The Days of Yore

I grew up in the water. Seriously, my Dad was an Olympic-class swimmer and he dunked me in the Atlantic before I was three. By the age of five I was body surfing. Our family moved to California and, naturally, I wanted a surfboard so I could really ride the waves like the cool kids. For some unknown reason, my parents obliged and I spend all day every day during each summer on one surfboard or another (begging proved a very effective way to coerce a new board out of my parents).

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We’ve were reminded of the difficulty of traveling with camera gear on our most recent trip to Europe. We travel with several professional digital cameras, a laptop, a backup device in case the unthinkable happens and the laptop crashes, and a tripod. You may travel with less gear, but you probably don’t want to lose it either.

We flew from Los Angeles to Stockholm the day before the terrorist threat involving liquids and gels. Everything seemed great until the next morning’s news brought us the changes that were in store. No carry-on baggage for the foreseeable future. We had been planning to fly back from Heathrow to Los Angeles, but after digesting the news, we decided that we would very likely arrive home with lost or damaged gear so we looked over our itinerary.

Our last stop was Belgium, so it seemed a natural to change our departure from Heathrow to Brussels airport. Good thinking, right? We hopped on the Internet and rearranged all the lodging and air travel, then continued on with our photo shoots. It became obvious to us that monitoring the travel situation was important so we made a point of checking the travel bulletins as well as our email along the way in case some additional adjustments were in order.

By the time we arrived in Belgium, it was becoming abundantly clear that nobody really knew what the regulations regarding carry-on baggage were likely to be and that now it extended beyond Heathrow to other airports, including Brussels, DeGaulle, and most other airports. Each person we spoke to came up with a different version of what would be allowed from the most restrictive (plastic bag with passports and tickets) to least (nothing has changed).

We came up with several plans:

1. Assume that a single carry-on bag per person is allowed and that may not include cameras (this turned out to be the case). In this event, we make certain the laptop with all the images stays with us.

2. Assume that a single carry-on bag per person is allowed and that may include cameras. Had this been the case, we tested and found that we could fit all the lenses and camera bodies in one bag by eliminating much of the other stuff that normally fills camera bags.

3. Assume no carry-on bags are allowed. This was the worst possible scenario, and the only solution was, we felt, to use a shipper such as FedEx for our equipment.

As we neared the time to depart, it became crystal clear that scenario 1 was the most likely, so we shopped for a hard-sided suitcase that would fit all of our carry-on baggage. We loaded the bags into this suitcase and padded them with underwear, rolled-up travel pants, and other soft clothing.

We arrived at the airport four hours early (you read right — four hours!), as instructed. Even though there were three security checkpoints, we had narrowed our carry-on baggage to the exact maximum required and were able to get through in a minimum amount of time.

The flight back was uneventful and, thankfully, we still have all our images and our camera equipment. The moral of this story is that even though we advocate carrying on your camera equipment when possible, flexibility is still extremely important.

Admit it, you’re tired of the self-serving “best of” polls that are published around this time of year. You want to know about the companies to avoid. Specifically, you want to know which airlines to stay away from.

A few weeks ago, my friends over at TripAdvisor sent me the raw data from their Fall Travel Survey, and I’ve taken the liberty of doing a little number-crunching.

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You think flying last holiday season was bad? Wait until you try it this year.

A record number of travelers will take off in November and December. That is, if they can navigate their way through the Transportation Security Administration’s new liquid-and-gel rules.

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