Traveling with your BJDs

I just flew with an msd in her carry case inside quite a full carry on suitcase, some cotton wool in her faceplate. It was absolutely fine, and so nice to have her with me

 

Earlier this year I traveled with my SD girl to Seattle from Alabama. She was too tall for my carry on so I had to put her in my checked bag, ugh! I get nervous about checked bag luggage because I've had mine lost and return broken before. I packed her in her doll bag and wrapped with the packing pillows with care around her face. And when I packed her I made sure it was clothes surrounding the doll bag and it was in the center of my luggage while packing. She made it back safely!

 

I used to travel a lot with mines back in the day. Someone would always come with me off island. I used to have a messenger bag big enough to put my Delf in or anyone smaller. Sometimes they'd have their Volks carry bag. Just depending. I swear I once carried my EL during a Vegas trip without a bag. It was fun he kept me company because I was on my own. But I always had them as my carry on.

Also TSA would always stop and open their bag and do a swab test. It was mostly when I had the Volks bag with multiple dolls in it.

 

First time traveling with a doll, but I'm thinking of bringing my YOSD on my carryon backpack from USA to Japan, would she be fine through customs?

 

@moonichirou I don't have any experience with US customs, but I have been through Haneda and Narita airport in Japan with dolls in my carry-on (first trip, a 1/3 doll, second trip a 1/3 and a 1/4).
On my last trip, my bag was scanned twice but I wasn't required to open it.
I did have Australian Customs concerned about my doll when leaving through Tullamarine airport (Melbourne) – I said that I have an expensive collectible in my bag and I was fine with security looking at it as long as I was around to open it. The security person's concern seemed to be "Oh, so not a small human then".
Makes me wonder what people have put in their carry-ons...

US airports seem to have a reputation for harsh security staff and damage to luggage (I have no personal experience, but this is from friends' and family's travels), so perhaps some input from travellers to/from the US would be helpful

 

@moonichirou it was years ago so hopefully someone has been since the tariff situation may have put customs more on edge. But you should be fine. Customs did not care either direction any time I went, it just seemed like a toy.

For security scans, be aware of how items are stacked in your bag. That tends to be what confuses them. That's why they used to always make you scan electronics on their own. You could scan it separately if your doll is in a carrier, but make sure there isn't risk of a bag falling on it, etc. If you can get pre-check, that would help a lot with TSA in the US. Security at all the JP airports seemed less intense to me.

I do recommend you be ready to partially unpack your doll to show them what it is, since they may ask. I had an agent think I had a baby in my bag once! She was actually really impressed with the doll once I took him out to show her. Say it's fragile if they do need to examine it; calling it an "art doll" helped me in the past to distinguish it from "American Girl doll" or "action figure" in their minds.

 

I'm not completely sure yet what I'll pack in my carry-on bag but it'll probably be just my phone, journal, and smaller things like that. I was planning on having her dressed with a face covering in the zipper cushion bag that came with her (from Chicabi), so I assume she'll probably be the "largest" item in my bag. I did see a post in this thread about someone being pulled to the side for having their MSD and SD dolls in zippered cushions but do you think that would be a problem for YOSD size? If it might be I think I'll wrap her in fabric instead or just take the whole zipper cushion out my bag and put it in the scan bins...This is stressing me out (I'm leaving my two MSDs home because I was already worried their larger S hooks would probably get tossed out and such)

Also how do you get things pre-checked? I don't think I ever remembered going through that before.

 

I definitely remember staff being a bit mean in general here before... it makes me extra worried even though I hear the common consensus is that 1/6 scale and smaller usually have no problems.

 

@moonichirou I traveled with an SD in my carry-on from the US to Japan and back. TSA and customs didn’t care a bit on either leg of the trip.

 

I'm glad to hear! Was that recently?