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Tags: Japan Travel / Trains / Train Travel / Travel Health / Travel Safety / → All Tags

Groping Epidemic On Tokyo Trains Has Us Watching Our Butt

On the whole, Japan is a dream for travelers; it's full of polite people who go out of their way to help tourists. But that can all come to an abrupt stop when you get on a train in Tokyo (or, to be fair, probably any big city). That's when the gropers appear, and we don't mean the fish.

Authorities are warning travelers—especially females—to watch out for subway passengers who feel the need to grope them. They say they're particularly concerned at the moment because many of the recently-nabbed gropers say they have been inspired by websites on groping. One recent offender said in his defense: "He had viewed a website that detailed how and when to grope people and wanted to confirm if the hints worked..." And he'd even traveled 60 miles out of his way to ride a train line the website listed as being "easy" for groping.

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Tags: Accidents / Philippine Travel / Ferry Travel / Ships / Travel Safety / → All Tags

Note To Self: Avoid Ferries In The Philippines

Well we made it through a very hectic Labor Day weekend for travelers without any major mishaps, that is, unless you were spending your three-day weekend in The Philippines, where a Superferry sunk on Sunday after a mysterious clunk was heard and the ferry began listing. As a result of the tragedy, nine people lost their lives although 957 others were saved—you can even see them heading down the ladders on the side of the ship in the picture above.

As if we weren't already wary about boarding vintage-looking vessels, The Guardian UK has this to say:

Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of tropical storms, badly maintained boats and weak enforcement of safety regulations. Last year, a ferry overturned after sailing towards a powerful typhoon, killing more than 800 people on board.

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Get Your Typhoid Vaccination Before Vacation

Going abroad on your next trip is no longer just a threat to your wallet, as a new study indicates that it could also be a threat to your health. Out of the approximate 300 cases of typhoid fever that are reported in the United States every year, most cases are believed to come from an international excursion. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh seem to be the leading troublemakers when it comes to getting ill. Just to make you worried even more, over the last couple of decades the strains resistant to antimicrobial drugs have made treatment a little trickier.

All these numbers are coming out of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC statistics show that you probably won’t die if you get typhoid, but you will definitely spend some time in the hospital. Almost 80 percent of the patients that were studied did travel outside the country within 30 days of becoming sick. Officials looked at about 1,900 patients between 1999 and 2006.

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Tags: Dubai Travel / Travel Safety / Cars / → All Tags

Dubai's Latest Flashy Statement Of Wealth: Designer Seatbelts

Good old flashy Dubai might be one of the world's largest consumers of gold-covered cars, but apparently they think they're too cool for school to use a seatbelt. Thanks to Luxist, we hear that drivers in the United Arab Emirates are so loathe to use seatbelts, that the country is lauching its own aggressive seatbelt safety campaign a la the US and France.

WIth only 11% of Emiratis deigning to strap themselves in, auto accidents in Dubai and Abu Dhabi especially are oftentimes more serious than what should be. As a result, the seatbelt safety campaign wants to appeal to residents' love of luxury and fashion by painting the seatbelt as a statement, as well as safety, item.

How will they do this, you ask? Well, by printing seatbelts with logos of luxury brands, or your favorite team, or the Emirati flag. We imagine a taxi cab picking us up from Dubai's airport, and we climb into a back seat to buckle up with Armani belts. Luxist points out that luxury brands aren't exactly liberal with the use of their intellectual property and might poo-poo use of logos, but we bet that soon you'll able to buy seatbelts in Dubai slathered with the (unofficial) Louis Vuitton Damier pattern nonetheless.

Related Stories:
· Will Dubai Drivers Wear Gucci Seatbelts? [Luxist]
· Dubai Travel Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: uncle boatshoes]

Tags: Technology / Airport WiFi / Travel Safety / → All Tags

Free Public WiFi Often Too Good To Be True; Beware of Hackers

It's too bad that travelers need another memo on this, but apparently that expression about the demographics of suckers contains more than a grain of truth. Apparently people have been carelessly logging onto insecure wireless networks, only to have their personal information and web history found out, of course.

