Wednesday, February 22, 2017

30 Seconds to More Identifiable Luggage

What follows isn't a life hack, clever trick or road warrior tip. What follows is common sense.

All things being equal, I'm glad to check my bag when traveling. The last few times I've flown, I've considered ways to optimize identifying my bag . In my mind's eye, I could imagine 3D printed, Raspberry Pi luggage tags, with a QR code or NFC tag embedded. Instead of all this nonsense, for our last trip, I hastily tied a strip of orange fabric to each handle of the bag. Here's an action shot:

It was ugly, and perhaps a candidate for /r/RedneckEngineering, but boy did the technique work. When I our bag was pulled aside and tucked into a corner at baggage claim, I still had no problem identifying it from a distance. And had I needed to ask a baggage handler to look for the bag, it would have been straight forward to send them after the one with bright orange flagging tape on it.

Simplicity for the win. Why didn't I do this years ago?

In hindsight, I recall that years ago my grandparents (Z"L) had a yellow ribbon tied around their car's radio antenna to help them find it in a parking lot. At the time I thought, oh how cute. Now I realize (a) they were smart, and (b) I'm old.

No comments:

Post a Comment