Ever since reading about the Arrow Electronics disaster in 1980 ( www3.gendisasters.com/new-york/4265/white-plains,-ny-stouffer%2526%2523039%3Bs-hotel-fire,-dec-1980 ) whenever I go into a hotel or other large building for a meeting or an overnight stay I always make sure to do several things (and I have also drilled this into my kids when they were with us).

(1) For a hotel room - first clear the room with a drawn gun.

(2) For a hotel room or a conference/meeting room - walk thru and find the exits. For a room, this means memorizing the direction to the fire exit, and how many doors between my room and the exit. This is because you may be crawling thru a smoke-filled hallway. I've been challenged on several occasions by hotel staff at conferences. The exits in meeting rooms tend to be back in the 'staff only' areas. I just tell them I like to know my way around.

(3) For a hotel room, I leave mt wallet, car keys, flashlight, room card, coat, pants and shoes by the door in case I have to make a quick exit.

ER docs see drug seekers every day, and many complain of dental pain. Therefore, their index of suspicion is very high, and their response to dental pain conservative. Some very smart er guys have learned to do dental blocks with local anesthetic injections, effective for dental pain and disappointing for narcotic seekers. That said, dental pain is awful, and er's are poor places to seek treatment. Your dentist can probably suggest some local emergency dental centers. ER's attached to teaching hospitals with dentistry schools sometimes have emergency dental consultants. Or treat your family dentist really well, and maybe he will give you a cell number.

My EDC flashlight has a "moonlight" mode that doesn't disturb my sleep but makes it easy to find in a blacked out hotel room. I leave it in this mode next to these items.

In a hotel I just keep everything in my pants. Drop it when i go to bed. If there is anything happening i can just jump in my pants (with my wallet, keys, etc) and go.

My phone however is usually charging at night and being my alarm clock.

I was staying in a hotel when the fire alarm went off. It was 2:00 in the afternoon, so I was already dressed. Shoes and briefcase (business trip), out the door, down the hall, down the stairs (3rd floor room), and out the door.

What was really concerning was while I was hauling butt down the hall, most of the hotel residents were just standing in the doorways and gawking.

In my experience, these are the things you will have, and I've been through, while staying at a hotel are:

1) Weird travel schedule - I rarely to arrive at a hotel in time for a decent dinner and often badly jet lagged. Meal replacement bars are better then going for fast food at 10:00 at night or raiding the vending machines. Chewable Dramamine (dimenhydrinate, not meclozine) is the best short term sedative I've found for adjusting my sleep schedule. Meclozine takes about 2 days to work out of your system.

2) Other guests - Egomaniacs, nyphomaniacs, inebriates, missionaries, and abstentee parents who think the entire bleeping hotel is a day care center. Earplugs are NOT optional, and don't park under a balcony if you can help it.

3) Food poisoning - Bring Immodium and Pepto as you will be too sick to go out.

4) Fire alarms - You're in the middle of a city and can buy replacements for what gets left behind. Your wallet, perscription medications, cell phone, valuables, and paperwork for the trip (hotel, rental car, airplane, etc.) needs to be in your BOB/daybag while you're sleeping.

5) Power outages - Flashlights. 'Nuff said.

6) Wardrobe malfunction - Most hotels have irons in the room, but none have a tailor in the hotel. Carry a sewing kit with iron-on repair patches.

It's called 'Milling.' People mill around in a state of ambivalence, normalcy bias inhibiting their survival instinct.

Chaos... my G23 has tritium powered moon glow by Trijicon