A Defensive Computing Checklist    by Michael Horowitz

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TRAVELING

TOPICS BELOW
Booking, Before Leaving, Losing Everything Digital, Password Manager, Flying, Car Rental, Travel eSIMs, Cellphones and Privacy, Assorted Articles

Also beware of these bad things about Airbnb.

BOOKING

• June 13, 2024: Android travel apps spy on you in many ways: Top travel apps harvesting your data without asking - Cybernews exclusive by Paulina Okunytė for Cybernews. Every travel app will try to milk your data. Some do not even tell you about this. Some apps can read your SMS messages, access your camera and microphone, and read your files. Others can even make a call on your behalf. They examined 22 widely used hospitality and vacation planning apps. The worst spies were Booking.com, MakeMyTrip, and HotelTonight. Also bad were Tripadvisor, Vrbo, Priceline, Expedia, Hotels.com and KAYAK. The app that spied on users the least was Travelstart which does flights and hotels. If you use one of these apps, at the least, un-install it when your trip is over.
• Best and Worst Hotel Booking Sites for 2024 by Reid Bramblett for Frommers (undated). Three that fell off the list were Priceline, Expedia, and Hotels.com. Top sites: Google.com/travel/hotels, booking.com, HotelsCombined.com and Kayak.com/stays. Warning: see below for more on Booking.com.
• May 1, 2023: Hotel Booking Is a Post-truth Nightmare by Jacob Stern for The Atlantic. The point here is that hotel taxes, amenity fees, and/or resort fees are not factored into published hotel room rates, making true comparison impossible. The article also says that certain booking sites do show the "all-in price in small print beneath the nightly price". Expedia does this, Booking.com does not.
• February 8, 2023: Mysterious leak of Booking.com reservation data is being used to scam customers by Dan Goodin for Ars Technica. "For almost five years, Booking.com customers have been on the receiving end of a continuous series of scams that clearly demonstrate that criminals have obtained travel plans and other personal information customers provided to the travel site ... It's hard to understand how, after five years, the leak in Booking.com’s partner network continues to spill private data that leaves customers open to scams and other forms of fraud. The company’s insistence that its systems haven’t been breached is little comfort to those affected ... Until Booking.com comes clean, people would do well to book travel using a different site."
• This New York Times article (Aug 2022) says to book directly with the airline/hotel and avoid third party apps and websites. The reason: if something goes wrong, dealing with a middleman just complicates things.

BEFORE LEAVING   top

• Download an off-line map for the areas where you will be. Google Maps has offered this feature forever. Sometime in 2024, Apple Maps added off-line maps. For walking, I have read that Apple Maps is the better off-line choice. Instructions:
  Download areas & navigate offline in Google Maps from Google
  How to download maps to use offline on your iPhone from Apple
• Install apps for the airports (or train stations) you will be using and the hotel (or wherever you will be staying) too.
• In case the trip does not go as planned, maybe install apps for hotel chains, car rental services and/or trains in the area. More than installing, set up accounts with these companies on their apps
• In case 4G/5G/LTE service is a problem when you are away, get up to speed on Wi-Fi calling, it is a great backup. It may be hard to test while at home, but turn it on just before leaving.
• Save PDF versions of your reservations and tickets whenever possible. Better yet, print them, save them in the cloud and save them on a device (or two) that you take with you.
• Google results normally switch to the country or language where you are, but this can be prevented:
  Go to Google (or open the app) -> tap your profile picture -> Settings -> Other settings -> Language & region -> configure as needed
  From: The tech gear I packed for Japan by Rich DeMuro October 17, 2025
• Some credit cards charge foreign transaction fees. If you use tap-to-pay, configure it to use a credit card that does not charge these fees.
• Turn on the theft-protection features in your phone.
  • Apple: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone by Apple
  • Apple: Settings -> Face ID & Passcode -> enter passcode -> Stolen Device Protection -> turn it ON
  • Android: Protect your personal data against theft by Google
  • Android: Settings -> Google -> All services -> Theft protection -> set Theft Detection Lock to ON

LOSING EVERYTHING DIGITAL   top

Riddle me this, Batman: you are traveling far from home and all your electronics are gone. No laptop, no phone, no tablet. Maybe lost. Maybe stolen. Whatever. How do you get your life back?

