One of the best travel hacks that not many people talk about is using a piece of bright colored ribbon. This simple piece of ribbon can mean the difference between checking out of your hotel feeling great about your experience or checking out with a feeling of dread that you left your charger, your passport holder or your favorite pair of headphones in your hotel room hours after you checked out.
People do not forget their belongings while travelling due to lack of care. Most often, check out days are hectic. People are preoccupied with the need to finish packing, arranging for transportation and making sure that each member of the party is ready to go. In the chaos of check-out day, smaller personal items tend to get lost in the shuffle.
By attaching a bright ribbon to all important personal items, you will create a visual cue during your final room check. These items will be very noticeable as they will no longer match the furniture, nightstand, or vanity they were placed on.
Another interesting fact about forgotten personal items is that most people forget items that are very small; although people worry more about larger items. Very few people forget their luggage. Normally, it is the small items like chargers, batteries, earbuds, watches, travel documents, make-up, medicine, or electronic accessories that are the source of most of the forgotten items. Small personal items are very easy to be missed in corners of the room or to get lost on top of a surface in the room.
Jamie Fraser suggested a great technique for remembering your personal belonging when you check out of a hotel. He suggests when you arrive at the hotel and are unpacking your bags, you tie a bright-coloured ribbon onto your items as a reminder to your departure.
Why does this work? Because colour is very impactful to the way that your brain processes information, bright colours pop out from the neutral colours associated with hotel rooms. Therefore, if you look around the room, your brain will detect a bright-coloured ribbon before it notices a non-descript item that is sitting on a table alone.
Another reason why people have difficulty collecting their belongings when they check out of a hotel is because of how a hotel room tends to create this issue. In many cases, travellers have distributed their items when using hotel rooms without even knowing it. For example, a mobile phone charger could be located close to the bed, toiletries are in the bathroom, a computer cable might be located on the desk, and sunglasses are probably near the window. By the time you leave, it will be much harder for you to go around to different areas and gather your belongings.
In large hotel rooms, it can be even more challenging to pack efficiently. If something small gets separated from your luggage because the larger your space is, the easier it will be to lose it.
Using multiple colors of ribbon can make it easier for families traveling together to keep track of each person’s belongings. Rather than searching through mixed bags and suitcases, each family member will be able to distinguish their belonging from the others just by looking at the color of the ribbon.
Ribbons can also be a great value! They take up virtually no weight or space in luggage, and they can be used on every trip you take. Unlike other types of travel gadgets such as flashlights that need batteries and storage space, with ribbons, you will have virtually no extra space used in your luggage.
Many people don’t even think about doing this last step; however, when packing, you should check your entire room for any items you may have left behind basis with a systematic approach. Walk systematically through each area starting with the bed, then moving on to the desk area, then the closet/storage areas, and finally the bathroom. This method will help reduce the chance of missing some item/s that are readily observable.
One good practice is to save the ribbons after coming home. Put them back in your travel luggage so you can have them for your next adventure and therefore will not need to purchase more before every trip.
If you are fed up feeling that awful sensation of leaving something behind in a hotel room, don’t make this problem more complicated than necessary. Bright ribbons may seem like an insignificant item; however, they can easily become one of your smartest travel habits ever.
- Immediately attach brightly colored ribbons to significant items after unpacking.
- Select bright colors that can be easily seen from across the room.
- Before leaving, take time to thoroughly inspect all areas of the room-counters, desks, nightstands and bathrooms.
- Take a methodical approach to packing rather than frantically packing up the entire room at one time.
- Save your ribbons after your trip for reuse on many vacations.
