— Daily Journal 039 —
Traveling by air with an acoustic guitar, or anything sensitive in nature to you, is NOT the most relaxed way to travel, for sure. The whole time, you are worried that something could happen to damage said item.
Nobody Wants To Worry
This certainly goes for an acoustic guitar of just about any size. The rules for storing such items seem to change periodically, and you don’t seem to get the same answers from airport to airport on how they can accommodate you during your travels. You do, as the guitarist, have some options you can take before traveling to help with this situation.
OPTION ONE
Ensure you are traveling with a very well put-together hard-shell case. This is the absolute best option because you are traveling with the exact guitar you would like to play once you arrive at your destination.
OPTION TWO
Travel with a travel-sized guitar, like my Baby Taylor BT2. This guitar (there are a variety of others out there) will fit in most overhead bins on a plane (if you are quick in the loading process). Of course, this option is more for when you don’t need your “ultimate, most best guitar” with you. However, the BT2 is a pretty good little guitar for its size and has pretty good volume and tone.
OPTION THREE
Carry a Ukelele instead. Like the travel guitar when it comes to the size issue, although a little smaller. Also, with this option you don’t get the full guitar sound. It’s also normally tuned differently (G, C, E, A – Top to bottom).
OPTION FOUR
There are a few folding guitars out there as well. Certainly a unique concept, but from the reviews I’ve read on the higher quality versions of this type of guitar, you can’t go wrong. You would think the folding back and forth would ruin the tuning, but apparently not. Again, as with any instrument purchase, check out the reviews of the specific model you are looking at.
OPTION FIVE
If you are traveling to a destination you travel to a lot and have some extra cash, buy another guitar to leave at that destination. That’s what I did by purchasing the Epiphone PRO-1 acoustic guitar. Granted, this definitely is NOT my go-to acoustic guitar, but it’s a normal-size acoustic that more-or-less serves its purpose of being an on-hand, in an emergency, guitar…
Until Next Time,
Featured Image: An old suitcase of my Grandfather’s plus an American Airlines toy plane. View on Flickr.
Note: These “Daily Journal Entries?” are part of a mini blog within the main blog, where I make every effort to publish a 250+ word post per day in addition to the regular, longer posts. The idea is to create a daily habit of publishing written content. And also, to try and become a better overall writer… We’ll see…