• Obviously, they keys to your digital kingdom need to be stored in the cloud somewhere. But, oh, the details, both as to what information to store and where/how to store it.
• What: Store information needed to cancel credit cards, perhaps photos of the front/back of each card
• What: Store photos of your passport and medical insurance cards
• What: Store the IMEI number of your phone. With it, your cell provider can block the phone on their network. They can also submit it to the CEIR, a central registry used by cell providers, meaning that the lost/stolen phone is unusable world-wide.
• Where: My preference is to store this information in a password manager and store the database file for the password manager software in the cloud. This protects the critical information with two passwords: one for the cloud service and the other for the password manager itself. You have to memorize both passwords, or have them written down in a way that anyone who reads it won't understand what it is. As noted below, you have the most flexibility if the password manager runs on multiple operating systems.
• What and Where: How to Recover When You Lose Everything Traveling by Leo A. Notenboom January 17, 2025. One suggested option is a microSD card. The article also discusses 2FA.
• Another tactic might be to travel with two phones and keep one in your hotel room when you go out. Even if it only does Wi-Fi calling, it can still have enough information to bootstrap your digital life. When traveling with both, store them in different places. If your bag is stolen, the other is in your pocket.

PASSWORD MANAGER   top

FLYING   top

Don't fly on any plane made by Boeing. More on this below.

• WHEN TO BOOK, WHEN TO FLY
  From Expedia's 2026 Air Hacks Report released in February 2026.
  1. Days to fly: Fridays are the cheapest, Sunday is the most expensive
  2. Months to fly: August is the cheapest, March is most expensive
  3. Day to book a flight: Friday cheapest, Sunday most expensive
  4. Busy month: February is lthe east busy month, July is the most busy
  5. Busy day: Tuesday is the least busy day, Friday is the busiest day
  6. When to book:
     Booking about 31 to 45 days ahead of time is cheapest
     Booking more than 180 days before the flight may be the most expensive time
     Risky: 8-14 days before a flight saves on average, $225
     FYI: the Google Flights "Cheapest" option, helps save money
• CHEAP FLIGHTS
  1. Google Flights can email you when the air fare for a planned trip goes down. Give it your travel dates and destinations and turn on the option to track prices.
  2. The 10 Best (and Worst) Airfare Search Sites for 2024 by Reid Bramblett for Frommers. No date. A very long article with detailed reviews. Best is Momondo/ Kayak. Second best is Skyscanner.
  3. January 16, 2024: How to find cheap flights in 2024 by Natalie Compton and Amanda Finnegan for the Washington Post. Some ideas in the article: setup alerts using Google Flights, Skyscanner and Hopper; sign up for deal newsletters from Going, Thrifty Traveler and Airfarespot; Shop in advance, but not too far in advance and keep watching prices even after you book.
  4. June 30, 2022: How to set price alerts to find the cheapest flights Natalie B. Compton for the Washington Post. Covers Google Flights, Skyscanner, Hopper, Kayak and more.
• SEATS
  • I would start at the SeatMaps website. You can search for a specific flight or by airline or by aircraft. The seat map shows lots of information such as the distance to the seat in front and the seat width. Seats are color-coded so you can see things like which ones have no window (a biggie for me), which are near a draft or the restrooms and which have no under-seat storage.
  • Consumer Reports has suggested the aeroLOPA website. They have seat maps for planes, but they do not offer any opinions about the seats.
  • The SeatGuru website seems to have jumped the shark. It is now owned by TripAdvisor, so that may explain why it has gone downhill. I have read that they stopped updating around 2020. The site is now a full blown travel agent thing. When I needed it in 2024, there was no seat map for the plane I was going to fly on. You can search for seat maps by Airline but not by make and model of the plane itself.
• BEFORE LEAVING
  1. Install the app for every airline you plan on using. The app may warn of gate changes and cancellations before the gate agent even knows. An app can help avoid lines at the check-in counter by allowing you to download your boarding pass to your phone. Then too: pick your seat, upload documents and maybe even check your bag. If your flight is canceled, the airline’s app may be the fastest way to see what other flights are available.
  2. Apps break, so be sure to have the phone number for your airline handy. This happened to me with Virgin Atlantic - I could not login to the app to check-in for a flight due to a technical problem with the app. The app failed with a useless error message on both my Android phone and an iPad. Luckily, it worked on another Android phone, so I was able to check-in.
  3. Download the apps for the airports you will be using
  4. The Flighty.com website shows delays at airports. One interesting feature, when looking at an airport, is the most disrupted routes and the most disrupted airline. I checked Miami International Airport one day in early April 2026 and American Airlines was by far the most disrupted airline with 10 times as many disruptions as the next worst airline.
  5. Download an off-line Google Map for the area around the airports where you will be.
  6. Both Google Maps and Apple Maps may have maps of the airport terminals.
  7. Take photos of all your luggage in case it gets lost/stolen
  8. In case your flight is delayed: an external battery to power your phone (and whatever) can avoid fighting for an outlet. Also, maybe bring a snack in your carry on bag (nuts travel well).
• FLIGHT TRACKING
  
