where it will?

There are two sides to each of these risks: one that can be considered good and other that can be considered not-so-good. It all just depends on your perspective and how you like to travel.

1. Travel without a plan

Sometimes, it’s best to let life take you where it wants you to go. While many travelers rely heavily on their trip plans, others see them as a hindrance to real experiences.

Taking off on a whim and without a plan gives a traveler immense flexibility – since nothing is pre-booked you can change your plans as you like. You may miss out on the deals that you could have gotten if you’d planned ahead, but with a little luck you could snag an unexpected deal you wouldn’t have had a chance at otherwise.

Plus, if you hear about something you just have to see or do, you can do it because you aren’t expected to be anywhere else just now.

2. Trust in the kindness of strangers

Think about this: travelers who stay in the prescribed tourist zones are isolating themselves to the exact areas where the highest proportion of scam artists, pickpockets, and petty thieves operate on a daily basis.

Those dodgy characters are operating at a distinct advantage – they know the area well: the through alleys and side streets, where the security and lighting is less than adequate at night, and more. This is their playground and you’re on the visiting team.

Get out of the tourist zones and trust your instincts about people and you’re far more likely to find some great ‘regular’ people who are happy to tell you their favorite restaurant or special thing to see. They may even become a fabulous friend.

3. Go somewhere ‘dangerous’

Super cautious travelers may let the travel warnings and alerts scare them away from seeing some really great places. Kenya is a natural wonder and the Nairobi National Park in East Africa offers some of the best opportunities to view and photograph big game. The flipside is the fact that the political climate is uneasy and rates of violent crime are high.

Travel is about leaving your normal life behind and embracing something new, and it’s important to remember that danger comes in all types and sizes: street violence is very different from perilous weather conditions after all. And many would argue there is no part of the world that’s not worth visiting for some reason.

Do a little research to know your risks. Buy your travel insurance, use your money belt, backup your travel documents and travel medical portfolio and get going.

4. Eat and drink locally

Regional dishes created by local chefs typically feature fresh ingredients that give a traveler excellent exposure to the local flavors. Even back home, you just can’t beat a local dish prepared by someone who is familiar with the regional flavors and knows how to make them taste really great. Think about it: local people like to eat well too.

If you’re eating in a hurry, choose the food truck with a long line of business-clad folks – this is usually a good sign that the food is delicious, quick, and safe. If you’d prefer a restaurant, start walking around the time that most people are gathering for a meal and follow those that seem to know the area well – if the restaurant they visit is packed, it’s probably a good meal.

Avoid anything obviously raw or not fresh, of course, and make sure your travel medical kit is properly stocked and enjoy a great global flavor.

Bonus! Eating and drinking the local stuff is also a great way to keep trip expenses low.

During just the first four days of Hurricane Sandy, over 20,000 flights were cancelled according to the Chicago Tribune, and the super storm continued to disrupt travel around the world for hundreds of thousands of people scheduled to fly to or through the East Coast of the U.S.

Of course, natural disasters aren’t the only thing that can derail your travel plans and cause serious stress.

Many things can make a business or vacation trip far more stressful than it should be:

• Traffic accidents that tie up highways and turn them into parking lots
• Sudden illnesses like food poisoning, the flu, strep throat and more
• Work status changes such as a layoff or a promotion that requires you to work
• The loss or theft of your passport, credit cards, driver’s license, and more

While there’s no real way to prepare for everything that can go wrong, travelers can implement a number of things to make their travel smoother and less stressful even when things do go wrong.

1. Book your travel early

Setting your travel plans as early as possible – even if they’re loose at first, they’ll solidify later – gives you the best option for finding better deals. Just like booking the first appointment of the day at the doctor’s office – set your alarm and take the first flight out in the morning because those are less likely to be delayed.

Booking your travel early and purchasing your travel insurance soon after gives you access to a few time-sensitive coverages, like pre-existing condition coverage and ‘cancel for any reason’, as well as the longest amount of coverage time for trip cancellations.

2. Give yourself plenty of extra time

As airports expand, more parking spaces are needed and those spaces are farther and farther from the check-in counter. They’re also the cheapest parking, so they often fill up quickly and many have less-than-frequent transport services between the airport and the parking lot.

Yet, just one unpredicted travel problem can cause your trip to be delayed to the point that you miss your flight or miss a connection.

Leaving for the airport early may mean that you spend a little time in the airport – if all goes well – but you’re less likely to be in a bad spot if something unpredictable happens. Remember, the airport personnel like to take time off during the holidays too!

Plus, the side benefit of arriving and getting through security early is that you’ll have time to relax after that friendly security pat-down we’re all so fond of and pick up a snack for the flight since the airlines stopped soothing us with treats.

