When bodyguards and other security professionals get ready for a client to travel, they send a team to conduct an "advance": a systematic research and assessment mission about the destination, so they know how best to keep their client safe.

Chris Story is an executive protection professional, who has spent thousands of hours in the field doing this job and written courses for national governments, militaries, and corporate clients.

He was kind enough to walk us through some of the basics about how families can apply his techniques to safer family travel. Whether we're going to grandma's for the weekend, taking the family road trip, or going together to Berlin, Bangkok, or Barcelona, we can take some simple steps to make the whole trip safer and more fun.