Eyewear

Since I do not personally wear glasses, I have consulted with my many traveling friends who do use glasses and various kinds of contact lenses for the information in this section.

Sunglasses

I never bothered to carry sunglasses until my last trip, because they are so easy to break and lose, and I thought they were unnecessary. But there are many times when sunglasses are useful, so consider taking some. Their best use is for keeping the wind, dust, and bugs out of your eyes on breezy mountains, buses, and in the backs of trucks, and is especially beneficial if you wear contact lenses. If you normally wear glasses, you already have this problem solved. For wind protection, larger, or wrap-around lenses are better. The other obvious use is to shield your eyes from the glare of the sun; this can be important if you are near water, snow, or sand. For this purpose you should have polarized lenses to reduce glare, or at least reasonably dark lenses to cut down on the brightness.

My sunglasses had removable leather side-flaps to protect from serious windstorms. I only used them twice and they were hot and tended to make the lenses fog over. Since you won't be wearing them inside, you should definitely have a neck strap always attached to the sunglasses so you can drop them off of your ears without worrying about a safe place to keep them. Don't spend too much money on sunglasses because they will eventually get scratched, beat up, lost, or broken. You can always replace them with some cheap ones from a city pharmacy. A protective cloth carry bag will definitely lengthen the life of your sunglasses by preventing scratches on the lens which will become very distracting.

Glasses

The number of pairs of glasses you bring depends on how much you depend on them. If you normally wear glasses, an extra pair is certainly recommended. Bring along your prescription formula just in case. A good sturdy, solid glasses case protects your glasses best. If it can be clipped or hooked onto your clothing, all the better.

I recommend that you pick up a very cheap and tiny eyeglass repair kit; it could save a lot of trouble somewhere. Look in travel shops, or where you get your glasses.

Contact lenses

There will be times when it may be painful to use your contacts, so having a pair or regular eye-glasses along is recommended. One such case is in high winds and dust storms -- both of which regularly occur inside of rural buses and trucks on otherwise calm days!

Soft lenses take more care and can more easily get a fungus on them. Bring a copy of your lens prescription. The new disposable extended-wear contact lenses are certainly to be considered for a trip. You can take along enough to last through a medium-length trip, and forget about most of the cleaning solutions and other accoutrements.

Personal Entertainment

Walkman (personal stereo) -- A lot of travelers carry around their own music to enjoy at their leisure. Some people cannot imagine being unable to listen to their favorite music; that's the main reason to take one. The reasons not to take one are my usual -- too fragile, bulky, and inviting to thieves. The simplest players are now reasonably cheap, though. I find these tiny machines much to fragile to stand up to the conditions of regular traveling for very long. If they don't break, they can gum up or become corroded in humid and coastal climates, and you certainly cannot pack them in a rucksack for traveling. The player itself is not horribly big, but you still need to take along some tapes; how many? It's hardly worth it for two tapes, but ten is getting quite bulky; still, you can now buy some along the way. If you take along the latest popular tapes, you may find them good trading material in some places.

My main argument against them is that you can live without your music for awhile, and a Walkman is an unnecessary luxury. If it is a necessity for you, then you will take it, and you will have one more thing to take care of. In fact, modern music has made it to all but the sleepiest backwaters. In popular beach areas with no electricity at all, cafes run big stereos off of auto batteries; they send them out daily to be recharged, just to provide you with your music, at full volume. On one trip to Asia, I took along two favorite tapes, but no Walkman. Occasionally, I got friendly cafes to let me play them on their equipment, and I eventually gave them away to people who really enjoyed them.

If you do take a Walkman, you might consider taking one with a built in radio, and also a recording feature. Being able to record the sounds of exotic places can be at least as exciting as listening to your own music. You can even make audio tapes to send home to your friends and family. Unfortunately, this makes the machine more complex and more expensive. I have seen a few travelers carrying around battery powered speakers for their Walkman so they could share the music among their group. Well, I suppose it's better than taking three or four Walkmans, but it seems like too much trouble just to preserve a lifestyle that you are taking a holiday from.

Radio -- A few people do carry radios. I have a very tiny one which I never actually took on a trip although it almost went twice. Radio music is much what you hear in the cafes anyway. The best excuse to carry a radio is a small multi-band job that can pick up the BBC nightly news on short-wave. You may think that you can't live without it, but you can. The smallest ones available are down to about 13 oz. (370 g) for 7 bands and fairly small, so you may be tempted. But they aren't cheap! It's just one more piece of fragile, theft-prone gear that you can learn to be free of.

