Traveling With Your Rock and Mineral Collection (Expert Advice and Tips)

suitcase next to rock collection in airport terminal

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How To Travel With Rock and Mineral Collection

Traveling can be a pain, every item in your bag needs to be accounted for. Doubly so if you’re planning on heading out on a plane, where security measures can make every object suspect to the right TSA agent. If you’re coming back from a trip it pays to know everything you can about taking your stones along.

Let’s get into it, with some hints and tips for traveling easily with your rocks and minerals.

Let’s Talk Laws

You’re allowed to bring your crystals, minerals, and other rocks in your carry-on bag or checked luggage. There seem to be no real legal restrictions when it comes to transporting your collection.

So, traveling with your collection doesn’t face legal issues. And if you’re transporting by car then you’re good to go with just packing them up and shoving them in the trunk without a care in the world.

Traveling on trains and planes, particularly the latter, gets a lot more complicated. While there are no legal restrictions on bringing stones on transportation, the end decision always rests with security. That means you can do a few things to minimize your chances of running into trouble.

Avoid Bringing Fist Sized Stones

Ever since Cain decided to brain Abel in a field, rocks have been used as an improvised weapon. To avoid running into trouble when you’re traveling, you should make sure that your rocks aren’t of the right size to be used as one.

In other words: a solid, fist-sized rock can certainly be denied entrance to the airplane as it could be a weapon. You may be better off with a carry-on in those cases, despite the fees, so that you can get your rocks safely home.

It’s kind of a pain, and it will depend on the security agent in question, just be aware that the size of your stones can be a reason to deny them passage on a plane.

Sharp Edges Are a No Go

Stones with sharp edges are common, many varieties of silica have a conchoidal fracture which creates a very sharp edge. These are, naturally, not encouraged to be brought on planes since they could be used as improvised weapons.

Any stones with sharp points or edges will probably have to go in a checked bag. This is, again, the TSA agent’s call so you may travel just fine with a broken obsidian nodule once and be denied entry the second time.

The takeaway here is that you should be careful about rocks that could be used as weapons, especially if they have sharp edges.

Keep Them Clean for International Travel

If you’ve traveled somewhere to collect stones, you should clean them before you head home. While rocks are perfectly fine to bring along, international travel is a bit warier about possible contamination from soil and other debris.

You don’t need to get in every crevice, but the exterior of the stone should be subjected to a good soap and water treatment before you bring it on the plane.

Likewise, you should be able to quickly tell the agent where and why you collected the stone if asked. This helps them make a decision, hopefully in favor of letting you enter the country with your stones.

This isn’t something you’ll be stopped for every time. It’s just a good habit to get into to avoid any trouble.

Know About Customs at Your Destination

International travel is complex, especially since you’ll often head through many different jurisdictions on longer flights. You need to know the customs rules of the country you’re arriving in to make sure that you’ll be permitted to keep your minerals.

This applies to both entering and leaving the country of destination. The USA doesn’t appear to have any restrictions on bringing in stones and minerals, but it’s not guaranteed that every country is going to be that way.

Always double check the laws of the nation you’re visiting before leaving. That includes more than just rock and mineral collections. Unwelcome surprises while dealing with customs are never a good thing, and you may end up losing some of your collection if you messed up.

Checked or Carry On?

Rocks are heavy, and it’s tempting to use checked luggage to transport them. There’s nothing wrong with doing so, but you should be careful about it.

More than one traveler has had a piece of their collection go missing during a bag inspection. Since checked luggage can be opened without you present, it presents the risk of  “misplaced” items. I’m sure the TSA as a whole is great and all, but individuals can always cause problems.

Carefully consider whether or not you’re comfortable with the risk if you’re placing your rocks in checked luggage. I’d avoid particularly valuable samples going in, the risk is simply too high.

If you have to transport valuable samples that won’t pass by a TSA agent, you may want to consider using a courier or delivery service to send your rocks home. It’ll be a bit expensive, but it’s less risky than putting samples in to be checked.

Make It Easy for the Agent

If you have a lot of stones, you may want to consider removing them from the bag and placing them in a separate tray for inspection. A group of crystals and mineral specimens provides a really odd, hard-to-read x-ray image.

Placing them separately allows for quick inspection at the cost of having to put them back in your luggage. It’s no big deal and it makes everyone’s life a lot easier. It also speeds up the lion a bit.

There’s also no point in arguing if one of your samples gets flagged. It just escalates the situation for no real benefit.

Have a Backup Plan

Always have a backup plan in case one of your samples gets flagged and they won’t allow you to get on the plane with it.

Most of the time you can just reverse course and put it in checked luggage instead. While a bit risky, it’s still better than having to abandon the sample because they won’t let you on the plane.

A good backup plan should include using a delivery service if necessary. Shipping rocks home can be expensive due to weight and distance, but it also sidesteps any issues the TSA might have with your collection.

Packaging for Travel

Bags get thrown around during travel, and unexpected impacts can hurt stones that aren’t carefully packaged to avoid problems.

Use good packaging for any vulnerable samples that you have in your bag. Ideally, you’d have foam in boxes to transport each specimen individually. That’s not always possible, so you may need to improvise.

Newspaper and small cardboard boxes are great for protecting samples in the short term. Just use as much paper as you can fit in the box to wrap the stone and try to keep the specimens packed individually. If not possible, then use extra newspaper to jam everything tight in the box and avoid your treasures hitting each other.

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