7 Quick Travel Tips for the Gun Owner

We're on the road a lot. While traveling is not the job, quite often it's part of the job. Here are seven quick tips to make travel just a wee bit easier. While much of this is airplane based, many of the same tips can apply on the road or rails (do people still take trains?). Give it a read and tell us what you'd add to the list — note that only one of these is specifically for gun owners, it's a good suggestion that hardly anyone ever uses.

1. Carry a Spare Bag

This is especially useful if you're just a bit over the weight limit with a checked bag. While you may have carefully weighed bags before you left, you can be over upon returning if you picked any gear up. Pictured is a Grey Ghost Gear Hideout. It packs down into itself so it doesn't take up much space until you need it. Propper also carries a decent option as well.

2. Have Extra Juice on Tap

While you definitely need to have a charger and cable or two, having an external battery pack can be invaluable. Nothing sucks more than watching a movie on a long flight only to have your phone or tablet die halfway through.

3. The Dollar Store is Your Friend

It seems like all hotels, even high end ones, have the harshest soaps available. Likely they'll all dry out your skin. Bring your own body wash, mouthwash, and other toiletries in 3oz bottles. While sure, you can just buy the specific travel/trial bottles, frequently these empty bottles can be found for 3 or 4 for a dollar. The loofah pictured came in a 4 pack for a buck. Reuse them, or just dump them in the trash when you're done.

4. Have Good Headphones

Noise cancelling headphones are great on airplanes. You can enjoy your music or movies while [mostly] negating the engine noise and crying baby in the background. That said, they can be bulky and expensive. Pictured are Ryobi headphones made for construction workers, and as you can see they're a earplug/headphone combination. You can get them for ~$20 at Home Depot and they're no larger than normal earbuds.

5. Bring Your Own Water Bottle

While you can't bring your own full bottle passed the TSA checkpoints anymore, you can bring along an empty Nalgene or two. Getting dehydrated while flying is fairly common, and you can save yourself from buying the $7-per-liter bottles many of the airport shops sell.

6. Have Television, Will Travel

On good trips, there's usually not a whole lot of hotel-room-time. They all aren't good trips though. Long gone are the days that ‘Free HBO' was an actual perk, and usually available entertainment isn't great. If you have an Amazon FireStick, Google Chromecast, or similar it can make the experience much more tolerable. Sure, you could just fire up a tablet or laptop but that's not a perfect solution if you happen to be using it for other purposes. Be sure to include an extra-long power cable.

7. Pack Clothes with Guns
If you're traveling with a firearm, removing the top layer of foam in your Pelican makes a lot of room for clothes. Your guns stay padded and protected, and you're more likely to get away with just checking one bag and saving some cash.

What travel tips have worked for you?