  From A 5-Step Checklist for Handling Air Travel Woes on the Go by J. D. Biersdorfer (Aug. 2022). Third-party flight-tracker apps work across multiple airlines and can provide information not found in an airline app, such as data on other flights, airport delays and weather.
  1. Flightradar24 free, but with in-app subscription. iOS and Android.
  2. Flighty iOS only. Highly recommended by multiple sources. You can pay for it monthly, yearly or just for a week. Works on an Apple watch. You can share your itinerary with your friends.
     As of April 2024 the cheapest paid plan is $4/week and you can cancel at any time. If you sign up on an iPhone, the paid subscription is also available on an iPad as it is keyed to your AppleID.
  3. Flying soon? Flighty is a must-have iOS app for air travel by Jason Cipriani for ZDNet. Jan. 2, 2023. Quoting: "If you're flying anytime soon and have an iPhone, Flighty's near real-time alerts, which give an abundance of information and live activities support, make it a must-have." A family subscription is $90/year. The first trip in the app is free. A few hours before your scheduled flight, there is an alert letting you know the plane you're going to fly on is on its way to the airport and whether it's on time or not. You can see where your plane is 25 hours before your scheduled flight. Once your incoming plane lands, you'll get an alert. And then another when it arrives at the gate.
  4. FlightAware free, but with in-app subscription. iOS and Android.
  5. FlightStats basic but free. iOS and Android
• LUGGAGE
  1. Put your name and address and contact information inside each piece of checked luggage. If it gets lost, this can be a last resort for getting it back to you.
  2. Have a cellphone number on the outside of the luggage. Another last resort for getting it back should it be lost.
  3. Put a Tile or Apple AirTag in checked luggage. For example: Ontario couple told their luggage was lost and donated to charity, but they knew where it was the whole time by CBC News (Jan 24, 2023). The airline, Air Canada, completely lost track of a piece of luggage. They thought it was unclaimed and were about to give it to charity. The AirTag however, showed the owners that their luggage sat in Montreal for 4 weeks (they had changed planes in Montreal), then moved to suburban Toronto where it sat for three months. Eventually, they drove to the storage facility in Toronto and asked the police to get their luggage back for them.
  4. Delta and some other Air Lines use radio-frequency identification tags on checked bags. In their app, look for the "Track My Bags" button.
  5. If you have an iPad or iPhone with iOS 18.2: New "Share Item Location" in Find My helps you locate lost stuff by sharing its location with trusted third parties, such as airlines. This should work with AirTags or any Find My enabled thingy. Initially works with 15 airlines. In the US, Delta and United are players, while American and Southwest are not. It is not yet clear how airlines will integrate this into their existing stuff, except for United, that said its mobile app will let passengers share the location of their AirTags. Location sharing expires after 7 days, or it can be manually canceled earlier. This requires an iPhone X or later, it also works on iPads and Macs. You generate a link in the Find My app
        (the link is something like find.apple.com/somedetailsofyourthingy)
     then whoever has the link can see a website with the location of the item on a map. The website updates when a new location is available and it shows the time of the most recent update. It seems that Android users can NOT play in this game. Viewing a location link requires either an Apple Account or an airline email address. Sharing the location of an AirTag is not new, having this sharing automatically expire is new. Also, using links as the sharing mechanism is new. This Press Release from Apple has screen shots of what this looks like.
     United Airlines issued a press release: United Integrates Apple's New Share Item Location Feature for AirTag (Dec 12, 2024) explaining the procedure. You first file a delayed baggage report in the United app, then create a Share Item Location link in the Find My app and, finally, add this link to the delayed baggage report in the United app.
• AVOID BOEING PLANES
  • A Boeing whistleblower speaks out February 15, 2024. An interview on NPR with Ed Pierson, director of the Foundation for Aviation Safety and a former senior manager at Boeing's 737 Factory in Renton, Washington. The interview is frightening.
  • ‘I want to get off the plane.’ The passengers refusing to fly on Boeing’s 737 Max by Julia Buckley of CNN. March 4, 2024. The article describes internal messages by Boeing employees before the Max was released: "This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys." The employees also referred to the design of the Max as "piss poor".
  • Boeing was once known for safety and engineering. But critics say an emphasis on profits changed that by Chris Isidore of CNN. February 5, 2024. The article offers a good summary of how Boeing changed over time. Quoting: " ... Boeing’s woes have been years in the making ... the result of a shift in corporate culture that started at the top and put profits ahead of the safety and engineering prowess for which it was once praised, placing not only its future, but the passengers on its planes, at grave risk."
  • Pluralistic: Here are just two of the corporate giveaways hidden in the rushed, must-pass, end-of-year budget bill by Corey Doctorow. December 22, 2022. Quoting:
    
