As an international traveler whose purposes for being in third world countries were sometimes suspect, I have often found myself under direct attack by antagonist groups. This has included a cell phone bomb planted at my Georgian hotel, dynamiting of my Bolivian pension, threats by angry armed Arab tribesmen, strafing by aircraft, standoffs with unhappy rebel soldiers, mob attacks, and simple robberies and assaults. I have spent many nights doing what little can be done to turn my temporary quarters into a functioning retreat.
It's these experiences that have prompted this chapter. We are a nation of travelers, and a good percentage of us will be nowhere near our planned retreats when whatever evil is going to happen happens. As the world gets smaller and smaller, it's far more likely that the average person will need a real retreat from occasional threats of isolated criminal or terrorist violence than from any zombie attack or doomsday scenario.
It stands to reason that one can't predict when things are going to go to hell in a handbasket. There are no safe rooms in cheap hotels, no panic rooms in restaurants, no retreats in the client's office, no bomb shelters in taxis. What follows here are some methods of improvising what we'll call a “personal retreat zone” when you're traveling.
1. Make certain somebody you absolutely trust knows your travel plans in detail.
2. Consider a concealed weapon. This requires planning ahead. In the United States, you must have a permit. Firearms are illegal in many countries. In others, automatic weapons and explosives can be purchased by anyone at the local market. If you can't get a firearm and ammunition in your target country, a Taser or pepper spray is a weaker but reasonable substitute.
3. Consider carrying a burglar bar in your luggage. This device fits under any doorknob (they're telescoping and adjustable). One end has a hard rubber floor pad that locks onto wood, tile, carpet, or cement. For emergencies, just kick the bottom of the brace away from the floor. A cheap but less effective alternative is a simple rubber or wood wedge doorstop.
4. Consider putting together a travel security kit consisting of several door/window screamer contacts and a motion detector or two, a couple of window track locks or a telescoping “Charlie Bar,” a roll of heavy-duty tape, and a door wedge. With the exception of a Charlie Bar or burglar bar, the whole kit can fit into a small backpack. The kit should also include a very minimal seventy-two-hour supply of food and hydration. You will be fine locked in a hotel room for a few days with two liters of water and a handful of high-calorie energy bars or an MRE.
5. Avoid taking a room on the first floor. Before choosing a room, remember higher floors are more secure from intruders, but the lower floors are easier to escape or be rescued from. Choose your poison.
My personal third world travel retreat security kit includes a sectional dowel (made from an old tent frame rod), a multitool, two nails (to pin the hinge on outward-opening doors), strong tape, two door/window screamers, three window/sliding door track locks, a motion-detecting spot lamp (to be aimed directly at the entrance door to blind intruders), a 72-hour supply of water and calories, and some cash. A burglar bar or a simple door wedge is often added, and on occasion a weapon of some kind is included.
6. Choose a room that is close but not next to elevators and stairways. If someone you don't know is exiting from an elevator on your floor, let them out first and then go to another floor or the lobby if they act suspicious.
7. Once you get the lay of the building and surroundings, preplan an escape route and a contingency.
8. Be one with your inner MacGyver and Burn Notice fantasies, but remember: about 99 percent of that doesn't actually work as it does on TV.
The perfect traveling companion? The Public Defender variant of the Taurus handgun, “The Judge,” is a five-shot revolver that shoots a .45 caliber round or a .410 shot shell. It's small and light, built and promoted as a concealable self-defense or home protection weapon. The photo shows the handgun and a box of Winchester Supreme Elite .410 shells. The shells contain twelve plated BBs and three plated cylinder projectiles, providing stopping power and protection from overpenetration. Loading a Public Defender with alternating .45 and WSE .410 rounds results in a formidable close-quarters personal defense weapon.
9. Watch diligently for suspicious people on the premises. Don't trust anybody. Intruders will pretend to be someone else (hotel security, room service, pizza man, etc.).
10. Make sure the hotel/motel or apartment and surrounding grounds look secure before paying for the room. Do not take a room with large windows above the head of the bed that open into an interior courtyard. Avoid rooms with balconies.