[Silicon Valley-based AirTight Networks] checked the Wi-Fi networks at 27 airports — 20 in the U.S., five in Asia and two in Europe — and the results were not good... Everywhere they looked, they found fake Wi-Fi hot spots set up by hackers phishing for suckers — and there were plenty of suckers to be had. 'We found a lot of people using insecure Wi-Fi,' says AirTight investigator Rick Farina, 'and people engaged in all sort of dangerous activity — checking their e-mail, doing their banking, buying stock. These are not the kinds of thing you want to be doing on public Wi-Fi.'

The study even found that people were logging up into fake peer-to-peer networks that aren't hotspots at all, which is some seriously risky behavior typical of those desperate to logon.

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Tags: Travel Sites / Traveling Alone / Travel Safety / → All Tags

Travel Security Company Not Winning Over Any of The World's 'Singletons'

According to the press release that just got dumped into our inbox by travel security company SafeCheckIn.com, the world is a dark, terrifying place. It's even scarier if you're a lonely single woman. There are bad men out there, and they will get you! And when they do, no one is going to even know or possibly even care. SafeCheckIn.com is your only friend. Here's why:

What happens if you are a single and you go out alone for a hike, road trip, run, swim, or any activity, but do not come back safely? If you are single, live alone or are away from friends/family, who will begin looking for you? ... SafeCheckIn.com is a new service that allows individuals the security of having someone always waiting for him or her... When you are a single and heading out for any activity, you often do not have anyone to tell where you are going.

Please trust us when we assure you that this first paragraph is the least grating part of the promo. It's not nearly as bad as their website, which screams "don't become a victim" in huge red letters (more on that in a sec). But check out how it mentions "single" over and over again and promises to have someone "always be waiting for you."

Because without SafeCheckIn.com and its email and text service that checks up on you while you are away, you're alone in this dark, dangerous wilderness of life. So pathetically alone.

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Tags: Dangerous Travel / Honduras Travel / Airport News / Wars / Travel Safety / TGU / Travel Warnings / → All Tags

Honduras Travel Gets Riskier After Weekend Airport Drama

Central America's most serious political crisis in years has Honduras sliding further into instability, and tourists are not surprisingly second-guessing trips to the tiny nation.

Exiled President Manuel Zelaya played at a return to Honduras on Sunday, borrowing a plane from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and attempting to fly back into Toncontin International Airport in the capital, Tegucigalpa. But as clashes broke out between Zelaya supporters and police, soldiers blocked the runway and the ousted leader decided not to risk a crash landing—perhaps he was aware that even without the demonstrators, TGU is already one of the world's most dangerous airports.

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Is It Still Safe To Travel To Honduras?

We bet that there a more than a few of you out there clutching tickets to Honduras, while shaking in your boots over the current military coup situation and wondering whether or not to cancel your vacation. This is why god invented trip insurance, and we recommend that if you have it, now would be the time to cash in on it.

We know that the Honduran Bay Islands are famous for scuba diving with whale sharks, but there's a friggin' military coup playing out back in the capital Tegucigalpa, and we paid enough attention back in junior high history class to know that it means potentially violent demonstrations, soldiers with guns in the streets, and a generally confused and upset populace. These elements, unlike malibu rum and pina colada mix, do not combine to form a perfectly relaxing vacation away.

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Tags: Passports / Celeb Travel / Travel Safety / Beyonce / Barack Obama / John McCain / → All Tags

Insecurity Travel: State Dept. as Celeb Obsessed as We Are

There's a little encouraging news from the State Department's ongoing security investigation: Employees aren't trying to look at your passport... unless you're Beyonce. Or John McCain. Or the late Anna Nicole Smith.

