The flights have been booked, the suitcases retrieved from the closet and your holiday travel itinerary has been set. But while your mind may be ready to wander far away, don’t forget about home sweet home just yet.

Securing your home and making it look occupied while you’re away on vacation will help deter thieves. And some simple preparations can save you the anguish and expense of returning home to find damage if something like a dishwasher hose decides to fail in your absence.

“If you look at how long it takes compared to repairing the potential damage, it seems much easier to take the precautions than it does to make the repairs,” said Richard Stone, a University of Minnesota Extension educator in housing technology.

Here’s a checklist for closing up the house properly before you go:

•  Daily check: Arrange for a friend or neighbor to check on the house at least once a day (and feed the fish or water the plants). Give that person a copy of your itinerary and contact numbers. Ask that they call police if they see or hear anything out of the ordinary.

•  Mail/newspapers: Have the mail held, or ask a neighbor to take it in. The U.S. Postal Service will hold mail from three to 30 days. Sign up for this free service at usps.com, or pick up a form at the post office. Cancel newspaper deliveries, and ask your neighbor to take in any unexpected packages, notices of delivery attempts that may be left on your door or free publications tossed on the driveway. “That’s a sure sign that you’re not there, when all that stuff starts accumulating at your house,” said Ernie Long, crime prevention coordinator for the Aventura Police Department and an instructor for the National Crime Prevention Council.

•  Security: Lock all windows and doors and set your alarm if you have one. The police also might be able to check on your house daily. If your department has one, register with its “vacation watch” or “dark house” list. “We will periodically go by and check your house to make sure everything is on the up and up,” Long said. “Just about every police department offers some kind of vacation watch.”

•  Lights: To make your house look lived in, put lights on timers to mimic your typical routine. Long said he’ll set his living room timer to go on in the evening for a bit, and then he’ll set a bedroom light to go on for an hour before his usual bedtime. Exterior motion lights are highly effective in deterring crime because, as Long said, “you can’t sneak up on them.”

•  Noise: A radio can also be set on a timer to make it seem like you’re there. Burglars, looking for an empty house, will first knock on a front door, and will flee if they hear a radio, thinking you just didn’t hear the knock. If nobody answers, they typically go around to a back door, where they are less visible, Long said.

•  Locks and doors: The back door should have a high-security lock and a strong door frame. Long recommends replacing short screws with 3 1/2-inch wood screws to reinforce the strike plate on the door, making it harder for a criminal to kick it in. “You need to have good-quality locks but the door frame is just as important, especially on the back door,” he said. “Studies have shown that if you delay him two minutes, he’ll go somewhere else.”