    "Remember when Boeing (the monopoly US airplane manufacturer that squandered $43b on stock buybacks and had to borrow $14b from the US public to survive the pandemic) told the FAA that it could self-certify its 737 Max airplanes, and then killed hundreds and hundreds of people with its defective planes? The 737 Max was unsafe for many reasons, but one glaring factor was the fact that Boeing sold some of its core safety as "extras" ... leading to multiple crashes in which all lives were lost. Boeing was forced to take the 737 Max out of service, but it eventually brought the plane back, 'fixing' the problems by renaming the "737 Max" to the "737 8".
    
    Supposedly, Boeing has been diligently working on fixing the problems with its defective jets that can't be addressed by a rebranding campaign. This was not voluntary: the 2020 Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act required Boeing - and every other manufacturer whose aircraft were certified by the FAA - to meet new minimum safety standards by December 27, 2022. Every manufacturer met that deadline, except Boeing, and someone amended the budget bill to give the company three more years to meet these security standards. Critically, the new security measures, when they come, will be certified by an FAA that Republicans will control, thanks to the House changing hands. Boeing is slated to ship 1,000 new 737 Maxes ...".
• The QR code on your phone or paper boarding pass contains lots of personal information. Keep it hidden as best you can. Destroy paper boarding passes after the flight.
• September 7, 2023: CR's Guide to Hassle-Free Flying by Mandy Walker of Consumer Reports. Airline recommendations: Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines good, Spirit and Frontier bad. The Google Flights website is good for both price history and prediction. Fly Early in the Day, or Late at Night. For choosing seats on a flight, use the SeatGuru or aeroLOPA websites. Much more.
• Maybe avoid United Airlines.
  Twice in 2024 a tire has fallen off one of their planes. Fist on March 8th and then again on July 9th. The planes were over 20 years old, so the fault is with United. First off, this should never happen. What makes it worth listing, here on this site, is that after the first tire fell off, United did not do what is necessary to prevent this from happening again. They could not be shamed into doing a better job of maintenance. In March 2024, the FAA began a safety review of the airline. This article, United Airlines plane loses tire during takeoff from LA, lands in Denver safely by Amaris Encinas for USA TODAY (July 9, 2024) offers a list of other safety incidents at United in 2024.
• Maybe don't fly on Southwest.
  Not only did the airline melt down at the end of 2022, there is also this story about how their email alert system was buggy back in 2017 causing the author to miss his flight. How I learned the hard way about Southwest Airlines' awful technology by Chris Matyszczyk for ZDNet. January 1, 2023.