The department ordered a probe after word leaked in March that files for the three presidential candidates still in the race had been improperly pulled from the Passport Information Electronic Records System, to which about 20,000 people have access. A new test showed that out of 150 celebrity names (chosen from Google's most searched-for-list and Sports Illustrated), 127 of them had been accessed recently. Knowles' documents were peeked at more than 100 times.

It's probably for the best that B seems to be staying in the country right now; she's set to film a thriller called "Obsessed" with Idris Elba and Ali Larter in LA and she is reportedly in talks to join the cast of "Desperate Housewives."

Related Stories:
· Report Finds Far More Viewing of Celebrities' Passport Files [NYT]
· Lessons from the Obama Passport Breach: Become Identity Vigilant [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: ICYDK]

Tags: New Zealand Travel / Travel Safety / → All Tags

New Zealand's Safe, Isn't It?

Our usual mentions of the New Zealand city of Christchurch are about half-naked women riding motorbikes through the streets. Since that sounds somehow inviting, at least for male travelers, we're a little distressed to hear the latest news of out of Christchurch: Tourists with accents sometimes get picked on.

Last weekend, a group of Danish and English tourists got more than heckled--a bunch of local men beat them up, after teasing them by saying "They speak funny, they sound funny." Given how amusing the New Zealand accent itself sounds, it's a real pot calling the kettle black situation here, but tell that to the poor tourists who ended up in hospital.

In the otherwise peaceful town of Christchurch, it was definitely a surprise event, and the locals are definitely worried that their reputation as a safe place to travel is getting tarnished. If it gets worse we'll all need to learn Kiwi English before our next trip.

Related Stories:
· Tourists' Alleged Attackers Bailed [stuff.co.nz]
· Mixed Reviews on Bike Boobs [Jaunted]
· New Zealand Travel Stories [Jaunted]

[Photo: superciliousness]

Tags: Barack Obama / Passports / Travel Safety / → All Tags

Travel Lessons From The Obama Passport Breach: Become Identity Vigilant

When news broke that three separate contractors looked at Barack Obama's passport file three times since January, it got us thinking about protecting your personal information while traveling.

According to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack the breach appears to be an "imprudent curiosity" among the contract workers who viewed Obama's passport.

This incident was similar to a breach of Bill Clinton's passport information during the 1992 presidential campaign. The State Department reported that someone had ripped out pages from his passport file from the late 1960s and '70s, then the FBI investigated.

Don't fool yourself into thinking this sort of thing only happens to those running for president. Identity snoopers can quickly become identity thieves, and those who travel often are most susceptible. After the jump, we put together a quick list of seven things you can do to help protect your private information not only while on the road, but also once you return home.

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Tags: Safety / Travel Safety / Asia Travel / → All Tags

Travel Safety: Seriously, Don't Drink the Water

You probably already know to stick to bottled water when traveling in developing nations. But a recent outbreak of typhoid in the Philippines is really driving this home. Over 2,000 people in a city just 30 miles outside of Manila have become seriously ill, and it's a nasty bug.

According to the World Health Organization, typhoid symptoms include high fever, malaise, headache and rose-colored spots on the chest. Typhoid is a bacterial disease caused by ingesting food or drink contaminated by the feces or urine of infected people. So now you're wondering, how does that get into the water supply? Blame it on the weather, says a WHO official:

Flooding during the wet season and typhoons cause open sewerage drains to spill, enabling effluent to seep into wells and water pipes and spread diarrhea-causing diseases such as gastroenteritis and cholera.

Make sure to look out for tap water in its other, commonly-overlooked form: ice in your drink. Play it safe by brushing your teeth with bottled water as well. And if you want to be really cautious, you should just drink beer the entire trip.

Related Stories:
· Philippines Typhoid Outbreak Sparks Probe [Bloomberg]
· Travel Safety coverage [Jaunted]
· Asia Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: 96dpi]