Cash Safety

Any respectable hotel should provide either a safe in your room or will store your valuables in their office. The room safes are secure enough to deter casual burglery. To feel extra careful if using the desk route, seal your money in an envelope with a distinctive mark each time you hand it to the reception clerk.
By the way, statistics show theft from hotel rooms has plunged since the widespread introduction of electronic room passes to replace keys. But the cleaning staff still has legitimate access, of course.

Mhoirae, I always leave all my money in my hotel room but not hidden, that is just not smart, I leave it in the SAFE. I have done this for hundreds of days of visits. I only carry the cash I need for each day. I do carry my cash in a moneybelt when actually travelling. Please, do not hide your money, there isn't a place in any hotel room that a thief wouldn't know to look. Use either the safe or a moneybelt.

I never leave any cash in a hotel room unless it's for the cleaning lady/man.

Never leave you cash in a room. Always, carry you big stash in your money belt and keep out only what you think you may need that day. You can always duck into a bathroom and pull out more. We also carry our passports, credit cards and debit cards in our money belt. The old saying, "Trust No One".

What do you do when you travel where you live and visit out of town? If you wear a money belt easy to carry your cash with you. No need to carry a huge amount of cash with the availability and easy access to ATM's.

You may want to consider the ATM approach. I sometimes carry what I consider a lot of cash, but friends with whom I've been traveling lately just stop at a Bancomat every day or so and take cash out.

how much cash are you talking about? i usually get out 300 euro at a time and carry it with me. split it up between myself and my husband. i store other valuables in the hotel safe, but carry the cash - i'll need it!

Would never "hide" money in a room. Also, we never have that much cash anyway. Most we have is 100 euro a day split between us and then get more from ATM as needed. Please do not consider hiding money any place.

We never leave money in a hotel room. But I've never worried about theft. I always leave my laptop in my room, and anything else except our passports. And we also never use a money belt. But then again, why carry much cash with ATMs available everywhere?

To add fuel to the perennial discussion about theft while traveling, The Return of the Pickpocket.

Every digital safe in a hotel shares the same master code. Who knows how many staff members have it? Joe Smuchk from two rooms don't the hall can't get in, but that's about it.

Having managed a hotel with digital safes, I can tell you that I was the only person who had the digital master code. Certainly none of the housekeeping staff would have this. Key cards to enter the rooms can also easily be tracked, both from the card itself, or the lock. You get a complete read-out of the time the card was used, which card it was, and the date. Makes it easy to track who entered a room and when. Staff know this, and so theft becomes a non-issue. People forget their safe-code all the time, or leave stuff behind, so it is important that the manager be able to access the safes. That said, if people were having stuff stolen from their hotel safes, in this day and age of Trip Advisor and instant reviews, a hotel would lose ALL of their business in a flash, if this happened on their property.

For the record, I don't find moneybelts uncomfortable at all. Often I forget I have it on.

Hi, Not all the Pensionen and small hotels where I've stayed in Germany or France have a safe, or maybe I didn't bother checking. I don't use a safe anyway, rather carry 150-250 Euro on my person, either in the "hidden pocket" or elsewhere, easier to keep track. If I leave cash lying around in a hotel or Pension room, it's not going to be more than a 100 or so Euro, never had a problem. I would not advise hiding any cash per se in the room, even if you're staying at the hotel/Pension for a week or more.