UK travellers lose half a million items each year in the U.S

According to data released by Motel6, the U.S motel chain, British travellers leave 500,000 items behind in motel rooms when travelling in the U.S in just one year. What is even more surprising is that over half of these items left in Motel6 rooms across the U.S never make it home despite the staffs’ best effort, that’s almost 250,000 personal possessions that are never claimed.

The figures, which take into account over 1,000 locations across the country, show how careless we are when checking out of our holiday stop offs.

While many travellers will leave behind annoying but affordable items such as socks, shoes and sunglasses, the data also reveals the more valuable items that we forget including:

Jewellery - Diamond rings
Watches
Electronics – iPads, cameras and MP3 players

Those items may be the most valuable but there are some rather more bizarre things that people leave in their rooms including:

Wheelchairs
Baby Strollers
Bicycles

The good news is that if Motel 6 staff cannot return items left behind, they are often auctioned off with the money donated to charity.

Laura Rojo-Eddy, Director of Corporate Communications says, “We are often amazed by some of the things our guests leave behind in their rooms. Guests often leave in a hurry to get to the airport or to their next destination, and this means they frequently end up leaving personal items behind. We encourage our guests to always factor in extra time to check all the shelves or drawers in the room before leaving, to ensure they take all their belongings with them.”