A former CIA and FBI agent is sharing her secrets for traveling safely — including which hotel rooms to book.
Tracy Walder, 44, has worked as an FBI special agent and CIA officer. Each jobs taught her the right way to take extra precautions while on task, especially when abroad.
Before she begins any trip, Walder researches her destination for terrorism threats and sets up an app that alerts her contacts to her location within the event of an emergency.
The professor of criminal justice from Dallas makes sure to put an Apple Air Tag in her luggage and has her 8-year-old daughter wear a bracelet with the tracking device too.
When planning her trip, she never books private rentals, which she claims are “extremely dangerous and dangerous.”
“You’re really putting your trust in someone that you just don’t know to remain of their home,” Walder told SWNS. “You furthermore may really don’t who’s writing those reviews.”
Once she selects a hotel, Walder requests to remain in a room between the third and sixth floors.
She explained that these rooms are low enough to the foremost floor for emergency access, but far enough from intruders who enter on the bottom floor.
“With regards to floor level, there’s two things — first is entering. Typically, someone who’s attempting to do harm goes to go the simplest way that they will and that will be entering through the primary floor because it is most accessible,” Walder said.
“With getting out, if you happen to’re too high on the twentieth floor or twenty first floor — it’s going to be really difficult so that you can get out quickly.”
Once she’s in her room, Walder is all the time sure to lock and bolt the door and put a doorstopper down for an “extra level of security.”
“My husband, Ben, 44, teases me about it, and while it’s unlikely someone will break in, the fact is that hotel staff have a keycard to get into your room,” she shared.
Walder revealed that she added these safety measures to her travel routine after a classified work trip abroad left her feeling unsafe.
“Obviously I can’t be extremely specific because it’s still classified, but generally speaking, I’m coming at it from the concept that I’m in a foreign country spying on them — so I actually have to assume the opposite country perhaps knows who I’m and is perhaps attempting to do harm to me,” she teased.
“They refused to maneuver me from the primary floor once I was on a job once, and so I began putting towels under the door.”
Walder also makes sure to present her family her itinerary so individuals are aware of her whereabouts and may locate her if needed.
“My hope was to present people all different variations of security control and encourage them to make use of things they will control or have already got — without having to purchase anything,” Walder said of sharing her suggestions.