Musical instruments -- If you play something reasonably small, and sturdy, why not bring it along? You can make plenty of new friends, and it really breaks the ice with local kids and their families. A harmonica, bamboo flute, penny whistle, or recorder are obvious choices, but some people take the trouble to bring along larger and more fragile instruments.

Games -- Well, yes, there may be enough room left for a little frivolity. Soft "Frisbees" are sold in some outdoor stores; it's just a circle of fabric with a tube of sand around the edge. They are occasional good fun on the beach, and a real winner with local kids, but they disappear easily. Playing cards can be bought in most towns, so don't buy any until you get really bored, unless you are a chronic card player. I got into playing dice games with several people on one trip, and ended up putting together a collection of 12 tiny little dice that fit into an aspirin tin. I'm sure you can think of plenty more. Of course you can buy the miniature backgammon/chess sets if you are serious about these games, but don't load yourself down with toys; it's just an idea.

Mascots -- On the subject of frivolity, a number of seasoned travelers carry around the most quaint "toys". I don't know how many little Teddy Bears I've seen, often strapped to the outside of a weathered rucksack. It may sound funny to you, but, hey, you can do whatever you please when you're On the Road! Then there was the rubber dinosaur, and one fellow had carried a little rubber duck around the world with him. Wherever he went, he had photos of the duck on the Great Wall, in the pond before the Taj Majal, the duck in the Dead Sea; it had a real personality, that duck!

Binoculars

These are not necessary unless you will be doing a lot of wildlife viewing. If you do take a pair, you will use them often to pick out details in the landscape, to watch birds and people, or to save a long walk to read a street sign. Since they are both expensive and fragile, think hard about how much you will really be needing them. Unless you buy the most compact binoculars, they can also be very bulky and heavy. On two trips I have carried a monocular which was a good compromise. It was cheaper, smaller, lighter (3.5 oz = 100g), and not as good as binoculars, but adequate for the small amount of bird and animal watching I did. I ended up using it to look at all sorts of things, since it's so small that I always carried it with me.

The best binoculars (over 15-power) are also huge and of course very expensive; I would never recommend taking them except on a short trip specifically for wildlife viewing. The kind you can put in your shirt pocket are from 7 to 10-power magnification. They will mainly be the "roof-prism" type (no angles) which has lower quality resolution than the angled mirror types, but they are still adequate. The smallest ones will weigh 8 to 12 oz (225 to 340 g). The smaller the binoculars, the lower the lens size (this is the second number specified, like the 25 in 8x25), and the less you will see when it starts to get dark, but this will usually be a secondary consideration. Unfortunately, it will be very expensive or impossible to buy or rent binoculars where you need them.

If you take a long lens for your camera, you may use it in place of binoculars. It will not be as powerful, and less convenient for general viewing, but you will probably be using your camera in such situations anyway.

Cheap "opera glasses" are a pretty poor substitute, although their 3 to 4-power magnification is a good improvement over the naked eye. They are generally flimsy and will break, rust, fog up, and gum up easily. Still, if you don't pay much for them, you can always toss them out when they die. Some of the cheapest plastic or "tin" binoculars cost $5 to $15, but they may not make it through the first day.

Cameras and Equipment

 No Camera!  Compact Camera  Serious Photography  Camera Accessories   Buying A Camera Overseas  Film  

No Camera!

On one long trip, my camera packed it in after the first six weeks. It had developed "jungle rot" (that's what the manufacturer later wrote me, honest!) in the jungles of Mexico. I sent it home with another traveler, and made the conscious decision not to buy another camera.

Believe it or not, I actually continued that trip all the way through Central and South America without a camera! I went to Machu Picchu, the Galapagos Islands and visited dozens of amazing Indian villages, without a camera. Even more amazingly, I had a great time! The best part of it was looking at the world through my own eyes all the time, instead of thinking of how to make a good photo. Come to think of it, I made my first trip through Asia without a camera, too.

With the money I saved, I bought plenty of post cards and nice photo books to send home. Do I regret it? Not at all. However, I usually take a good camera along with me because I do like having all those nice pictures. There are a handful of really special photos of Latin America that I wish I had (like the Ferro-Bus in Ecuador), but I did receive a number of snapshots from friends I made along the way, and I have lots of store-bought photos that can take me back there anytime I like.

The point is, that while most people will not choose to go traveling without a camera (my mother does!), if for some reason you suddenly find yourself without one, it is not the end of the world! Try it without a camera for a few weeks before you decide to buy a lot of new gear.

