KLUTZY TRAVELER
Your carryon liquid allowance is one clear/transparent quart or liter sized bag filled with max 100 ml bottles
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Exceptions to this rule: breast milk, formula, medications, duty free items in a clear container purchased from the duty free shop and in the Duty Free “secure, tamper evident bag”
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As per TSA at June 2017; US Department of Homeland Security liquids rules available here.
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- Only one bag per person
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- Have this bag easily accessible and pull it out for going through security - must be in it's own tray or in a tray with few other items so it's visible (I keep mine either in my purse or in an easily accessible pocket in my backpack)
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DON'T: try to bring full sized bottles through, don't forget about that (hand cream etc) in the bottom of your bag, and don't try to argue with them if they tell you you can't bring it (unless it does meet the criteria). I have had to forfeit a couple bottles (sunscreen once, hand cream another time) that did not meet the rules, but I had a 100 ml bottle of port wine that I was bringing back from Portugal that almost got taken but after some discussion and them running an extra screening test on it I was allowed to bring it through.
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While this doesn't sound like much, you CAN fit about 3 weeks worth of travel sized liquids into one liter sized Ziploc bag if you use them sparingly; my contents include: 1 x 60 ml shampoo, 1 x 60 ml conditioner, 2 x 60 ml contact solution, 1 x 50 ml tube toothpaste (or preferably one of the sample sized tubes that you can get from the dentist), 1 x Tide pen (just in case, especially for those red wine accidents lol), 1 x 60 ml liquid soap (you can skip this if you prefer bar soap), 1 x 60 ml sunscreen. I even managed to bring back a 100 ml bottle of port wine from Portugal in my liquids bag on my May 2017 trip! Partly because I had used some of the bottles and they no longer needed to be in the Ziploc bag ;-)
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If you just can't leave without that giant bottle of (fill in whatever it is you think you can't live without here ;), squirt enough for your trip into a much smaller container.
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I have purchased both the refillable GoToob bottles and the Nalgene travel kit. You can also rinse and reuse small containers that you have picked up along the way (old makeup bottles, small hand sanitizer bottles, tiny jars, etc). This saves you from buying new 'travel sized' bottles of shampoo etc every time, and keeps all that extra plastic out of the landfills :-) I do find if the GoToob bottles sit for too long in my cupboard that they dry out, and they are a bit bulky. The Nalgene bottles don't dry out and they're not as bulky as the GoToob's, but they don't fit as much either. I tried using the transparent zipper case that comes with the Nalgene small travel kit once, and they made me swap my bottles out into one of their provided bags - they said the Nalgene case was too big. But this also probably depends on who you get at security and whether or not they're having a bad day...
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