You have just landed after a long flight, hauled your luggage through the airport, navigated to the hotel, checked in, and finally made it to your room. The instinct is immediate and almost universal — drop the suitcase on the bed, kick off your shoes, and start settling in. It feels completely natural. It is also, according to entomologists and seasoned travel experts, one of the worst things you can do. The correct move — the one that savvy, experienced travelers have quietly been making for years — is to head straight to the bathroom and place your luggage in the bathtub. Not on the bed. Not on the floor. Not even on the luggage rack. The bathtub. And the reason why will absolutely change how you travel forever.
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The One Word That Explains Everything: Bed Bugs
The entire reason for this travel tip comes down to two words: bed bugs. These tiny, reddish-brown insects are among the most resilient, difficult-to-detect, and nightmare-inducing pests that travelers encounter. They are flat enough to hide in the thinnest of crevices, they feed exclusively on human blood, they are most active between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. while you sleep, and they are extraordinarily skilled at hitchhiking from one location to another — specifically, inside your luggage and within the folds of your clothing.
Bed bugs are not limited to budget motels or poorly maintained properties. They appear in four-star hotels, boutique properties, resorts, and short-term rentals around the world. A 2024 study by pest control company Orkin found that cities like Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia consistently rank among the most bed-bug-infested urban areas in the United States. And a survey conducted by the National Pest Management Association found that a striking 68 percent of respondents who had been treated for bed bugs had stayed in a hotel or motel near or around the time they contracted them. The bugs travel just as much as their human hosts do.
Where Bed Bugs Hide in Hotel Rooms
Understanding where bed bugs prefer to live is key to understanding why the bathtub strategy works so effectively. These insects are attracted to warm, dark, flat hiding spots in areas where human beings spend prolonged periods of time — particularly lying down. In a hotel room, their preferred habitats are highly predictable:
The mattress itself — particularly along the seams, in the folds, and at the corners
Inside the box spring
Behind and underneath the headboard — one of the most common hiding spots
Behind artwork or pictures hanging on the wall near the bed
Within the crevices and joints of the bed frame
Inside the folds and creases of upholstered furniture — couches, accent chairs, and ottomans
Along the edges of carpeting near the bed
Inside drawers and closets — particularly if a previous guest’s infested clothing was stored there
Even inside luggage racks — specifically within the hollow legs where the bugs can nest completely out of sight
Notice what is conspicuously absent from that list: the bathroom. Bathrooms are hard-surfaced environments — tile, porcelain, ceramic, chrome — with very few of the dark, flat, fabric-adjacent hiding places that bed bugs require. The bugs genuinely prefer more natural, textured surfaces, and smooth, hard bathroom surfaces simply do not provide them. Additionally, hotel bathrooms are among the most frequently and thoroughly cleaned areas in any room, and towels, bath mats, and linens are replaced for every new guest. All of these factors combine to make the bathroom — and specifically the bathtub — a significantly safer zone than the main room for storing your luggage.
The Full Bathtub Strategy — How to Do It Right
Step 1: Bathtub First, Everything Else After
The moment you enter your hotel room — before you sit on the bed, before you open your suitcase, before you even take off your jacket — walk directly to the bathroom and place your luggage inside the bathtub. This single action protects your belongings from any bed bugs that may be present in the room while you conduct your inspection. For added protection, you can wrap your luggage in large plastic garbage bags before placing them in the tub — this keeps any bathroom moisture away from your bags and keeps any outside dirt from contaminating the tub surface.
Step 2: Thoroughly Inspect the Room Before Unpacking
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