3. Pack smart and prepare for a worst-case scenario

While the airlines ask for your ID when you surrender your bags, it’s not typical for someone to be on the other side matching bags to the owners. Recent media reports indicate that thefts from baggage carousels, as well as by the TSA and baggage handlers, is far more common than expected. Even worse? Thieves don’t seem to care which luggage they snatch because thefts now range from designer luggage all the way to the proletariat basic black.

See Packing Smart: Best Tips from Travel Experts for more smart-packing methods and learn why most savvy travelers now take a picture of the contents of their luggage.

Some packing tips you may not have thought of are the following:

1. If you’re traveling with someone, put one complete outfit (underwear too!) in the other person’s bag. If one bag is lost you’ll still have a change of clothes.
2. Alternatively, if you’re traveling solo, put a complete change of clothes in your carry-on. See the packing cubes at Magellan’s for a way to do this neatly.
3. Put a complete copy of your travel itinerary in each bag – including contact information for where you’re staying. This helps the airline know where to bring your bag when they find it (if they read it, of course).

4. Get digital – for you and for the kids

Before you leave home, make sure you have securely saved all important travel documents and your itinerary and that you have plenty of digital entertainment for the kids.

If your passport is stolen after you arrive, you’ll have a copy of the pages you need to get it replaced before it’s too late to make your flights home. See the 4 Best Backup Methods for your Travel Documents for more details.

If your travel is delayed for a really long time, the familiarity of a favorite book, or show, or video game can prevent a kids melt-down. While no parent wants to rely regularly on digital parenting, there’s never a better (or more forgivable) time than when you’re traveling to loosen the reins a bit and let the kids zone out.

Just be sure to pack earphones that fit them, backup batteries, chargers and adapters for your chargers if you’re going abroad.

5. Park smart and prepare for a worst-case scenario

In the rush to get parked and catch the transportation to the airport, it’s easy to forget to remember where you parked it. Snap a quick photo of the sign on the row where you parked your car so you’ll remember it when you get back.

One of the worst-case scenarios is returning to find your car won’t start or it’s been damaged or broken into. Park your car nose out so that if you return to find the battery has died or it has to be towed away, it’s easier to access the battery and/or hook it up to a tow truck.

6. Protect your health before and during your trip

Being sick while away from home is one of the most stressful things that can happen to a traveler. These days, planes are so overcrowded that germs are allowed free reign to test even the strongest immune systems.

Plan ahead for travel by:

1. Getting plenty of sleep before your trip
2. Making sure your vaccinations are up to date
3. Preparing a personal medical portfolio
4. Packing and carrying a travel medical kit
5. Knowing how to prevent common illnesses like norovirus
6. Understanding how to travel safely with medications

There are many reasons families consider taking their child’s friend on a family vacation:

• The two kids hang out all the time at each other’s houses anyway
• Either of the children may be the only child in a family
• The siblings’ ages may be so widely spread as to limit playing together
• The parents may simply want their child to have the companionship

Of course, there are lots of things to consider when taking another person’s kid on a family trip that may not be apparent when the children are in their own normal routines, such as different eating habits, different rules and lifestyles, and the cost related to paying for another person to come along.

Given that all those issues are ironed out, there are still 3 risks you may not have considered when offering to take another person’s kid on your trip.

1. You may not know their complete medical history

You may have known that child since he or she was born, but you may not know their medical history as well as you think you do. For example, in an emergency, can you easily rattle off the following for your own child and for your child’s friend:

• Their allergies and any reactions to medications in the past
• What prescriptions they are taking or have taken
• Any surgeries or illnesses they’ve had
• The status of their immunizations

It’s scary enough when your kid – the one you know so well – gets sick while away from home, but what if their friend is the one who gets sick? If you don’t know their complete medical history (and how could you, really?) and they need to visit a medical facility or emergency room, how are you to handle it in the safest manner possible?

Family experts recommend that you should have the following items for any friends that are coming along in case of an emergency while on a trip:

1. Medical insurance card (although this may not be helpful if you’re headed overseas)
2. Name, address, and phone number of the child’s regular doctor back home
3. Complete list of allergies, medical conditions, and prescriptions
4. A letter of permission signed by the parent indicating you are allowed to travel with the child including the parent’s contact information
5. A backup contact person in case you cannot contact the parents
6. A limited power of attorney (more on this later)

2. Travel Insurance plans only protect family members

Travel insurance plans only cover immediate family members, so it’s likely that the other child will have to have their own plan instead of being on the same plan as your own.

That means you’ll have to coordinate with the other child’s parents to get the proper information into the travel plan document and coordinate the purchase of that travel insurance plan so it’s purchased soon after your initial trip deposit in order to take advantage of travel insurance coverage that requires early purchase, including:

• ‘Cancel for any reason’
• Pre-existing medical conditions
• Financial default
• Hurricane protection

It will be important that you and the other child’s parent coordinate the coverage to ensure that it matches your own. For example, you don’t want to have a situation where your family has protection for travel delays caused by hurricanes, but the other kid does not. You could be facing unexpected and expensive financial losses for just one person in your group.

