Travelling with your notebook

[pookguy88]

I've gone on a couple trips with my Thinkpad and I never leave it in the hotel room, I always have it with me. What do you guys do?

 

[ValuedCustomer]

No way. If I have to leave it I'll leave it secured at the front desk w/ the concierge; otherwise it never leaves my sight.

 

[modedepe]

It's generally a really bad idea to leave anything of much value in a hotel room...

 

[Rottie]

some hotel have lockers in the hotel room. I might be wrong.

 

[Ostack]

Howz your Karma?

I leave mine in the room often, but usually only if I'm running out to dinner or errands. Otherwise, I usually have it with me for work stuff. I HAVE left mine in the room more than 8 hrs before, and even on and logged in, but I don't make a habit of that. If I need to leave it in the room for a while, I'll keep it in my luggage, out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind...

 

[deejayshakur]

at 2.5lbs, it doesn't take a lot of effort to bring it with me. i'm generally not a risk-taker anyhow.

 

[vegetation]

This is why I keep an old POS laptop specifically for travel. That way if it gets stolen, lost, dropped, it wont matter to me. I just keep all my needed documents on a usb thumb drive and keep that small piece with me at all times.

 

[Ostack]

So, if you go out to dinner or something, what do you do with the laptop when you take it with you? Does it go in the restaurant with you also? If you leave it in a car, you are taking a bigger risk than leaving it in a hotel room. I just don't think the hotel is as big a risk as some of you are making it out to be. I guess it depends on the kind of hotel also.

 

[deathwalker]

I have admittedly left my Dell 9300 in my hotel room serveral time. Something that after considerable afterthought just doesn't seem like a sound idea. It's not an issue that your room would get broken into as much as the honesty of the hotel staff. Most of the Housekeeping staff are low paid and many don't even hold a US citzenship, a combination that would worry me when judging there ability to resist a tempting opportunity. Having rethought this topic out, I will never again leave my Laptop in my Hotel room.

 

[dnuggett]

I leave it in my hotel room, but only for dinners etc. Otherwise it's with me being used or I'm asleep in the room.

 

[WackyDan]

I've spent the last seven years travelling over 40 weeks out of the year sometime four cities a week.

I often leave my ThinkPad in my room...... There's only one thing I've found you need to do.

1. Get a Kensington cable lock - If you can't find a piece of furniture in the room that would allow you to use the cable lock in the best manner (No open table legs, etc) then try the closet hanger bar.... in hotels these are usually installed so they can't be removed. I've often taken my laptop and secured it there with the cable lock.

2. Get some mini plastic cable ties. - I use these on my laptop bag. They will clearly show tamper, and I use them mostly on the plane. There have been a growing number of reported thefts on board flights from the overhead bins. I put a tie on the laptop compartment zipper.

I think the majority of name brand hotel staff (Hilton & Marriott brands, Sheraton, Holiday Inn, etc) are essentially honest people. The steps above really just keep honest people.... Honest.

In seven years of over 200 days travel utilization per year and over 1000 individual flights, I've never lost my thinkpad practicing the items above.

As I side note, my ThinkPad also has Computrace installed, and the only real thing I ever lost was one of my power bricks that I forgot to take when I checked out.