How to Take BACKPACKING GEAR on a PLANE!

in this video I'm going to show you how to pack up your backpacking gear for plane travel so many people have asked me about how to do this and it isn't as simple as just putting all your stuff into a backpack and walking onto the plane there's actually a lot of nuances in terms of stuff you have to check things that you have to put in your carry-on so I'm going to give you all of those tips that I've learned over the years and by the end of this you will know exactly how to pack your bag for plan travel this is my show gosh darn uh before I get too deep into this video this is Tucker Tucker is my producer rainer's dog he's also my co-host for this episode so the main thing that I want you to take away from this video if nothing else is that my recommendation for you is to take your fully loaded backpack for backpacking and put it into another bag and check it bye-bye you want to leave now okay yes Tucker has vacated the the set now I just told by myself well there are some things that you have to carry on for the most part all of your backpacking gear is just going to be safer in checked baggage instead of trying to gamble that it might fit into an overhead bin as a carry-on check it real good or dead great so I know it might seem silly to take a bag like this and put it into another bag to check it but our backpacking bags have all these like straps and buckles and things hanging off that just are like very likely to get damaged in travel all planes are different overhead bin storage is often really limited so because I don't think it's worth it to run the risk of like hoping that my bag fits in an overhead bin or like hoping that I don't have to check it out the gate I always just check my backpacking gear and I always put it into a pack duffel which is something that is designed specifically for this purpose this is my pack duffel bag it is it is like a Mary Poppins bag it gets huge cool so packed Apple boom as you can see this thing is top loading so you can like fit all your stuff down in it like that it is massive just like so much space in there I wonder if I could fit in here it has this little uh window on the side where you can put your name and phone number I would highly recommend doing this on your backpacking gear especially because like when you get to your destination if they lose your pack you can't go backpacking and then just has this big strap on the side so super simple duffel but really really large the other cool thing about this is that I can actually pack two people's worth of backpacking gear into one pack duffel so once you get to your destination you definitely don't want to have to carry your pack duffel it's not like meant to be carried on a backpacking trip and they'll just take up space in your bag so I'll tend to just leave it in a rental car if you're not using a rental car you can generally find like lockers at truck rest areas or even public pools but if you're super opposed to using a pack duffel you like just want to carry your backpacking gear I can give you one tip on how to make your backpack less likely to get damaged in transit let me show you come on let's pretend that this is my fully loaded pack there's a couple things you can do to make it less likely for this pack to get damaged the first thing to do is to tighten down all of your straps and to tuck them into Pockets if you can so this means tightening all your compression straps everything on this external side of your pack so I'm just like tightening and tucking [Music] I've tightened down the straps as much as I can on the exterior of this pack on the front here this is where it gets kind of interesting so this flash pack is pretty flexible um your depending on how flexible your bag is or how not flexible your bag is this next part might not work but just bear with me while I show you what we're gonna do I just want to make it clear that this is not what I recommend doing with your pack this is just an option if you have to so I'm losing my shoulder straps foreign to the front of the bag like this and buckle it essentially what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get all of the straps and things on this front side of my pack because I'm going to use my rain cover to cover this [Applause] and then we're gonna do the same thing with my hip belt I do not recommend doing this if you have a pack that does not have a flexible hip belt because you will mess it up okay if you have like an osprey Atmos or like an aura or something this is just like it will not work cool so now I have my backpack with all my stuff in it I've buckled my harness and my hip belt around the front side of my pack so ideally the back side of my pack doesn't have any like straps or things that can be damaged and now I'm going to take my rain cover and use this as kind of a makeshift pack duffel [Applause] so we're just going to tighten that to try and basically protect the front side of the bag as much as possible okay all right like that we have our backpack is in here our rain cover is tightened around the exterior side that has all of our straps and things and if something's gonna get damaged I would so much rather have it be like my rain cover which is pretty easy to replace then have it be like the straps on my backpack hot tip you can also put your entire bag into I think these things are called stroller covers at airports which are just the covers that people put over strollers obviously generally they're going to have those for free at the airport so using some of those to cover your bag clear plastic just gives it one additional layer of protection but again what we're trying to do here is essentially just like avoid straps and things on your pack getting damaged so it doesn't ruin your trip most airports are going to have cling flip cling film cling for them cling film cling King flim cling film most airports are going to have cling film that clear plastic like cellophane stuff they used to cover avocados and that can be used cover avocados yeah What It's Like on the Osprey Atmos for example Osprey has this anti-gravity like hip belt thing and it lies really flat against the pack there's no way that I'm able to bend this around the front side of the bag so in this case you can just wrap around your entire pack really the main thing we're trying to do is we're trying to keep all these straps and