Basic tips for Safe and secure online travelmatching

Finding your travel companion, activity partner, friend or single man or woman online is quite possibly the safest way.

Yet because of the stigma of "mystery" and "danger" that online chat rooms somtimes suffer from, especially women, can still feel apprehensive about joining an online travel companion site.

Following are some basic, common sense safety tips, to keep in mind when looking for travel companions online. Follow these tips, and you will be perfectly fine.

You'll be fine anyway, but by following some safety precautions, you'll make absolutely sure that you are not doing anything that could be dangerous.

• Do not, under any circumstance reaveal any personally identifieable information in your online travel profile or in your private e-mails to others.

Such information includes your real name, specifcs about where you live ("I live in Chicago" is ok, though,) or any other info that could be used maliciously.

• Use only the communications tools provided by Cutetravelmate. We offer anonymous e-mail and SMS. You should not invite other members to e-mail you at your regular address, at least until you get to know them better. Use your judgement here.

• When you e-mail other members in private, you may want to consider using an anonymous email account at a free site such as Hotmail when you begin getting to know new people. Take your time to establish communication and move at your own pace.

• Be careful with your signatures. Many of us use multiple signature lines for our personal and business e-mail correspondence that include our phone numbers and addresses. Obviously you'll want to leave this information out when first contacting other members.

Your best option might be opening an entirely new free email account, to use just for your communications with members you meet online.

• Remember: you are in control. No one should ever pressure you into revealing anything about yourself that you want to keep private. Anyone who does, is not respecting your boundaries, and is probably not worth contacting further.