TSA and the Traveling Prepper

Air travel is a problem area for preppers in many ways. Conglomerations of thousands of strangers in a big population center. The need to travel light. The uncertainty that whatever you do bring will arrive at the same destination as you do. Strangers rummaging through your baggage. And last but definitely not least, TSA rules and agents that seem determined to discourage your carrying anything really useful. 

TSA: “For Safety Reasons”

I know, the regs are supposed to make flying safer. Or at least make us feel safer when we fly (which isn’t really the same thing, now is it?). In service of this Safety, we are not allowed to carry on a plane anything that vaguely resembles a weapon. Or a useful tool. And the folks doing the checking think a bottle of water looks like a weapon. 

And for the time actually spent on the plane, this works out pretty well. You don’t need much to role-play a sardine, since the airline provides the tin. The problems are more about how you’re stocked when you land.

TSA hacks for time in the airport and plane 

There is one serious safety risk at airports. Airports and planes are like germ flea markets. People from all over the nation, all over the world, moving through in great numbers. Some of these people are carrying pathogenic germs, and they did not want to have to rearrange their flight plans because of a bit of fever. They may not even know they’re carrying. Some germ carriers never get sick; and almost all infections have an incubation period.

So the biggest, most important, least glamorous travel prep? Wash yer danged hands. Often. Also good: Carry one of those little, $1 hand sanitizer bottles — and use it before touching anything that goes in your mouth. You can stick it in a pocket or in the silly little ziplock in your carry-on; but keep it close.

The little hand sanitizer bottles fit TSA rules and cost about a buck. Avoiding norovirus? Priceless.

I also bring my filtering water bottle in my carry-on. It has to be empty when going through TSA of course. I get to avoid the Ridiculous upcharge and waste of buying bottled water. Then there’s the prepper bonus: It doesn’t matter how good the local water is; the bottle filter will take out most problems.

One more pocket prep. It’s not a safety or life-saving thing, but a handy convenience. You can’t take a pocketknife on a plane, but you can take a pair of nail clippers. They do a surprisingly good job — not only on nails, but for things like opening packages that don’t want to tear. Get one with a nail file to have a handy tiny pry-bar/screwdriver.

TSA is not hiker friendly

Much of my headache with TSA comes from why I am flying. It’s usually so I can go hiking. That’s why I’m a little cranky on the travel restrictions. My trip is overall *less* safe because of I can’t take. A utility folding knife. Bear spray. Fire starters of some varieties. Fortunately my hiking partner Doc is often driving to our destination and can bring those things. If not, it’s Workarounds or Buy Upon Arrival.

One workaround we learned when traveling with scuba gear. One really must not dive without a line cutter; particularly in places with a lot of fishing line. Being tangled up underwater with no way to free yourself is No Good. Since knives were a non-starter, we got line cutters. These have a small sharp blade, but it’s buried in a notch in a plastic handle such that you can’t conceivably cut a person with it. TSA agents passed them. 

TSA didn’t object to a line cutter in the carry-on (your mileage may vary)…perhaps because I brought a cheap one with a non-replaceable blade. There was no way to extract the sharp part from the protective plastic.

TSA: Good for Destination Economies

Some things we just buy as soon as we can after we hit the ground though. For example, I do not go driving around in the desert without a case of water in the car. When Salty and I go, we hit up the closest non-airport-priced stop and stock up. Water. Car-stable food (usually we can’t spare the luggage space for it.) A cheap folding knife. A couple of lighters.

Much of this gets left in the last hotel we stay in, with a note inviting whoever finds it to keep it. We have left the remaining water bottles in the breakfast area, where they’ve quickly been adopted by incoming travelers.

Spending quality time with TSA

I have found when traveling with prepper or backpacker stuff — the stuff is similar in both — it’s wise to leave extra time for security checks because the gear ‘looks funny’ in a scanner.

On my last hiking trip, I took a one day, 2400 calorie emergency ration block. These things serve dual purpose: You can eat them in a pinch; plus in the foil wrap they’d make a decent building material. They’re literally brick-sized, dense, foil packages. It would be food enough to keep my partner and I hiking for an additional day, should we get caught out after dark.

Wonder why I couldn’t convince TSA it was food?

On the flight home, TSA took a loooooong time looking at my bag through the x-ray. I wasn’t freaking out, because there was nothing in there that shouldn’t have been and I had come early; but I could not figure out what they found so fascinating. Maybe the SAM splint, I thought?

Eventually they tore the whole backpack apart to dig the ration bar out of the bottom. (It made good ballast.) They examine in fine detail. Eventually even the bomb sniffer comes out. They never did admit it was food; but they did finally concede it wasn’t a bomb.

Here’s the point: Give yourself extra time to go through security if you’re carrying ‘weird stuff’. Salty and I had a similar time flying with scuba regulators. It was dead easy coming back from Hawai’i; those guys see scuba gear all the time; but the Missouri TSA agents’ heads nearly exploded trying to figure out what those things were.