Five tips to check your hotel room for bed bugs – is this still necessary today?
A quick Google search for “how to check a hotel room for bed bugs” returns more than twelve million results. Most of them follow the same familiar pattern. Grab a flashlight. Lift the mattress. Inspect seams and corners. Hope for the best.
For years, travelers have been given long checklists to protect themselves. These articles were written with good intentions, but they all point to the same uncomfortable reality: guests have been expected to take responsibility for something that should never have been theirs in the first place.
So the real question today is not how to check a hotel room for bed bugs.
It’s why guests should still have to do it at all.
Tip one: choose a bed bug-safe hotel
The most effective way to avoid bed bugs today is not manual inspection. It’s choosing a hotel that guarantees bed bug safety as part of its standard of care.
Valpas-certified hotels are certified bed bug-safe, meaning every room meets a clearly defined safety standard designed to protect guests throughout their stay. When booking a certified hotel, guests can travel, stay, and return home with peace of mind.
If a bed bug-safe, Valpas-certified hotel is available at your destination, there is no need to move on to the remaining tips.
Tip two: understand why manual checks became common
Keeping luggage off the floor, inspecting mattresses, and searching corners with a flashlight became popular because travelers lacked clear signals of safety.
These steps were never meant to be part of the hotel experience. They emerged as a workaround in a world where guests had no reliable way to know whether a room was truly safe.
Today, as hospitality standards evolve, these habits are increasingly outdated.
Tip three: recognize where the stress comes from
Media coverage and online guides often amplify anxiety around bed bugs. According to research published in American Entomologist, around thirty-four percent of hotel guests perform manual room checks when they arrive.
This behavior is driven by one simple fear: bringing a problem home.
The stress is real. But placing that burden on guests is not a sustainable solution.
Tip four: safety should be the hotel’s responsibility
For hotels, inspecting rooms manually every day is time-consuming and difficult to scale. For guests, performing their own checks undermines the feeling of welcome and comfort that hospitality is meant to provide.
Modern hospitality recognizes that bed bug safety should be built into the stay, just like clean sheets, secure doors, or fire safety standards.
This shift is why a growing number of hotels are choosing certification-based approaches that make safety visible, verifiable, and permanent.
Tip five: replace inspection with assurance
Crawling under a bed with a flashlight is not how a hotel stay should begin.
The future of travel is one where guests don’t need to worry about what they cannot see. By choosing hotels that are certified bed bug-safe, travelers can focus on what really matters: enjoying their trip.
Manual checks belong to the past.
Clear standards, certification, and peace of mind are the new normal.
The bottom line
If you still feel the need to inspect mattresses and seams when you arrive at a hotel, the system has failed you.
Today, the smarter choice is simple: book a bed bug-safe hotel and travel worry-free.