Souvenir Smarts: Tips for Getting Your Travel Mementos Home Safely

Here are the best ways to tote the treasures you’ve crafted and curated while traveling.

Illustration by Soeren Kunz

Nothing kills the buzz of a great trip more quickly than getting your prized new trip memento confiscated at the airport, or arriving home to discover it crushed, in pieces, in your suitcase. These expert packing, planning, and shipping tips will help you bring your souvenirs home safely — and keep those great travel memories alive.

Can I get it through Customs?

First, the bad news: A large number of agricultural products are restricted or prohibited, says William Wepsala, spokesperson for the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The good news: Items like coffee, tea, spices, and nuts are largely permitted but must be declared upon entry. For specifics, visit aphis.usda.gov.

Pro Packing Tips

Ensure your delicate wares (say, from that Murano glass workshop you took in Venice) don’t end up the stuff of shattered transit dreams with tips from James Claude, co-owner of vintage furnishings showroom A La MOD in Palm Springs, California.

People spend $500 on insurance, but then they don’t want to spend the extra dollars to crate an item securely. Remember, if you’re shipping a one-off or something very rare, the full price of insurance won’t be able to replace it.

A blanket is not going to prevent your canvas artwork from getting dented or torn in the trunk of your car. Sandwich it between double cardboard, wrap it in plastic wrap, then bubble wrap, then plastic wrap again.

If you ship through a service like UPS, spend a few extra dollars to double box, especially for glassware.

Take extra precaution to individually wrap pieces of lighting; don’t cheat and try to put two pieces of glass in one box. A $3,500 Sonneman bubble chandelier from the ’70s will have no value if even one handblown glass globe is broken. ­Vintage lighting is often irreplaceable.

Stress-Free Shipping

“Use the right-size box,” says Robert Mintz, senior communications manager at DHL. “Underfilled boxes may collapse, and overloaded boxes may burst.” Don’t exceed weight specifications for your box, but do fill it: “Less space will help prevent items from shifting and breaking in transit.” Also, says Mintz, “add an extra address label inside the package. Even the stickiest labels can come off!”

Verboten Valuables

Many common souvenirs are heavily restricted or outright prohibited by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The items below will not only get you in hot water with authorities but imperil wildlife, as well. A breakdown, by region:

The Caribbean and Mexico: Hats made from green palm fronds, Haitian goat-hide drums, whole coconuts

South America: Ancient relics

Europe: Legs of prosciutto, haggis, absinthe, fresh sheepskin throws, reindeer and moose sausage, chestnuts

Africa: Ivory jewelry, biltong meat, crocodile handbags, snakeskin products, goat-hide drums

The Middle East: Fresh olives, fresh almonds, keepsakes containing soil from the Holy Land

Asia: Ivory statues and figurines, wood carvings, bonsai trees, souvenir whole-spice packages

Australia: Kangaroo meat

Food and Wine

Culinary delights — whether handmade or carefully sourced — will arrive intact with these pointers.

Preserve Your Perishables

Keep it fresh: “If you’re serious, you can buy a small FoodSaver,” says Ryan Hardy, chef at NYC’s Charlie Bird. Or, “get friendly with someone in a food and beverage program and ask if they’ll vacuum seal your items,” suggests Zak Pelaccio, chef at Fish & Game in Hudson, New York.

Mind your meats: Bundle with frozen-solid gel packs, and double-bag to avoid condensation.

Cheese check: Unpasteurized cheeses under 60 days old are widely available abroad but illegal to bring into the United States. Lauren Toth, Murray’s Cheese training and curriculum manager, wouldn’t recommend breaking the law, but she has a tip for the rebels among us. “Generally, rules for prepared foods are more lax,” she says. “You could try cutting your cheese and putting it in baguettes; wrap in foil and call it a sandwich. Depending on temperature and flight length, you may be able to salvage it to enjoy in non-sandwich form.”

Stash It Like a Sommelier

“You don’t need to buy anything fancy to travel with wine,” says Grant Reynolds, wine director of the Delicious Hospitality Group. “Cover your bottle in a plastic bag and then wrap it in a T-shirt, or even stick it in a boot. Pack as you normally would, but place the bottle in a nest in the middle of your luggage to best protect your wine while traveling.”

TSA Cheat Sheet: A primer on what to carry on, what to check, and what to leave behind.

Definitely check

• Any tool (hammer, mallet) or piece of sports equipment (baseball bat, bowling pins, golf clubs, hiking poles) over seven inches long could be considered a bludgeoning instrument and must be checked.
• Cigar cutters: They’re technically permitted, but TSA officials ­recommend you check them.
• Swiss Army knives.

Unusual Suspects

Among the items most frequently stopped at TSA checkpoints are these unlikely culprits:

• Peanut butter
• Oversize bottles of maple syrup in season

Yet these surprising items are TSA-approved to carry on:

• Hookah
• Knitting needles
• Tattoo guns
• Lightsabers (though the TSA notes that “sadly, the technology doesn’t currently exist” for real ones)

What Can I Fly With?

“The ‘What I Can Bring’ search on tsa.gov and the MyTSA app list nearly everything you can imagine checking or carrying on,” says TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein, from artificial skeleton bones to Harry Potter wands (yes to both). “People can also send a photo of an item via Facebook Messenger or Twitter (@askTSA) and our team will respond.”

About the author: Jen Murphy is a freelance journalist based in Boulder, Colorado. She writes the weekly “What’s Your Workout” column for the Wall Street Journal and regularly contributes to publications including Outside, Town & Country, the Houston Chronicle, Men’s Journal, Departures, and Food & Wine. An avid yogi, she is the author of The Yoga (Man)ual.