CAR RENTAL   top

Before you leave the car rental lot, use your phone to take pictures of the vehicle you rented. Inside and out. Especially anything that looks off.

TRAVEL ESIMS   top

First, check with your cell carrier about the charges to making phone calls and using data in the country you are visiting. If you want to use data from your cell carrier, then turn on Data Roaming after you land. If not, turn it off.

Using an eSIM while traveling requires a phone that is both unlocked and compatible with eSIMS. You can have two SIMs active at the same time on many newer phones. If your phone allows this, leave your regular phone line turned on so that it still gets calls and texts. Set the travel eSIM as the cellular data line and turn off Data Roaming for your primary line.

• How to Check If Your iPhone is Unlocked by Nina Surugue of Airalo. February 12, 2025
  How to Check If Your Android Phone Is Unlocked by Nina Surugue of Airalo. February 12, 2025
• Some Travel eSIMs only provide data. The means no SMS text messages and no phone number. But, it does allow WhatsApp, iMessage and Wi-Fi Calling
• Tips to use less data: eSIM Data 101: How to Track and Top Up Your Data by Alisha Whitley of Airalo February 23, 2023
• Find wireless carriers and worldwide service providers that offer eSIM service on iPhone by Apple Last Updated February 19, 2025
• For shopping for eSIMS, I have heard good things about Airalo.

CELLPHONES and PRIVACY   top

It is not unusual for a border guard to require an inspection of your phone before you are allowed into a country. In August 2025, Steve Gibson addressed this in his Security Now! podcast, saying: "... the idea would be to pick up a Samsung Galaxy 15 for $40 as I recently did when I wanted to experiment with inexpensive biometric authentication, use it for a few weeks before traveling and take it with you, leaving your fully history-laden real phone at home. It’s safer in case anything should happen to your inexpensive throwaway during your travels, and you can unlock it happily for any authority who might wish to see what you’ve been getting up to recently."

ASSORTED ARTICLES   top

• March 18, 2024: 7 Useful Apps Every Traveler Should Know About by Harrison Pierce for CN Traveler. For flying: Flighty and Flightradar24. For an eSIM app: Airalo. For bookkeeping: Tripit and Wanderlog. And more.
• September 15, 2023: If traveling by car and the car breaks down in a remote area without cell service, Apple has a system in the U.S. that lets you contact AAA by satellite. See How to use Roadside Assistance via satellite on iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 by Zac Hall for 9to5 Mac. The feature is called Roadside Assistance and it requires an iPhone 14 or later. It also requires iOS version 17 (or later?). For now, the service is free. Here is the official Apple writeup: Use Roadside Assistance via satellite on your iPhone.
• September 2022: How to prevent customs agents from copying your phone's content by Tatum Hunter for the Washington Post. American citizens can refuse to unlock their devices for CBP agents and still enter the country. However, CBP may keep your devices for months. Noncitizens can be denied entry if they do not unlock their devices. Power down devices before going through customs. Use a separate phone or laptop for traveling, one that does not have sensitive data on it. The article does not mention TrueCrypt or VeraCrypt. It is, after all, written by a reporter, not a techie.

See also the Airbnb topic.

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