The best place for your valuables, aside from back home, is in your hotel's room safe or in a hotel safe deposit box.

Every year, thousands of holiday and business travelers are robbed of valuable belongings while out of the country or away from home. Taking precious belongings on trips makes them more vulnerable to thieves, as we seldom have complete control over security when traveling. By taking a few easy precautions, however, you can minimize your chances of being fleeced and stand a better chance of coming home with everything that you left with.

Ted Wright is an international hotelier and a deluxe travel specialist who has lived in nine different countries and has managed some of the greatest hotels in the world. A traveler for the past 3 decades, Ted was knighted by the Queen of England in 1999 for service to tourism, the arts, and the community. Here he offers his expert advice for those who must travel with valuables:

• Leave them at home.
  Wright's first piece of advice for travelers is this: if you don't absolutely need to take a particular item with you, don't bring it along. Expensive belongings are safest at home, where you can control security measures and where your homeowners insurance will cover the items in the unlikely event of a robbery.
  
• The room safe.
  If you must bring valuable items with you, keep them in the safe in your hotel room. Most good hotels have such safes, and according to Wright, they are usually very secure.
  
• Your suitcase.
  If an item is too big to fit in the room safe, keep it locked in your suitcase.
  
• Safe deposit boxes.
  Items exceeding five or six thousand dollars in value should be taken downstairs and placed in a safety deposit box in the hotel's main safe. In Wright's opinion, such measures are more than 99% effective in preventing theft.
  
• Liability.
  Wright has had his belongings stolen while staying in a hotel and it's certainly not an experience he wishes to repeat. He has learned that in most cases the hotel cannot be held responsible for the loss, so it's in your best interests to use those measures available to you to protect your property.

For more information safe travel and travel tips, check out the following website:

U.S. Department of State: A Safe Trip Abroad
http://travel.state.gov