Break my rules once in a while and leave your camera behind in the hotel. Practice just observing the world around you without a thought to what it will look like on the big screen! Sometimes, I just get out of the habit of taking pictures, and leave my camera in my waist bag for an entire excursion. It's there if I really want it, but I know from experience that if I don't use it at all, I will still have a wonderful trip. If you are capable of drawing, this is a very pleasant pastime whether or not you take a camera.

Compact Camera

Second, there are a number of very good quality 35mm (film size) compact cameras (with fixed lenses) on the market for US$80 to $160. They take good quality photos and you can carry them around in your pocket if you like. Some have a built-in flash, and most will take a tri-pod. They usually have a normal to semi-wide angle lens, 50mm to 35mm, which makes them fine for landscapes and everyday photos, but useless for long-distance wildlife shots or picking faces out of a crowd. Some newer models even have a zoom lens, or double lens up to 70mm. Some have a "manual override" allowing you set your own exposure times or aperture settings. If you already have a compact camera, consider taking it along on your trip. Cheaper "instamatic" cameras are even easier to use but are less versatile because they often have a fixed focus, aperture, and speed. You won't be able to use them in low light, and the quality is not as good as 35mm compact cameras.

Perhaps the best argument for a small camera, after weight, is that you will always have it in reach when a good opportunity comes up. Despite my rules, big cameras sometimes get left behind in the hotel. Also, big cameras can be obtrusive in natural social situations. My camera is so small and quiet that I can often take a photo without anyone knowing it.

Serious Photography

But if you want to get all the great photos you can, you will want a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera with removable lenses. Then the possibilities are endless: wide-angles, normal angles, long range lenses, and zoom lenses, not to mention filters. If you already have an SLR that is in good shape, consider taking it and some of the lenses you already own. Buying a lot of new equipment that you are not used to can be less successful than you might hope. If you already own such equipment, you know more about it than I do, but I will just remind you of some of the pros and cons specific to rough traveling.

Lenses

Don't take along too many lenses unless you are very serious about your photography. Changing lenses out in the bush with a good wind up can be very tricky. I suspect that two lenses should be enough, but you will probably talk yourself into taking three. A basic set would be a 35mm semi-wide angle and a 135mm long lens. The 35 is fine for landscapes and snapshots with minimal distortion, while the 135 is compact and good enough for most long shots but still lets in enough light to get crisp photos.

The longer the lens, the more light you need to take a photo, and the longer (time) exposures required. It can be difficult to keep the camera -- and a big lens -- steady enough for longer exposures (over 1/60th of a second). You don't often have a place to steady the camera, and the result can be fuzzy photos. To make things more complicated, the more expensive (and heavier) lenses have a better "maximum aperture" (or faster "speed"), which means they make better use of the available light. This is printed on the lens as a ratio like 1:2.8 (one to two-point-eight) or 1:3.5. (The "point" may be a comma on many lenses, or it may just be "f/2.8"). The lower the number on the right, the "faster" the lens, the less light it requires, and the shorter exposure times you can use to get steadier photos.

If you plan to do a lot of wildlife photography, you may want to go with a long 200mm (or longer!) lens. The longer the lens, the bigger and heavier it is, but some models are more compact than others. Zoom lenses generally require more light than for the equivalent length of a fixed length lens, they have more weight, more moving parts (that can stop moving properly), and are certainly more versatile than a fixed length lens. If you have one, I'm sure you'll want to take it along. Normal lenses allow you to get no closer than 2 or 3 feet (one meter) from your subject without losing focus. If you want to photograph (a great deal of) tiny flowers and insects, you will need a special "macro" lens that allows you to get within a few inches or centimeters of the subject and still be in focus.

When you take extra lenses, you must take the cases to protect them when not in use. Some people take along a bean-bag to set under a long lens for steadying it. Well, as long as you have all that bulky equipment, what's one bean-bag more or less? A good alternative is to take a bag you can fill with dirt or sand and seal well (even a big zip-lock bag, if you're careful). Dirt is still available in most countries of the Third World, and yes, you can get it cheap!

If you don't have an SLR camera, consider why you don't have one, and ask yourself if you really want to take on the complexities and weight of a lot of new photography equipment. The main benefits will be great close-up photos of people, and possibly wildlife, at a distance, and the ability to bring distant scenes closer.

