by Andy Highfield

Travelling with an instrument can be stressful. In fact, travelling these days is generally more stressful than ever before due to the sheer volume of people travelling and increasingly intrusive security regulations. It’s enough to make you wish the good old days of a leisurely, luxury trip on the Orient Express could somehow be restored. That was how to travel in style, with six-course gourmet meals, fine wines and comfortable sleeping quarters. Oh, and you had a personal porter to take care of your expensive portmanteau.

Unfortunately, the reality is that you are most likely travelling budget class by air and eating your meal with a plastic knife and fork. Your luggage is going to be processed on a huge conveyor belt system and you are relying on scanners and computers to make sure it arrives at the same destination as you do – hopefully undamaged. Small wonder that musicians find travelling with musical instruments especially worrying.

The first rule for avoiding this kind of stress is never, ever fly with an instrument that you can’t afford to lose, or would hate to see damaged. No matter what kind of case you use, nothing can give absolute protection. Cases can also be misdirected or even stolen in transit. It is simply not worth risking this with really valuable instruments. The maximum compensation from an airline if they totally lose or destroy your instrument is only likely to be around $2,500 maximum. You can take out additional insurance, and if you have extended cover on your household policy, that can also help. If you do plan on taking an instrument worth more than a couple of thousand dollars with you check that you really do have adequate cover in place well in advance.

You may be able to carry the instrument on board or gate check it, but do not rely on this. They can refuse you on a whim. There are several things you can do to minimise the risk of loss or damage with checked baggage:

REMOVE old airline luggage routing tags. Make sure the only one there relates to your current flight.

SECURELY fix a name and address tag to the outside of the case. Include telephone/cell numbers. You can get very tough plastic tags that are ideal for this. They are less likely to tear off than leather tags.

PLACE full contact and itinerary information INSIDE the case. Put this in a document pouch and tie it around the instrument’s neck. If the external tags are torn off, this could save the day.

DO NOT place cutters or anything electronic or with batteries inside the instrument case. This can result in the case being subject to additional security checks that increase the risk of damage.

USE A QUALITY flight case. The Calton cases are excellent.  No case is 100% proof, however. We had a banjo arrive with a hole from a fork-lift ‘prong’ in the back.

PAD THE INSTRUMENT headstock carefully with spare T-shirts, socks, etc. and loosen strings. This greatly reduces the risk of severe damage. If possible, also remove the endpin because if the guitar case hits the floor in that area the pin can act as a wedge and literally split the end-block.

MAKE SURE the case is distinctively marked. There could be other guitar cases on the baggage carousel at the same time. An innocent confusion could result in an unwanted swap… speaking of baggage carousels, in some places you may be queuing for ages to get through immigration while your instrument is already on an unguarded carousel - and an open target to airport thieves. This alone is one good argument for never flying with something you cannot afford to lose or could not easily replace.

CHECK FOR PROHIBITED MATERIALS on your instrument. If your instrument has parts made of ivory, Brazilian rosewood or tortoiseshell you need special import and export permits. Without the permits it can be seized and confiscated without compensation. If that happens, you are not covered by your insurance. See our separate article on this.

With all of these factors in mind, you really have to ask yourself it is worth subjecting that ’37 Martin D-28, Pre-war F5 or original flathead Mastertone to these kinds of hazards. Obtaining separate insurance for $50,000+ is going to be extremely expensive, if not impossible. Then, you may need CITES papers if you are travelling internationally. I know for sure that I would not have a relaxing trip with something like that to worry about.

My own recommendation is to think back to all the fun you had finding that “holy grail” guitar, banjo or mandolin that they’ll have to prize out of your cold, dead hands. Now you have a chance for a re-run of that chase, because you need another great sounding, nice playing instrument that costs less than around $2,000 and that you could replace fairly easily. If you tell me that you can’t sound any good on a $2,000 instrument, then I really have a hard time believing that. Sorry. I am fairly convinced that in many cases, musicians rely upon rare, super expensive instruments more as a psychological ‘prop’ or confidence/ego booster than simply as a great sounding tool. This is precisely why potential loss or damage is so incredibly stress inducing. It is not just wood, glue and money that are at stake; it is a deep psychic connection to the instrument.

There is one way to test this. Mentally envisage yourself turning up at a jam without that awe-inspiring pre-war ‘bone or flathead. Instead, you have a modern copy. Forget how it sounds for a moment. How do you feel?

In many cases a well-chosen modern, moderately priced repro might have 85-90% of the performance of a genuine vintage instrument, but in most cases, the player may not feel the same degree of confidence. It is important to recognise that this is very much an internal, psychological issue. The audience, in almost all cases, will never know the difference (especially over a PA system). We are not talking about low priced ‘junk’ instruments vs. fine pre-war examples, but well-made and properly designed modern re-creations or original new designs. By any rational standards, these instruments are more than ‘good enough’ to make great music on, but it does not come down just to rationality. There is a lot more going on.

The problem is that many players never even think about this, or choose to deny it. When faced with travelling, however, you really do need to think about it and question why you “need” to place something that might be incredibly valuable and irreplaceable at what is clearly a significant level of risk. You may find that by carefully thinking about the relationship between emotional attachment to an instrument and its utility as a music making tool helps you to deal with the psychological “jolt” of using a different guitar, for example.

This is not an easy issue for many players to deal with, but the constraints and risks of modern travel really mean that we should think about it, and face up to it.

There are plenty of very acceptable instruments including banjo’s, mandolins, guitars, fiddles and resonator guitars out there these days that you can hunt through to provide yourself with a great ‘travel’ instrument that you can consign to the hold in a Calton case and not spend the rest of the flight worrying too much about. It really takes the stress off. Even if it is lost or reduced to matchwood, your insurance can cover it, and hey - you can have more fun finding a replacement.!

I am fortunate enough to own a number of very nice vintage Martins, but I would not fly with any of them. They are not only valuable, but also irreplaceable. Instead, I went on a guitar hunt and had quite a lot of fun finding a guitar that felt right, played well, sounded good and did not have any endangered species product on it. I settled on a used Martin SPD-16W, a very nice dreadnought with a figured walnut back and sides and sitka top. It mikes up well on stage, and in no way feels (or looks) like an ‘inferior’ instrument at all. I paid around $1300 for it, and it is one of the best buys I have ever found in a guitar. It is not ‘quite’ as fantastic sounding as my old D-18’s or 1950 D-28, but it is plenty good enough to perform with and I can travel with it and not get too stressed. There are lots of other alternatives out there, and finding a great ‘travel guitar’ can be almost as much fun – and just as rewarding – as was finding ‘The One’.