The Unexpected Spot You Should Store Luggage In Hotel Rooms

As we travel overseas, there are precautions we take in order to ensure the best vacation experience. We book travel insurance, limit our use to a carry-on as often as possible, and make sure to read all the hotel reviews before booking. You already know bedbugs are the unsettling reason to avoid placing your belongings inside a hotel dresser, but with little other space to store your luggage, you can't help but wonder where to put it. What if we told you there is an unexpected spot to store your luggage to avoid unwanted pests from invading your wardrobe?

Storing your luggage inside your hotel room's tiled bathroom, or even in the bathtub, is the best way to avoid unpleasant guests from entering your bag, or worse, hitching a ride back home with you. There's nothing worse than getting the heebie-jeebies from an unsightly view of bugs of any kind in a hotel room, and even though you know how to spot bedbugs, they're pretty sneaky little buggers (no pun intended). It makes us itchy just thinking about these creepy crawlies.

There are plenty of surprising ways pests such as bedbugs can travel, like behind wallpaper. They've even been known to rack on some frequent flyer miles by plane as well. Because bedbugs cannot jump or fly, they need fibrous surfaces, like wood or fabric, to latch onto. Smooth surfaces like glass, tile, and porcelain are impossible for them to climb. So placing your luggage in your hotel bathroom or tub gives you time to inspect the rest of the room before you fully move in. It also ensures that any critters that may have latched onto your bag throughout your journey will get trapped in the tub if they wander off to look for a new home.

Some travelers may brag about knowing all the best restaurants to visit, but at least you now know this simple trick to keeping bedbugs out of your luggage. It might not be a glamorous tip, but being educated on how to protect yourself from bedbugs during your trip can ultimately save you hassle later on. Just like storing your luggage in your bathroom or bathtub, inside a shower works just as well due to the slippery surface that bedbugs aren't fond of and can't easily hide in. If you decide to take a shower, just move your luggage to the top shelf of your hotel's closet or wardrobe until you've finished washing up.

Checking your hotel room for all the secret little hiding spots where bedbugs like to hide is just half the battle. To deter the little creepers from attaching to your luggage in the first place, the material of your bag might just be your first line of defense. Since bedbugs love to attach themselves to porous materials, a hard shell luggage makes it harder for them to stick to since there's no fabric for their legs to latch onto. To take protection up a notch, you can even store your clothing inside plastic bags within your luggage to make it more difficult for the critters to get into your clothing.

Although it may not be glamorous to think about bedbugs on vacation, keeping your bags in the bathroom also prevents the buggers from coming back home with you, which can be a bigger nightmare than staying in a noisy neighborhood. After a vacation, you should always wash your clothing, thoroughly inspect your bag, and clean the exterior and interior, to ensure bedbugs don't get a first class flight back to your home.