Even though traveling should be some of the best times of your life and be filled with only positive memories, there will always be fewer positive things. One of these things is travel scams. Everyone may experience it, but we hope this article will help you better prepare. This way you will have a smaller chance of dealing with these things during your vacation.
Traveling takes you to an unfamiliar environment, with maybe a different type of currency or a language barrier. This makes you a higher risk for travel scams. In addition, traveling may cause you to feel hurried or nervous, which makes it more difficult to take your time and consider things.
Accommodation travel scams are one of the most common. To avoid this, try only to use well-known websites when booking a holiday. Like Booking.com and Airbnb. Even though scams can still happen on one of these sites, they offer good customer support who will help you through it and protect your money. Avoid booking through Facebook. However, if you still decide to do it. Be aware of the consequences of this decision.
When using Facebook pay attention to the following:
Except for accommodation scams, taxi scams are also common to happen. Be aware of taxis right in front of the airport or train station. A lot of taxis are waiting there to take advantage of jet-lagged or tired travelers. They often take advantage of tourists who are not familiar with the area, by charging them more than needed or even taking a longer way. To avoid this have a good idea of how long the ride is and how much it should cost on average.
Besides this, pay attention to the meter, and check if it goes up way faster than usual. Also which is even better, is to look up the cab companies available at your destination, like Uber and Bolt. By using these, you can ensure that you can still receive a cab directly from the train or airport and schedule the drive yourself.
Travel scams happen a lot, however, they can differ between countries. These were some of the most common and bigger scams. There are many more smaller ones to mention, some of these are:
For all of these (little) scans be aware too. Keep your head cool and be wary of accepting anything for free. However, this is just a small part of the locals you can meet, luckily there are still many other nice people, who have good intentions whom you can still have a good time with, and who want to help you during your trip.
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