Take a Photo of Your Luggage Before You Travel
When we mentioned last week that you should take a screenshot of your boarding pass and other important travel documents, several of you also shared tips for the real things to photograph. Consider photographing just about anything, including:
- Your car at the airport (or in any garage or large parking lot you may find yourself in). Take a photo that includes the name or number of the parking lot and enough context for you to narrow down the aisle and space you should be in. As StarryNight17 notes, “After six days, when you return to the airport tired of vacation, after a 7-hour flight, you will be glad that you can just look at the photo, instead of trying to remember whether you were in 189 Blue or 198 Purple.” …
- Your rental car . The company should ask you to do a walk-through, but that way you have proof that the windshield chip you didn’t notice at first was actually present at all times. Be sure to include your license plate so that when you check into a hotel and they ask you can just pull out your phone instead of running back to your car.
- Your luggage . So if it gets lost , you can show the airport staff what it looks like. Also take pictures of any airline tags.
- The contents of your baggage . If you need to prove that you have lost in order to obtain an insurance claim, a photo will help.
- Your kids, pets and travel companions . It’s easier to scan the crowd for kids in an orange shirt if you really remember your kid was wearing an orange shirt today. If you are separated, you can also show the photo to security when you ask for help.
I do almost all of this, and let me tell you that it’s a relief to get home from a trip and quickly reach my parked car in the ocean of others. What else do you photograph (besides yourself against the backdrop of local attractions) while traveling?