Before almost every trip, I consider buying an SLR. I go around to camera shops, seeing what is currently available and checking different lenses. Ultimately, I decide that the purpose of my trip is first of all to have fun, and photography comes in third or fourth, so I stick with my little compact. My camera is a 1981 model Minox GL 35mm camera with fixed 35mm lens, no filters, and almost exclusively 64 or 100 ASA (19 or 21 DIN) slide film. Before that I had the original 1976 model Minox EL. Today's Minox costs more than a very good SLR, so I cannot recommend it as a great value, but it takes excellent photos within its limits. It weighs 9 oz (250 g) empty, including the cover, fits in my shirt pocket, and is almost silent in operation.

Other Cameras

Instant (Polaroid) cameras, which develop the photo on the spot, are great for giving out photos to all the local people you meet along the way. Unfortunately the film is expensive, bulky, and virtually unavailable in the Third World, and the quality is no substitute for a standard camera. This makes a Polaroid camera a luxury few people will consider. But if you are going out to spend some time in one community for some kind of work project, it could be the best gift you bring.

I forgot to mention video cameras. Sorry, but I draw the line between travelers and tourists at video cameras, because they just seem so intrusive to me. But with the newest miniature video cameras, more and more people are out there using them, so maybe I'm just behind the times. Don't expect to buy much video film while you are on the Road, so you will want to bring plenty along, and probably a still camera, as well.

Camera Accessories

If your camera lens accepts filters, you should use one, if only to protect the lens from abuse; better to crack the filter than the lens! The main ones to consider are ultraviolet (UV), skylight, and polarizing filters. The UV filter protects against extra UV light and makes almost no difference in the resulting colors; the skylight filter takes out a slight amount of blue, and the polarizing filter blocks glare and tends to darken the sky.

If you want to take long exposure photos (with a tri-pod) using available electric lights, you will want to find about the special filters you can put on your SLR lenses to compensate for the colors emitted by these lights. Examples are an 80A filter for the yellow in normal light bulbs and a florescent daylight filter (FLD) for the green of florescent lights.

Auto Winder

An automatic film advance and rewind feature uses up battery life, takes up more space and weight, and is just one more thing that can go wrong with your delicate camera. If your camera already has it, fine, but don't look for it in a travel camera. The benefits are mainly for professional photographers and lazy people. The noise will startle a number of your subjects.

Flash

If your camera does not have a built-in flash, you may want to take one for indoor and night shots. Be aware that the average flash unit illuminates only to 10 or 15 feet (3 to 5 meters). I'm constantly in stitches watching people taking night photos of distant objects with a flash! Being a staunch advocate of traveling light, (did you notice?) I stopped carrying a flash some time ago when I found that I preferred the natural light photos I got -- in temples and such -- using my miniature tripod and the automatic exposure (up to 60 seconds!) on my camera. But I miss taking indoor photos of people. Nowdays, you can buy very tiny little flash units that weigh only a few ounces.

Tri-Pod

Tri-pods are generally bulky, heavy items that are better left at home unless you are really serious about night shots and natural lighting. My Minox has a tiny little tri-pod, with a standard tri-pod screw-mount and nesting legs, that collapses to the size of your first pencil and fits in the bottom of my waist pack. It's only 6 inches (15 cm) high, so I steady it against a wall or pillar while taking long exposures. You can now buy similar, and very lightweight (2 oz) little fiberglass tripods for compact cameras, and slightly bigger ones (4 oz) that will be acceptable for many SLR's (for example, the Ultrapod and Ultrapod II by PEDCO of Redmond, Washington). You can also buy little "backpacking" C-clamp camera mounts with a standard screw-mount (2 oz), but you need to find something very solid, yet small enough to clamp them onto.

You definitely need a protective case to keep around your camera while you have it out of your bag; make sure you get one with any new camera you buy. It protects the camera from dust and light, as well as scratches and dents. For a bigger camera it should have a neck strap and you should always use it! The same for the wrist strap on smaller cameras. Make it a habit to always have your camera strapped to your body when in use. Life is uncertain, and cameras only take one drop to be ruined, especially if it is out of a truck or down a mountainside.

Buying A Camera Overseas

There are a few places in Asia that are famous for cheap camera equipment. Japan is no longer cheap for anything. I believe New York is still the cheapest place to buy photography equipment, in person or by mail order, if you already know exactly what you want (check the back of photography magazines). In any case, you really should become familiar with your new equipment before starting out on a trip.