11. Beware of rooms that have adjoining rooms. Be sure an adjoining room is locked with a secure deadbolt.
12. The room entrance should have a solid-core hardwood or metal door with deadbolts that have a throw of at least one inch and push-button knob locks. If possible, the door should be self-closing and self-locking, and electronic card access is a plus. The door should also have a wide-angle peephole.
Good door security in an inexpensive stateside motel room. The features of this self-closing, self-locking door are a solid hardwood core, an upper and lower peephole, a card-activated dead bolt with a one-inch-plus throw, a swing bar lock, and a wood door wedge.
13. Use the dead bolt and any other locks on the door. If you're really paranoid, take twenty minutes to pin the hinges if they're on the outside of the entrance door. Bathroom doors typically open out, with the hinges on the outside. Pinning the bathroom door may give you the few minutes you need to get out a bathroom window … just make sure there's a window if that's your plan. Pinning is easy to do with a multitool and a couple of nails.
14. Use the peephole before answering the door. From inside the room, demand to see an ID, even if the visitors are in uniform. Have them slip it under the door so you can see it clearly, then call the front desk to verify the reason they are standing outside your door.
15. Once you've cleared the intruders, open the door with the chain lock or swing bar engaged to conduct business, but do not rely on a chain lock to stop an intruder.
16. Do not leave windows open. Close them and lock them or place a dowel in the frame track or apply clamp locks that only allow the window to open a few inches for ventilation. If you have screamer contacts, apply them to the entrance door and windows with a loop of strong tape. Do not use the double-sided tape that comes in the contact screamer package as it's extremely difficult to remove.
17. Worrisome windows can be reinforced with strong tape. In the United States, most high-end hotels are glazed with safety or security glass. Not so in other countries or in very low-end hotels stateside. Tape provides a surprisingly effective barrier against penetration of shattered glass, similar to that of the clear security laminates mentioned earlier. Probably the most effective tape for this purpose is Hurricane Tape. Check out this website for a better description and videos of product tests:
Good window security in the same ground-floor room: double panes of security glass, a fastener to lock the sliding window to the frame, and a bolt or pin that can be set to lock the window closed or open slightly for ventilation.
http://www.bunkerinc.com/default.html
Unfortunately, Hurricane Tape is hard to come by unless you live along the East Coast. Contrary to what we're told on disaster websites, heavy-duty duct tape performed acceptably in my own impact and ballistic tests. Heavy-duty woven or thick clear plastic packing tape performed almost identically well, and these tapes are far easier to find stateside and overseas.
The decision to tape means leaving a mess behind on the window. If you decide to tape, tape over the entire window, ovelapping strips in two layers, one horizontal and one vertical. Double-back the end of each strip so it provides a tab that will make removal easier.
18. Do not leave sliding glass balcony doors open, even on upper floors.
19. Keep the curtains closed.
20. If you're worried about seriously violent intruders, do not sleep where anyone would assume you would. For example, pull the mattress off the bed and move it to the bathroom or take a mini bedroll to throw wherever you'd like, then fluff the real bed so it looks like somebody is asleep there.
21. If you're going out …
a. keep the room very neat so it will be easy to notice anything disturbed as you enter the room,
b. make a habit of leaving a light on. If you return and it's off, you'll know something's wrong.
22. In restaurants and other public places, learn to go into PRZ-mode automatically:
a. Sit near other people or near aisles or doors.
b. Sit with your back toward a nearby wall looking outward toward the entrance and occupants.
c. Quickly preplan an escape route and contingency.
d. Stay sober.
e. Do not discuss plans or family in an open area or with strangers.
A company called onPoint Tactical offers a course called Urban Escape and Evasion. Reviews of this course have been very good. The only complaint is that it's expensive (around $800 for three days), but like other good things, you get what you pay for. The intensive curriculum is urban survival from the James Bond-ish perspective (lock picking, vehicle pursuit, escape from restraints, etc.), and nearly everyone who takes it swears it's the most fun they've ever had. The website:
http://www.onpointtactical.com/enroll.aspx?id=204
