No 'carry on' travel...

August 11, 2006 8:48 PM

How should I pack my stuff to return home - during the current restrictions?

I'm due to fly from Seattle to London tomorrow evening, after a week of business. I currently have with me - a sportsbag containing clothes for a week of work, and my crumpler bag (one week old) with my laptop/camera and associated items. I am now told that I can have NO CARRY ON at all - beyond essential medication and travel documents (not even a book/ipod etc.

I am really worried about checking my new bag with all my goodies inside, in case someting gets mishandled, lost or stolen by baggage handling.

I have today bought a portable drive and backed up my data - leaving the backup with a colleague here.

I am wondering if I should buy a cheap case and put my nice new bag (including laptop/camera) inside - to 'disguise' it a bit...or whether I should just check my Crumpler and be done with it....just hoping for the best.

A further idea maybe to buy a small case to check in - and load my laptop and some essentials into it - and then leave my nice bag and possibly my camera with someone here to look after until I come back (maybe 6/8 weeks away).

Any other ideas that I can conceivably action before reaching the airport very early tomorrow.

posted by mattr to travel & transportation (9 comments total)

Is it too late to Fedex (or otherwise ship) your stuff home?
posted by padraigin at 9:00 PM on August 11, 2006

Second the FedEx idea. Also in big cities there are post offices and some FedEx service locations (Kinkos?) open 24 hours a day. If I was out of town with a laptop I'd be on that idea like white on rice.
posted by zek at 9:11 PM on August 11, 2006

THird the ship your stuff home. It goes right to your door and you breeze through check in and customs. Only issue is might raise a red flag that you are traveling with no luggage. After flying to the states with luggaghe, the airlines might flag the missing return. They might ask a few more stupid questions than they need to.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:53 PM on August 11, 2006

Just to clarify, for the questioner, home is London, so the proposed route for the laptop/camera is from Seattle to London and not from Seattle to somewhere within the U.S.?
posted by hazelshade at 11:46 PM on August 11, 2006

FedEx does deliver to the UK, but I don't know if they do home delivery there.

If you must enplane your bags, see if you can find some "TSA locks". Apparently, these locks can be opened by security people, and are recognizable by them. Using such a lock would at least narrow down the list of people who get into your bags.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:17 AM on August 12, 2006

Yep - home is London, and I just returned from fedEx, who cannot ship to the UK by Monday or even Tuesday - when I'll need my laptop. TSA locks are a good option - I'm going to pick some up...
posted by mattr at 9:34 AM on August 12, 2006

You can bring carryons in the states to the UK.

AFAIK it's only flights originating in the UK to the states that can't bring anything.

Which causes me to ask the identical question, as I'm in Guildford at the moment coming back to the states on wednesday. :)
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:56 PM on August 12, 2006

First, I would check if the airline will allow you to take carry-on baggage to the UK by calling. If not, I would ask if they will sell you excess valuation insurance. This is normally offered by airlines to expand the coverage on checked baggage-- if you are able to purchase the full amount, then the airline would be liable for the full value of the checked baggage if anything happened to it. Double-check if this coverage would apply to electronics.

If you cannot purchase excess valuation insurance-- or the quote is too expensive-- you may also want to consider shipping your items through Global Priority Mail with insurance, rather than FedEx, which will likely be very expensive. You can check rates for Global Priority mail at www.usps.com. Some 24-hour post offices do accept packages on Sundays, usually there is 1 post office like this is major metropolitain areas, downtown.

If you do ship FedEx, go to Kinkos, which charges the standard FedEx rate, rather than Mail Boxes, Etc. or other sorts of convenience outlets, which mark up the price.
posted by nearandfar at 8:41 AM on August 13, 2006

OK - so finally home.

I can confirm that you CANNOT take carry-on - I was allowed a ziplock bag with wallet, passport, ticket and medicine. Everything else was stowed.

I bought a case to 'disguise' my crumpler, and then split my laptop and camera between the two bags - which I then locked.

Everything arrived home safely - but people, the airports are chaos still.

No security line at Sea-Tac - but a 7 hour delay, however - baggage claim at Heathrow, was carnage.
posted by mattr at 2:53 PM on August 13, 2006