3. Liability, liability, liability

Until a child becomes a legal adult, their decision-making power is vested in their parents. When you take another person’s child on vacation with you, you are putting yourself in a situation where you could be held liable for your actions, or the actions of others. When a child travels away from their parents, it’s necessary to give another person the legal ability to act on the child’s behalf in the absence of the child’s parents.

For example, if a medical emergency occurs while traveling, and the parent of the child cannot be contacted, is the non parent allowed to authorize medical treatment for the child? If the medical treatment is given improperly or their condition gets worse, that situation could give rise to your own liability because you authorized the treatment.

It’s important to recognize that most hospitals and doctors will not treat a child beyond essential life-threatening measures without the written consent from the child’s parents – thus, a limited power of attorney can be a valuable tool to prevent liability from occurring.

Of course, accidents and injuries may be the most frightening concern, but those aren’t the only things that could go wrong on a vacation. Just as with your own children, your child’s friend could be kidnapped or get lost. They could break the law and be arrested.

There are a number of good reasons to take your child’s friend on vacation, but it’s important to take the necessary precautions to be sure you can protect that child as well as protecting yourself from liability.

So, what do you do if you’ve purchased your travel insurance policy and something about your trip changes?

It happens to lots of travelers, but it’s important to remember that you can make changes to your policy as long as they are made before you start the trip.

The most common changes made to travel insurance plans are:

• Changing the departure and return dates
• Increasing or decreasing the trip costs
• Adding additional members to the policy
• Adding additional coverages to the policy

In all cases, a call to the travel insurance provider is all that’s required to make such changes – be sure to have your policy number and the necessary changes on hand to make that process easier.

1. Some trip changes require a policy update

Why would you need to change to make changes to your travel insurance policy? Well, we’ll offer a few common examples:

• You get a call from the cruise company offering you a great incentive to pay a little more and get an upgrade on your cabin. You decide to surprise your wife and buy the upgrade. Three months later, however, you have to cancel your trip because of a family illness, and you make a claim on your travel insurance policy. Without changing your travel insurance plan, you would only have access to the original amount you insured.
• You and your wife are taking the kids to Cozumel and shortly before leaving, you find a super-saver fare and ask your parents to come along too. When you arrive, however, your father is very ill and rushed to a local hospital. If you didn’t update your travel insurance plan to include your parents – or have them purchase a separate plan – you won’t have coverage for his international travel medical bills or an emergency evacuation to receive medical treatment back in the States.
• You’re doing further research on your all-inclusive resort trip and realize that it’s been a long time since you’ve been SCUBA diving. You decide to add a few afternoon SCUBA dives to your list of activities. If you don’t remember to check the policy and be sure adventure activities like SCUBA diving are covered, you will have no travel medical coverage for accidents that occur on your trip.

Travel insurance companies know that your trip will often evolve up until the time you leave. It’s important to keep them informed of the changes that affect the coverage in your policy to ensure that you avoid the common ‘loopholes’ that catch some travelers off guard.

2. Your premium may change a little – up or down

It might, depending on the changes you’re making. If you are increasing the trip costs or lengthening the trip dates, you may have to pay a slightly increase in the premium, but as we noted above – that small extra amount could save you a lot more should you have to cancel.

If the changes result in a lower premium, a refund will be issued.

Additional travelers can be added to some policies, but travel insurance providers typically require that travelers covered by the same travel insurance policy be related or reside at the same address.

3. The rules are slightly different with group plans

If the travel insurance policy is a group plan, most travel insurance providers require that all members of the group be covered for the plan to be in effect. That means each person in the group taking the same trip has to be listed and covered by the plan. If someone is left off the plan, the entire group’s coverage could be invalidated.

If, before departure, one or more people in the group can’t make it, call the travel insurance provider and make the necessary changes to the group travel insurance policy to make sure that the coverage you have on everyone else is valid and in effect when you need it.

4. Make your travel insurance plan changes early

In all cases you should make your travel insurance plan changes as soon as humanly possible. Every travel insurance policy comes with a free review period in which the insured traveler can read the policy, understand the exclusions, and make changes to the policy or cancel the plan for a refund (minus a small fee).

Of course, it’s best to get the trip details right when you’re first generating a quote and making your purchase, but we’re all human and mistakes and misunderstandings happen. But, you can’t make changes after you depart for your trip.

The key thing to remember is that a travel insurance policy is a legal agreement between you and the insurance provider. You agree to pay a premium and give them accurate trip details and they agree to the terms of their coverage. If you provide them with inaccurate trip information, they have every right to deny your claim.