Traveling with gear

Anyone have any beta with securing gear while traveling, best way to travel with gear, and any insurance in the event anything is lost or stolen?

Renter's or homeowner's insurance will likely cover your gear, with a deductible. Take photos or your rack and gear, and save receipts.

Trevor Thrift wrote:Anyone have any beta with securing gear while traveling, best way to travel with gear, and any insurance in the event anything is lost or stolen?

Are you talking about throwing gear in a duffel for a flight to Vegas then a rental car ride out to Red Rocks or dirtbagging through South America for a few months?

I have flown with gear several times. Carried on my climbing pack, double rack, and checked most everything else (70m rope, draws, a small knife, most of my clothing, ect).

The airlines lost my luggage (non-climbing trip) a few years back, and they cut me a check. Rope and draws would be easy to replace if they didn't show up, but replacing a rack would suck, and that's why I carry it on.

TSA hasn't ever questioned my climbing gear, knock on wood.

Rich Bergstrom wrote:I have flown with gear several times. Carried on my climbing pack, double rack, and checked most everything else (70m rope, draws, a small knife, most of my clothing, ect). The airlines lost my luggage (non-climbing trip) a few years back, and they cut me a check. Rope and draws would be easy to replace if they didn't show up, but replacing a rack would suck, and that's why I carry it on. TSA hasn't ever questioned my climbing gear, knock on wood.

Since this is in International I doubt the TSA has much to do with it. In Europe you can forget taking any climbing gear as carry-on, harness and rock boots is about it.

Jim Titt wrote: Since this is in International I doubt the TSA has much to do with it. In Europe you can forget taking any climbing gear as carry-on, harness and rock boots is about it.

Gonna have to chime in and disagree on this one. I've traveled several times (about 10 flights over in the EU) with my climbing gear, full rack, ropes, tools, screws, etc. and I didn't have any issues bringing my trad rack, draws, and 'biners in my carry-on. I was only stopped once at Schiphol and it was quickly resolved with broken Dutch and showing them a climbing magazine.

Within the U.S. the TSA guy actually laughed at me in Denver Int'l as I walked through security because I was tight on weight in my checked luggage so ALL of my hardware and pro was in my carry-on bag and it was essentially a solid 28L of metal. Ha!

Going international, for two trips, I purchased travel insurance through the American Alpine Club. I believe the company was TravelGuard underwritten by AIG. They were VERY helpful in recovering my bags when they were lost in London on the return trip, also I was able to cover my bags up to $5,000 and my personal health insurance policy for about $130 for a 9-week trip. Of course there were higher levels of coverage, depending on how much crap you bring. haha

Cheers,
Mac

I've been through international customs in europe with a triples rack in a checked in duffel bag, I've also been forced to surrender a locking biner that was in my carry on (attached to my harnass and shoes) to board a flight in paris CDG, apparently it doubles as brass knuckles, I want to stick to factual and not go into bitching but it was a pearabiner and definitely would've broken at least half my fingers if I had used it for that purpose !

Probably been a year or so but I had my biner (a real biner) on my keys and TSA took it from me saying it could be used as brass knuckles. When I said I'd been carrying that same biner for a dozen years (and I travel 100k + miles a year) without problem they basically said give it up or it becomes a problem. Just depends on the "TSA A$$" you might run into. New biner on keys and no problem since.

MacM wrote: Gonna have to chime in and disagree on this one. I've traveled several times (about 10 flights over in the EU) with my climbing gear, full rack, ropes, tools, screws, etc. and I didn't have any issues bringing my trad rack, draws, and 'biners in my carry-on. I was only stopped once at Schiphol and it was quickly resolved with broken Dutch and showing them a climbing magazine.

It´s just luck of the draw what the security guys don´t want to see, one day you´ll get through with 100 bolts, the next day a drill bit is out and so on. Generally N European airports are tighter than southern ones but then again I´ve had a ham sandwich taken out in Sicily!
The hassle is paying the extra baggage cost if you have to put it in hold luggage so we never take anything that could be chucked out.

I have traveled extensively with gear and I will agree it's mostly luck of the draw. In Malaysia, airport security knew what my gear was used for but still made me move it from my carry on to my checked bags ( which was totally cool since they allowed me to do this as opposed to confiscating my gear.) In the US I have had NO problems with any climbing gear in my carry on, including my nut tool. I usually put my shoes and harness in my carry on and my rack and rope in my checked bags. This is more because I dont want to be carrying a full rack and rope from one terminal or gate to another during layovers.

Never been a major problem except for my nut tool and if I forgot a knife (doh). Denver is easy, but I'll if I'm carrying on I'll make sure to have a climbing magazine in the bag for explanation as some airport employees are a little less than knowledgeable. Number of years ago I called TSA to ask about carrying on a rope, and they thought I wanted to bring on like a cowboy rope. ummm no.

Checked ice climbing gear I just went straight to the office every time since I knew that's where my bag would be.

They don't seem to like ropes as carry on... I guess they think you could wrangle up other passengers as hostages. Rack can be iffy, we flew in Turkey with ours and they gave us weird looks but were ok with it. Just depends who you get

Marc801 wrote: Are you talking about throwing gear in a duffel for a flight to Vegas then a rental car ride out to Red Rocks or dirtbagging through South America for a few months?

I think that info would be super helpful to someone on this thread. do you have experience with this?

I'm heading to turkey and Greece for a few weeks.

Thanks folks! The response has been great and the information has been super helpful. The thoughts of wrangling up passengers on an airplane with climbing rope is a funny thought to picture. I really appreciate all of your input and hope someone else finds this just as helpful as I have. Thanks again for all the helpful tips.

I'll contact AAC today to register for my insurance as having that additional coverage would be super helpful! BTW The American Alpine Club library is stocked with tons of helpful beta, guide books and topos for many international climbing locations. While at times they may not have the most up to date publications, the resources they provide are FREE. (well your membership pays for it) But the rental process is super easy and a no-brainer for travel internationally or domestically, give it a gander some time.

I'll be checking the rope, bagging up the gear in my carry on, and taking pictures of everything before I leave.

Thanks again
Trevor

There is absolutely no issue with checking in gear in a plane. Did it multiple times.
I also believe it will be 97% of the time ok to carry on Climbing gear on a plane. I did it at least on 20 times in Europe and 10 times in the US.I only had to explain and convince the guy that this was for climbing once (In Greece...).

The only hassle here is that in case they dont want you to carry it on you will need to check it in at the gate as an extra bag.

I carried-on a full sport climbing setup (70m, harness, shoes and draws) when I flew to Spain, security in Vienna asked what it was, I just said Klettern and they just shook their head "okay"....Noone else even said a word, I did put a climbing mag in with it...

Any travel experiences towards south america?