Should I tell my local police I will be away?

Many police departments offer vacation house-check or extra-patrol request programs, but availability and rules vary widely by city. Check your department's website or non-emergency line before your trip. It costs nothing and adds occasional drive-by attention.

Is it worth getting a monitored system just for travel?

It can be, now that several providers bill monthly with no contract. As of August 2026, SimpliSafe's published monitoring plans start at 76 cents per day and can be canceled any time, so occasional travelers are not forced into a multi-year commitment to get covered for a few trips.

Do smart lights actually deter burglars?

Occupancy cues like varied lighting are about not being selected as an easy target, and they cost little, so they are worth doing. But they are a deterrent layer, not detection. Treat them the way you would treat a yard sign: helpful, unproven as a guarantee, and never the whole plan.

What should I do about packages while traveling?

Pause recurring orders, and reroute anything already shipped to a carrier pickup point. USPS Hold Mail covers letter mail and USPS parcels for 3 to 30 days, and other carriers offer hold-at-location options. A visible pile of boxes is one of the clearest signals a home is empty.

Should I turn off my water before a long trip?

Shutting off the main water supply is cheap insurance against a burst hose or failed fitting flooding the house while nobody is there. If your system supports leak sensors, they add remote detection, but a closed valve prevents the damage rather than reporting it.

Home Security While Traveling: How to Protect an Empty House

An empty house is most vulnerable to the things nobody notices: piled-up mail, dark windows, an unanswered alarm. The fix is layered. Stop deliveries or reroute them, make the house look lived-in, and put eyes on it remotely with cameras. If nobody can respond while you are away, professional monitoring closes that gap, and several providers now sell it month to month with no contract, so you can weigh it even if you only travel a few weeks a year.

Figures researched 2026-08-19; each source below carries its access date. Prices change; treat any price here as "as of" its date.

Before you leave: the low-cost basics

Most burglary prevention for travel costs nothing. Lock every door and window, including the garage entry door and any pet door large enough to matter. Ask a neighbor or friend to pick up flyers and move a trash bin on collection day, since an untouched bin at the curb for a week signals an empty house.

Stop the mail pile. USPS Hold Mail holds your mail at the local Post Office for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 30 days, free, and you can request it online up to 30 days in advance. For trips longer than 30 days, USPS points you to its mail forwarding service instead. Package deliveries are a separate problem: reroute them to a pickup location or pause orders, since a box on the porch is the most visible vacancy signal there is.

Put interior lights on timers or smart plugs with varied schedules, and avoid posting real-time travel updates publicly. None of this detects a break-in, but it lowers the odds your house gets picked in the first place. If you keep a second property empty for longer stretches, the calculus changes, and we cover that separately in vacation home security monitoring.

Cameras and self-monitoring: good visibility, with one honest catch

A camera you can check from your phone solves the anxiety problem: you can see the porch, confirm a delivery, or check that the door is closed. Self-monitored systems with no monthly fee handle this well, and we cover the strongest options in best self-monitored systems with no monthly fee.

The catch is that with self-monitoring, you are the response plan. If a sensor trips while you are on a plane, in a different time zone, or somewhere with no signal, the alert goes nowhere actionable. A siren may still scare off an intruder, but nobody calls the police unless you do. That trade-off is manageable for a weekend away with a neighbor holding a key. It gets thinner on a two-week international trip.

If you self-monitor, set up a backup contact who also gets alerts and has access, and test notifications before you leave, not from the airport.

When professional monitoring earns its fee for travelers

Professional monitoring exists precisely for the moment you cannot respond: a monitoring center gets the alarm and can request police, fire, or medical dispatch whether you answer your phone or not. For frequent travelers, that is the main argument for paying a monthly fee at all, and we walk through the general math in is professional monitoring worth it.

The cost side has improved. As of August 2026, SimpliSafe publishes professional monitoring from $1.10 per day for its Core plan (about $33 over a 30-day month, by simple multiplication) and a Standard plan at 76 cents per day, billed monthly with no contract and the ability to cancel any time. No-contract billing matters here: someone who travels heavily three months a year is not locked into paying for the other nine. For the cheapest published options across providers, see cheapest professional monitoring.

If you decide monitored coverage is worth it for your travel pattern, we can fetch real quotes from professional monitoring providers through a short questionnaire at /quote, so you can compare actual prices for your home rather than advertised starting rates.

Frequently asked questions

Should I tell my local police I will be away?: Many police departments offer vacation house-check or extra-patrol request programs, but availability and rules vary widely by city. Check your department's website or non-emergency line before your trip. It costs nothing and adds occasional drive-by attention.
Is it worth getting a monitored system just for travel?: It can be, now that several providers bill monthly with no contract. As of August 2026, SimpliSafe's published monitoring plans start at 76 cents per day and can be canceled any time, so occasional travelers are not forced into a multi-year commitment to get covered for a few trips.
Do smart lights actually deter burglars?: Occupancy cues like varied lighting are about not being selected as an easy target, and they cost little, so they are worth doing. But they are a deterrent layer, not detection. Treat them the way you would treat a yard sign: helpful, unproven as a guarantee, and never the whole plan.
What should I do about packages while traveling?: Pause recurring orders, and reroute anything already shipped to a carrier pickup point. USPS Hold Mail covers letter mail and USPS parcels for 3 to 30 days, and other carriers offer hold-at-location options. A visible pile of boxes is one of the clearest signals a home is empty.
Should I turn off my water before a long trip?: Shutting off the main water supply is cheap insurance against a burst hose or failed fitting flooding the house while nobody is there. If your system supports leak sensors, they add remote detection, but a closed valve prevents the damage rather than reporting it.

Sources

USPS Hold Mail holds mail for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 30 days, is free, can be requested online up to 30 days in advance, and USPS directs longer holds to its forwarding service: https://www.usps.com/manage/hold-mail.htm (accessed 2026-08-19)
SimpliSafe publishes Core professional monitoring at $1.10/day and Standard Monitoring at 76 cents/day, billed with no contract and cancelable any time: https://simplisafe.com/features-alarm-monitoring (accessed 2026-08-19)