Still, you can get some pretty good deals in Hong Kong, Singapore, Penang, and a few other duty-free ports. Cameras are cheaper in Hong Kong than in Singapore, but Hong Kong is notably famous for selling inferior, second-quality, or unguaranteed equipment. You will get no advice when you go to a camera shop in these places, they are only there to sell. Sometimes the "guarantee" they give you is only good in Hong Kong or not genuine. One fellow was about to buy the big lens he wanted when he noticed a small hair inside. He asked to see another. The next one had a tiny scratch in the lens. He looked at a number of lenses and they all had some small defect. This shop only sold second-quality goods that the manufacturer would not sell in its home market!

Shop around a lot and don't just go for the lowest price. Check the traveler's bulletin boards for particularly shady dealers, and look for a shop you think you can trust. Then check the equipment and the guarantee very carefully. Always verify exactly what equipment is included in the price. You will probably have to pay extra for any lenses, cases, etc. Finally, hang onto the specific camera you decide on. Don't give them a chance to switch it for another one while "packing it up".

Film

Well, here we go again. You see, photography is really a complicated business! First, color or black and white. That's easy -- most people prefer color. If you want black and white, too, you will probably carry two cameras and you know what you are doing, so I leave you to your own devices.

Slides or prints? -- The great debate rages on. Sure, you can always have prints made from slides, and even slides from negatives, but it is fairly expensive, and almost never as good as the originals. I have tried for years to get good prints from slides, but no matter how much money I spend, they are never consistently as good as the original. I don't even bother trying with photos that have a lot of light and dark contrast. Getting inter-negatives made from the slides first is usually better, but I find that the small inter-negs I get nowdays are worse than the big ones I used to get 12 years ago. And this is quite expensive if you plan to copy more than a few of your best photos. (Slides are sometimes referred to as transparencies, and the film as reversal film.)

So, ultimately, the dilemma remains. Finally, it is up to you; since print and slide film weigh the same, I cannot pontificate about saving weight. Prints are much handier for spontaneous show-and-tell sessions and you can easily have extra copies and enlargements made for a reasonable cost. Slides make for fine shows as big as your wall, but you must buy the slide projector, trays, and optionally, a screen. That is a big initial investment. Also slides are a lot of work to sort and rearrange in the trays. If you plan to make commercial use of your photos, you will want slides for presentations, and most publishers prefer or require original slides. Some people say slides give a "truer" color and personally, I prefer the colors I get from slides, but you may not be able to see much difference.

Probably you will choose what you have always chosen in the past. If you have a projector and a big library of slides, why switch to prints? If you don't, why bother with slides unless you plan to sell the photos or give slide presentations?

What speed? -- For the bright sun of the tropics, a slow 64 or 100 ASA (also called ISO) film is best to prevent 'washout' of the colors and gives the sharpest photos. In bright sunlight you may not be able to use faster film at all. You could plan to carry a roll or two of high speed film for indoor shots, but you can rarely plan well enough to get to the end of a roll just when you need to. If you use rolls with only 12 or 24 exposures, they take up the same space as 36-exposure rolls. I sometimes take a couple of rolls of 200 ASA (24 DIN) as a compromise; it is good in daylight and reasonable for indoors with some light. But I still end up with 100 film in the camera when I want to shoot indoors! ASA 400 and 1000 (27 and 31 DIN) film, aside from being more expensive, is often unavailable oversees. This film is great for shooting indoors or at night, even without a flash, but the sharpness (resolution) is necessarily not as good as with slower film, and it is much more susceptible to fogging from metal detectors.

What brand? -- I will not debate the quality of different film brands, but Fuji is the easiest to have processed around the world. In particular, Kodachrome slides can only be processed in a precious few places in the Third World; Japan and Australia are the only places anywhere near Asia, and only South Africa in Africa. It is even difficult in Europe! The reason is that Kodachrome uses a different process, which many professionals feel is superior. Ektachrome film will not last as long as Kodachrome after exposure (but we're talking about years and years here). Agfachrome is generally considered not as high quality. You can buy Kodak pre-paid processing "mailer" envelopes. You just put the film in the envelope and leave it at a trustworthy(!) photo shop. They mail it to Kodak, and Kodak mails the finished photos to the address you put on the front, preferably your home address. Or you can mail them to Kodak yourself from the post office, with big announcements not to X-ray the exposed film. If you plan to take them all home, it doesn't matter much.

Kodak comes in opaque cans which should be a better protection from light, but will they often be exposed to light? For low speed film it doesn't make much difference. The clear Fuji cans can be inspected at the airport without opening each can. Actually, you can drop into any camera shop in the world and get a supply of either type of empty can you want, usually for free (you will have to pay for the metal ones).

