The "Idiot Check" I Do Before Checking Out of a Hotel

Room at Intercontinental Tashkent — It’s easy to leave things behind in your hotel room. Photo: Matt Graham.

Whenever I enter a hotel room for the first time, I do a quick check to make sure everything is in order. If there’s an obvious problem with the room and I don’t want to accept it, it’s better to realise this before unpacking!

For example, I might return to reception to ask for a different room if there’s a bad smell, the room isn’t clean, or I’ve been allocated an interconnecting room and I can hear the strangers in the room next door. Or – as happened to me once at a brand new hotel – if there are intermittent noises coming from the fire alarm speaker.

There’s also one thing that I always do before checking out of any hotel, which I call an “idiot check”.

What the “idiot check” involves

When I leave something behind in a hotel room, I always feel like an idiot. So, the point of an idiot check is to make sure I haven’t stupidly forgotten any belongings.

After doing just that a few too many times, I now make it a habit to do a final, thorough sweep of my hotel room before checking out. This includes checking in the bathroom, in drawers, around the power outlets and under furniture.

This may seem obvious, but it’s so easy to forget your clothes hanging in the cupboard, toiletries in the bathroom, something that accidentally fell under a chair… or worse, something valuable that you left inside the safe.

Why I’m reluctant to use a hotel room safe, cupboard or drawers

The risk of leaving something behind becomes greater, the bigger the hotel room and the more storage options provided. Getting to stay in a suite is great, but that also creates more opportunities to leave something behind.

As tempting as it might be to unpack your belongings into the drawers or cupboards provided, I try to avoid doing this – especially if I’m only staying in the room for a night or two. It’s so easy to leave something in a drawer beside the bed, or in the bathroom.

Last year, Australian Frequent Flyer published a list of 50 golden travel rules that frequent travellers live by. Rule #35 is not to use the safe in your hotel room. While there is a time and a place for that, it’s not always as safe as it seems – and you can easily forget the valuables you left inside it. If I do ever use the in-room safe, I also put something inside the safe that would be really hard to forget – such as one of a pair of shoes.

Hotel room safe — Some frequent flyers avoid using hotel room safes. Photo: Adobe Stock.

What happens if you do leave something behind?

Doing a basic “idiot check” hugely reduces the risk of leaving something behind. But if you do forget to take all your belongings, it’s a good idea to call or email the hotel as soon as possible.

On two occasions, I’ve accidentally left clothes in my room. Each time, I emailed the hotel and they informed me that housekeeping had found the items. Both hotels agreed to hold onto them until either I returned to pick them up, or in one case, a friend who was in that city did.

Some hotels might offer to post the forgotten items to you. I would fully expect to have to pay for postage, in this case.

And sometimes, if the item left behind isn’t that valuable, I just accept that it’s lost. But that’s not necessarily an option if it’s, say, a passport!