Many airline employees have shared tips, tricks, and things to avoid when flying via TikTok. From telling folks to avoid the coffee brewed in-flight, or to be skeptical of a delayed flight.
As female flight attendants often have to stay in hotel rooms, some have even offered hotel sanitation tips. Even non-flight attendants have shared solo travel advice for women, such as inspecting a room thoroughly before getting comfortable and securing their doors with handy specialty devices as well as items that can be found in most hotel rooms.
Sometimes, when folks offer advice for specific travel situations or unfamiliar environments, they are met with a kind of resistance from viewers who either question why people do not already know the information being shared, or believe the advice is unnecessary.
When one Delta flight attendant, user @traveljunkie.diaries, shared a series of travel tips for folks to check behind curtains, make sure the mirrors in the bathroom are not two-way, and use hangers to secure the doorknob to the deadbolt, some viewers questioned whether all of this was necessary.
“America, are you OK?” one commenter wrote.
“Fun fact if someone really wants to get into your room they can,” another commenter wrote.
“What places are you visiting to take those extreme steps,” a user wrote.
Other viewers were quick to defend the poster’s caution, writing that they felt they had to resort to similar methods for personal safety while traveling alone.
“Travelled alone for the first time as a girl,” one commenter wrote. “Blocked the door with my luggage and a heavy table. Checked the mirror. Slept with a penknife beside me.”
“I didn’t think hotel safety was important until I started spending >40 days in them a year,” another commenter wrote. “Last week I woke up to a mugging outside my room.”
“I had a man come to my door and he wouldn’t leave,” another said. “Kept trying to talk his way inside. Doing all this and more now.”
In response to one particular commenter who suggested she stop “living in fear,” @traveljunkie.diaries made a follow-up video addressing the difference between what some viewers might perceive as “living in fear,” and being proactive.
“I’m not saying that I need to do this because I’m the most attractive person in the world like other comments were saying,” she says. “I don’t think being attractive or not being attractive has anything to do with safety.”
@traveljunkie.diaries Replying to @Jeffrey Bryan ♬ original sound – T ♡ | Flight Attendant✈️
She says that the one time she did not take such steps, a hotel employee walked in on her changing.
“He was just trying to hand me chips, he was a nice guy,” she says. “There was a little bit of a language barrier. He was confused, I was confused, but he stood in my doorway, and I was telling him to get out of my room.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @@traveljunkie.diaries via email regarding the video.
