How To Safely Pack Your Instruments for Travel
Whether you’re a working musician or just looking to practice while you’re on the road, you’ll want to know how to keep your valuable instrument safe while traveling.
If you’re someone who gets a wave of anxiety at the thought of your precious instrument getting damaged while flying, you’re not alone.
Traveling with an instrument can mean anything from lugging your guitar in a big hard case through the airport to throwing your flute in your bag and pushing it under the seat in front of you on the Greyhound Bus.
Traveling mishaps can take a logistical and sentimental toll on your performance abilities, which can directly impact your livelihood if you’re a performer.
To help keep your instruments safe and secure while traveling, we’ve come up with three easy tips to protect your gear!
Invest In A Proper Case
It’s unbearable the number of times we’ve seen musicians stuffing their guitars into overhead compartments with only the protection of flimsy soft cases.
These cases are basically nothing more than padded cloth.
While you could technically get away with doing something like this, it’s not a risk worth taking more than once.
We recommend getting yourself a hard-shell case to protect your instrument.
Hard-shell cases can take a beating, making them far more dependable than their softer counterparts. You’ll likely need to find a hard case that is molded to fit your particular instrument.
We recommend looking at cases from companies like:
Prep Your Instrument and Case
The air pressure and temperature in the storage cabin can vary depending on the aircraft you’re flying in.
If you use a stringed instrument, it’s a good idea to loosen the strings before flying. If you don’t, the string pressure can put stress on the wood, which can create cracks or, in the worst case, snap the headstock.
Make sure that you carefully secure any loose elements within your case, including tuners, capos, picks, or cables. You may even want to take them out and store them in another bag if your case does not have a separate compartment for them to go.
Lastly, you might also consider getting a humidifier to put in your case. Similar to temperature and air pressure, additional humidity can damage your instrument. The Humidipak from Planet Waves is one of our favorite devices for regulating the internal humidity of your case.
Include Soft Objects In Your Case
If your instrument doesn’t fit snugly in your case, the last thing you want it to do is to bounce around while flying. If you end up having to check it in, you can’t assume the bag attendants will be careful with it. For this reason, it’s a good idea to have some additional protection.
We recommend packing any loose parts of your case with clothes, socks, packing peanuts, foam, or other soft objects.
Get Travel Insurance
While it might cost you a bit extra, we highly recommend getting travel insurance to be safe.
Remember, the airline company is not liable for your instrument if anything happens to it. Sometimes, employees will carelessly fling instruments around. In fact, this has happened so often that someone even wrote a song about United Airlines breaking guitars!
For this reason, it is extremely important to get travel insurance in the slight case that something goes wrong. It’s equally as important to read the fine print to make sure that the insurance policy you purchase covers instruments. Most of them do, though reading the fine print will give you the peace of mind you need.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes, you’ll have to check your instruments. However, if that’s the case, we recommend waiting until you get to the gate to check it. You’ll have a far better chance of getting it on the plane and not having to check it at all. Plus, the chance that it’ll get lost in transit will almost completely disappear.
If you’re only traveling with your instrument to practice, we recommend buying a “beater” instrument to travel with instead. That $1,000 Martin acoustic guitar you have might not be the best travel companion if you have any anxiety about your instrument breaking. However, the $100 Yamaha acoustic that you picked up from the local thrift store might be a great option!
Lastly, if you have the funds, you may consider purchasing an extra seat for your instrument to sit with you. If you’re doing this, notify the airline at least 24 hours in advance.
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