How much film to bring? -- No matter how much film you bring, you can always use more! I shot one and a half rolls of film in the first three months of one trip, then used up five rolls during one week in Burma! So how can I tell you how to estimate? Just take as much as you reasonably want to carry, and try to plan the places where you can buy more film along the way. In Kenya, they recommend "one or two rolls per day" on safari; that is if you have a long lens suitable for wildlife photography. With my small lens, I mostly used my binoculars, took photos of the animals I got close to, and bought lots of good post cards and photo books. I guess I'm hopeless when it comes to "serious" photography.

Film is generally much more expensive overseas. You can get a pretty good deal on Fuji film in Hong Kong, and Singapore, and you can find reasonable prices in Nairobi if you look around out of the tourist areas. Check prices as you go in Latin America and buy when they hit a low. But if you don't plan ahead, you could end up paying quite a bit. Still, if you shop in big cities, at popular shops that store their film properly (not in the window!), you can get good quality film that is better than no film at all. I once bought a quantity of film in Rawlpindi, Pakistan from a shop that kept it in a refrigerator. I got a slight quantity discount, and while it cost 60% more than at home, that price was considerably lower than in India, China, or Nepal. It beats carrying it around in your rucksack for a year! There are worse things than spending a few extra dollars.

Don't buy any boxes that have been opened; look closely. It could be someone else's already exposed film! This is where your stolen film ends up, and it's another reason to only buy from a reputable shop, even if you pay a bit more. Always check the expiration date on film. Even in the US, the cheap film you can get by mail order is sometimes almost out of date. If you plan to use it over the next year, it will probably still be good, buy why take chances? Cheap film is like cheap insurance; if it doesn't come through when you need it, it's worse than worthless.

Mail them home, or carry them with you? -- I have wrestled with this dilemma for years. Ultimately, I end up carrying it with me, because I do not trust the mails not to lose or x-ray my film. I have carried exposed film in my pack for almost a year, through all kinds of weather and any number of metal detectors without losing a photo. Maybe I was just lucky. I have inquired at post offices, and they never have a special way of marking or shipping exposed film; be sure to write "Exposed Film -- Do Not X-ray!" on the box. A lead foil pouch might work but it is not a sure thing. Sometimes I have had my film developed in a reliable place and mailed it home. At least I got to see it once; but I never lost any that way either. Some people use the Kodak mailers, and have never had a problem.

Developing your film overseas -- Be very careful about where you do this. Some people have their prints developed wherever they happen to be. It doesn't always come out very well. If you must, find the best shop in the most modern city in a country where things generally "work", if you are anywhere near such a place. Then pray. Be especially careful with slides, which are seldom used in most countries. Aside from poor processing or ruining the film, the frames are often of poor quality or too fat to fit in some slide trays. You can always get slides developed without frames for less money; they are then smaller to carry or mail, but you have to have them mounted at home.

Protecting Your Film

Keep all of your film, exposed and unexposed, in plastic film cans, in a plastic bag, in your day pack or rucksack where it will be protected from extreme heat. (Zip-lock bags are good to protect against moisture.) The exception is the extra roll or two you carry for use during the day; leave these in their cans. Do not leave the bag in direct sunlight or over a hot bus engine. Never, never leave your film in your checked baggage on an airplane. Checked baggage is often x-rayed to the point of completely ruining any film.

In theory, carry-on metal detectors at the airport are "film safe". This depends on how high they choose to turn up the power on the machine. Slow film is generally safe from several passes through these machines, but what if you end up carrying it through a dozen of them? Before you leave for the airport, put all of your film together in a clear plastic bag (optionally in transparent film cans), in your day pack or waist pack. Take the film and your camera out before putting the bag through the metal detector. Hand them to the attendant, or just carry them through with you, offering them to any officials who present themselves. Allow them to open the film cans if they need to. There is usually no problem. I sometimes get too lazy to do this, and have been lucky enough not to lose any film to a metal detector, yet.

There are a very few borders (Israel, for example), where you may be asked to take a photo with your camera to show that it works like a camera. In fewer cases they may ask you to open the camera. Offer to take a photo instead, but do not resist too strongly. Just rewind the film before opening, to save the last few photos you took. If you can find out about these situations before hand, you can plan ahead to finish the roll.

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Randy Johnson's "Footloose and Fancy-Free in the Third World"
All text Copyright © 1992-2008, Randy R. Johnson.