One of the things that is always waiting for travelers when they reach their destination  are those con artist that want to separate you, from your hard earned travel spending cash. One of the things that people usually overlook when they are planning a trip is there own personal security. Especially new travelers, naturally tend to look at the new and interesting places they are going to and usually leave caution, to when they are just about to leave.

One of the thing I like to stress is, “do your research”  on where it is you want to go. One simple thing, that can be done is to start paying attention to news events for that particular place. Most major centers have English publications and can be easily accessed via internet. I think it is always wise  to know the political and religious climate of places that I plan to travel to. Try to find out what social norms are for the place you are going, remember, you are going there to experience their culture. You are the visitor.

One of the ones I ran into in Paris was very clever and I didn’t realize I was being scammed until I was right in the middle of it. There is a tunnel that goes from the Arc de Triomphe under the multiple lanes of traffic and exits at the the Champs Elysees.  This creates a natural bottle neck for tourists and funnels them into a little gauntlet of teen-aged scammers that I am sure are handled by an older ring leader that is of to the side some place. The rush forward and ask you to sign a petition for the school for the deaf in perfect English. My daughter had already signed the petition before I could stop her, So rather than refuse the scam and get into some potential trouble, I gave them two euros to which they said that wasn’t enough, and that they preferred paper money.  I didn’t comply with their request, and beat a hasty retreat along the busy shopping street.

One other Item to watch for are the water sellers. These people are found at all of the major attractions in most major cities like Paris and Rome, So here is the scam, the bottles they use are often pulled from the trash and refilled with fountain water, from the fountains that are found all over these wonderful cities. My advise is to invest in your own water bottle and fill it yourself or purchase your own water. Never ever, purchase water from a guy that looks like he hasn’t bathed in years or has tapped on shoes, you wouldn’t do that at home so don’t do it when you travel.

The Next one I fell victim to was in Rome, It wasn’t a bad scam, and the women was rather pleasant. She had two birds that she would place on your shoulder and they would sing and whistle. Of coarse you need to take a photo of this so she then promptly asks for a donation. I really didn’t mind this one to much, it was a nice day and I was out for a stroll with my daughter in Rome.

The biggest thing that people can do to protect themselves is to be aware of there surroundings. These scams I mention here are just the ones that worked on me. There were plenty of others that didn’t. There are plenty of web sites out there that travelers post on about scams and things that they have experienced. The more things you know about the places you go the more safe you are going to be.

My family and I made ourselves aware of the possible scams that were out there before we traveled. It is because of this that they really didn’t affect our trip one way or the other. We did the research and became aware of what could happen before we went.