How safe if your hotel safe?

You've been told 1000x before to always lock your valuable belongings in the room safe at hotels, even more so in hostels when you're sharing a room with sometimes a dozen strangers from around the world. Passport, jewellery, camera, wallet, travel documents... it should all go into the blackbox in the corner and secured with a passcode that isn't 0-0-0-0.

But really, how safe are these hotel safes really?

It's always good to be prepared when you're travelling and also to make sure you have everything where it needs to be. There's nothing like getting in the car on your way to the airport and suddenly realizing that your passport is still sitting on your desk at home... in the place you're least likely to forget it! 

While you're travelling you keep everything in that secretly stashed money belt under your clothes or you leave in at your hotel or hostel where it's safe. Right? You can finally relax if you don't have to keep always patting yourself down to make sure you passport is still there, your credit cards and money are still there but are these metal lock boxes in your room really that safe?

Check this out:

Of course these safe boxes must in some way be able to open without the code... imagine travellers with no short-term memory in a foreign country who is also jet-lagged. And you want them to remember ANOTHER 4-digit code? Forget it. 

It's really up to you to use your room safe or not. Most hotels actually have "house safes" for very expensive jewellery and only the hotel manager has access to it. As for the modest traveller who find themselves in a room with a few other strangers and no where to leave their passport during the day... better keep it on you.

Like the video also suggests, it could be a good idea to also just make sure that the default open code isn't a row of goose eggs!

Do you ever use the hotel safes? How do you keep your valuable belongings secure and safe while travelling?