How To Travel After Watching The Serpent On Netflix – Everything You Need To Know

Emergency Credit Card

Number two is you want to bring an emergency credit card. Now this credit card, you want to have enough credit on it to be able to purchase a flight home from wherever in the world. This is just for emergencies. Keep this on you in a money/bra belt and keep it in there. This way you can just go straight to the airport if you need to and be able to purchase a ticket right at the counter. Don’t worry about the cost, put it on the card and you can pay it off later. This way you know you have an exit route. 

Passport Handling

Number three is you never want to let someone else handle your passport. We saw in The Serpent one of the things he did was take the passports of the people he was targeting. I imagine he told them it was safer to keep it in his safe, explaining that it shouldn’t be left out, when they were staying with him. These people trusted him enough that they gave him their passports or sometimes he just took them. Don’t trust anyone but yourself to take your passport. Keep your passport hidden on you all the time. 

If you are staying in a hotel that has a safe and you don’t want to be carrying around your passport during the day you can leave it there with caution. Before you leave anything in the safe, you want to see if the safe is attached to something. Yes, I have seen this many times, in different parts of the world where you can just pick up the safe and anyone can leave with it. So make sure it’s bolted down and confirm the lock works and lock it every time to keep everything safe in there. 

Drinking, Alcoholic and Non Alcoholic

Number four is to never take your eyes off your drink ever. This is a really hard one because we all get very complacent as you saw in The Serpent. One of the main things he did was to put drugs or medication into the drinks of his victims. It is scary to see how easily it is done. In one of the episodes, you see one of the girls at the bar with the two guys. She had her drink with her but she just turned around to look at what was going on in the bar and in goes the drug. It’s super-fast, and makes you look drunk.

When you are getting a drink in a bar or restaurant or wherever, get it yourself, go up and get the drink yourself, watch them make it and then hang onto it. Don’t put your drink down on the table, look around, it’s very quick and very easy for someone to put anything in your drink, so always have it with you and in front of you. Another option is to just order a bottle of beer or any bottled drink. This way you can have your finger over the top of it. When I get a bottled drink, I usually use a straw since I don’t drink beer, and it’s a lot harder for anyone to put anything in my drink. 

On a similar note, watch how much you’re drinking alcohol. The more you drink when you’re in unfamiliar places, the more you are going to be distracted. You want to have a good time and people can see this so they could take advantage a lot easier. So keep the amount of drinking you’re doing to a minimum. When traveling with friends, and you all go out, always have someone that’s not drinking to keep an eye on everyone. It’s okay to have a glass or two but you still want to know where you are, how to get home and have all your senses available to you. 

Listen To Your Gut

Number five is to listen to your gut. This one is more of a trained thing because we can feel like something’s a little off, but we usually just ignore that feeling most of the time. Don’t ignore these feelings, especially when you’re traveling. If you feel like a guy is a little weird or a person is a little off or you’re not feeling very comfortable where you are, definitely make excuses to leave even if you do it covertly. You can say “I have to go to the bathroom”, you can walk towards the bathroom but don’t go to the bathroom, go out the front/side/back door. Get out of the situation. You can start talking to other people or talk to someone that works there. The bartenders, waitresses or anyone else and get them to get you out of there. 

When you feel those twangs just get out as quickly as you can because there’s no point to stick around thinking it’s nothing. There’s a reason why gut instincts are there and it’s there to protect you. It’s very easy for North Americans, especially, to be polite all the time. When traveling don’t worry about being polite in these situations. I know myself and a lot of women I know, we’re always taught that we should be very nice to everybody. Sometimes you just have to be a jerk and just get the heck out of there, make a scene if you have to and just leave. 

Don’t Rely On Your Government

Number six and final thing is you don’t want to rely on your government to find you. As you saw in The Serpent, Charles probably wouldn’t have been caught if it wasn’t for the Dutch diplomat investigating it in secret of his government’s office. People go missing all the time, and the consulates do not have the resources to follow up normally. So if something does end up going wrong, your government is not always going to be looking for you. First, they won’t know you’re missing nor even know they are in that country. They definitely won’t know where you are and what you’ve been doing. 

The people who are gonna be raising the alarm are usually your family back home or the people you’re traveling with. Take extra precautions by telling people where you are going and when you’re expected to be home, especially if you’re traveling on your own. 

When you go out, day or night you can always just pop a little note and say where you’re planning on going and when you’re planning on coming back and leave that on your bed or table in your room. This way, if something does happen, they at least have a starting point for where you are. You can also mention it to your family back home. Just send them a text and let them know where you are. 

Remember to sign up for your government’s traveler abroad program. The one for Canadians is called “registration of Canadians abroad”. This way the government will know you’re at least in the country to possibly help further. 

I hope this makes you feel a little more comfortable about traveling on your own. Things can always go wrong wherever you are in the world, even at home, but if you are just putting a few of these things into action, you’re going to feel a lot more secure and a lot more safe.