How to Never Forget Stuff in Hotel Rooms Again
Key tips so you never forget your favorite items in a hotel
Forgetting your suit, shoes, laptop, cellphone charger, passport or even a favorite toiletry item at the hotel can make you grumpy or send you into a state of alarm. Turns out nearly a third of American travelers have left something behind in a hotel room, with clothing, toiletries and electronic chargers at the top of the list.
Here are a few key tips from our years of travel experience to ensure you never forget your favorite items in the hotel room:
- Be a creature of habit. When you know your phone is always on a bedside table or your shoes are beside the bed, you learn where to look.
- Put all of your little things, like jewelry, smartphone or chargers, in one place, either on a nightstand or a corner of a desk.
- Instead of unpacking, just hang up a few clothes that need to de-wrinkle but live out of your suitcase. Use the packing cubes we so love so you can organize items in your open suitcase.
- To remember items hanging in a closet, leave a sliding closet door open. If the closet is behind a hinged door, hang something on the doorknob or over the top of the door.
- Put ONE shoe in the safe with your valuables.You won’t get so far without it!
Place a note on the inside doorknob or on the floor next to the door with a reminder on it, such as “cellphone charger next to bed.” Hard to get out of the room without seeing it.
- Don’t overlook a hotel balcony. If you put something out to dry, use the above note trick or put one shoe out there with your other stuff.
- To not forget toiletries in hotel rooms, rely on a kit with compartments – we prefer ones that you hang and hold everything. Just unhang, zip and pop into the suitcase.
- Do one last room sweep. If traveling as a duo, both of you should do what we call a “room sweep” and look under beds, in bathrooms, on balconies and behind nightstands.
- Stop and think for a minute before you step out and consider anything out of the ordinary. Is your suitcase lighter than normal? Was it suddenly easy to get everything in? Then take a last glance for the essentials, like chargers, cell phones, tickets and your passport.
You can easily replace a toothbrush or deodorant, but a few extra moments of care mean you won’t panic when you realize a charger or jewelry is still on the table of a hotel now two cities away.
This content was created in partnership with Best Western.