Spring break is coming and many families and students will be traveling. Bed bug infestations have been increasingly reported at hotels, resorts, cruise ships and hostels across the country. Bed bugs carried in by one traveler infest a hotel room and go home with the next guest. You can even pick up the noxious pests on airplanes, trains, buses and taxis if you’re unlucky enough to take a seat recently vacated by an infested person.

Adept hitchhikers, bed bugs are easily transported, usually unwittingly. “Specifically, what they are looking for is a small, enclosed, tightly packed place. They like little nooks and crannies and crevices. That’s where they like to hide, and areas inside of people’s suitcases often form that kind of a perfect environment,” Bill Frank, an epidemiologist with the Arizona Department of Health Services, told CBS News in Phoenix.

Bed bugs are one souvenir you don’t want to bring home from your spring vacation. Follow these tips to keep your spring break bed bug-free:

• Inspect mattresses thoroughly for dark dots and smears at seams and welts.
• Check sheets for tiny brown or reddish dots.
• Look for brown spots around electrical outlets.
• Look for rust-colored stains behind headboards.
• Keep suitcases on a rack and wrap in large trashbags.