doodads and bits and Bobs from being loose in the cargo area because they are just such a risk of getting caught on something and getting damaged I have been burned by TSA before I've had things taken away from me as carry-ons I have had packs and buckles damaged in transit because I didn't put my bag into a pack duffel so I'm also speaking from the experience of like not wanting to risk it after having stuff get ruined for me so that's why I recommend pack Devils don't do it rain or did this is a bad idea put this bag in another bag so now that we've covered this big idea of taking all of your backpacking gear putting into a bag and checking it you can't actually check lithium batteries so if you are carrying a spare lithium battery like this Goal Zero Adventure these actually cannot go in your checked baggage so you have to carry these on on the topic of stuff that you cannot carry on a plane is fuel like this these things cannot be carried on or checked on a plane make sure that you're taking your fuel out check your pot if you're someone who just like comes back to my backpacking trip and takes their whole cook kit but it's back on your shelf make sure to like double check open everything up make sure you're not taking fuel with you because this cannot be checked and it cannot be carried on and it can get you banned from flights flammable don't put it on a plane great in the same respect you also cannot fly with bear spray so if you're headed to an area where you're going to need bear spray or if you're like going into Bear Country make sure that you can either get someone you get there or rent bear spray I think you can rent it I'm pretty sure that areas where Bears hang out Parks will rent bear spray speaking of bears this is an excellent segue to talk about food y'all have probably heard me talk about my bear canister before I love my bear canister even though it's big and bulky and kind of heavy it is one of my favorite pieces of gear and it actually works really well for traveling for backpacking so if you have ever like put a backpacking meal in the bottom of a bag and then forgotten about it and it's gotten all crushed up and then you've like opened it up and tried to rehydrate it and it's all like mashed to bits and powder and then you rehydrate it and it just tastes really gross because it doesn't have any texture anymore and it's more like porridge and anything else you wanted to eat it's really bad so that that doesn't happen to you I would recommend instead putting it all into your back end in the history of sentences sorry Mom my mom the English teacher but yeah basically what I'm saying is that backpacking meals like they're already kind of touch and go on whether or not dehydrated meals are any good and if they just turn into powder and you rehydrate powder they're definitely not going to be tasty your bear canister is a great place to store your food boom plus if this can withstand Bears it can withstand the TSA but not bears that work yeah not bears that work for the TSA man they're they're hard asses if you don't have a bear canister you can use your sleeping bag to like wrap up the dehydrated males in your sleeping bag save the meals great a few more tips for you if you are traveling with your headlamp or any other small electronics that have removable batteries I'd recommend taking those batteries out before you put the stuff in your pack you don't want this to accidentally turn on in your bag and just totally drain all of your batteries if you have a headlight like mine like this black diamond you can actually lock this light so that it won't turn on in your bag it'll save your batteries last but not least trekking poles trekking poles actually cannot be carried on the plane they have to be checked now this might come as a surprise especially if you've seen those like foldable trekking poles but even those are not considered safe for air travel like I don't want someone coming in the comments and being like well my black diamond Z poles like I put them in my carry-on bag every time that's great Susan but someone might find them and they might get taken away from you yes I'm sorry I'm sorry they always coming up in the comments talking about a track basketballs most like collapsible trekking poles like these like the telescoping poles won't even fit in carry-on luggage but even the folding style trekking poles are not supposed to be put into a carry-on so make sure you're always checking your trekking poles if they're tracking make sure you're checking I often like to bring a small day pack and then I'll just use this bag as my carry-on on the plane I'll put my spare lithium batteries in here and then just stick this in the car under the seat for my backpacking trip another hot tip that once your backpacking gear is inside something else it is considered the contents of a bag an airline is required to compensate you for any damage to the contents of a bag but they're not required to compensate you for damage to the bag put your backpacking gear into something else so that it becomes contents instead of bag okay so those are all of my tips for how to travel with your backpacking gear on the plane every Airline is different every security line is going to be different I traveled with a plastic serrated Spork for a really long time and I just had it taken away from me so it really just depends on like who you're encountering so I hope this video was helpful and if you have other tips for how to like pack your backpack and gear for plan travel let me know in the comments below as always if you enjoyed this video or if you found it helpful hit the like button subscribe to the Miranda the wild Channel and then also subscribe to the REI Channel I will see you all in the wild bye see you in the friendly Skies are you are it is

Channel: REI

Views: 47,060

Keywords: taking backpack on plane, checking a backpack on plane, backpacking gear on plane, what backpacking gear allowed on plane, can you take isopro on plane, can you take trekking poles on a plane, will backpack get damaged on plane, how to travel with backpacking gear, backpacking travel hacks, backpacking europe, backpacking southeast asia, can you take batteries on a plane, flying with a backpack, can backpacking packs be carryons, rei miranda, backpack, miranda goes outside

Id: wF9NLhGzd2Y

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 13 2023