travelling with a didgeridoo, customs, packaging etc
 

Hi my husband and I are travelling from Adelaide airport Australia. first stop San Francisco 5 days, Calgary 1 week, Paris 6 days and destination Frankfurt, Germany where we will give didgeridoo as a present to a friend. will I have any trouble with customs, how should I package it, where will it be stored on plane ( I would like it to be as hand luggage so we don't lose it? the size is 120cm(47") x 8cm(3"). this is a first time trip overseas for us trip of a lifetime 7 weeks North America& Europe. many thanks Kerry

Why not just ship it FedEx or similar to its final destination and pick it up there? It will save you a lot of trouble and probably have a better chance of arriving unscathed. You can insure it too.

We bought a didgeridoo for our son (Calif.) when we were in Oz en route to Africa the year before last. Ye gods, I'm glad we mailed it.

It won't fit in the overhead bins, so carrying it on board is a no-no.

I would phone the airline (Qantas?) and ask them how hard it would be to send it as air freight to Frankfurt. Qantas flies there, and probably wouldn't charge you too much to hold it at their air freight facility there.

OK, I give up - what in the world is a didgeridoo?

many thanks Gardyloo I will ring Qantas and enquire, great advice. we are not flying with Qantas though will that matter? Leaving Australia with Air New Zealand have a two hour flight change at New Zealand before we arrive in San Francisco. regards kerry

Hi Hazel1
a didgeridoo is an Australian Aboriginal musical instrument. it is hollowed out special wood painted with aboriginal tribal colours and makes the most awesome deep sound. worth a search on google. we had a german exchange student stay with us for 8 weeks last year. he is 17yrs and plays in a heavy metal band in Germany and so much wanted to buy a didgeridoo when he was here and take home for his band. he ran out of money though. He wanted to experiment with different sounds. we are very excited to have bought him one as a suprise present. We are staying with his family for 10 days in Backnang, Germany. Our son stayed with them for 9 weeks last Nov-Jan. cheers Kerry

Thanks Kerry - it's now my word of the day!

I was given a didg for a wedding present by my very good friends who live in Sydney. They shipped it DHL. I think it would be worth the cost. We shipped a giant box of wooden handicrafts from Fiji to Minneapolis last year and it cost $120 American.

sorry for my ignorance. what is DHL? thanks Kerry

DHL is a freight/parcel service like FedEx or UPS et al. http://www.dhl.com.au

For anyone who is interested in what a didgeridoo is:
http://tinyurl.com/yseavs

Getting it shipped is the only sensible option.

Taking it with you, you'll need to check it in the hold as baggage. It won't go missing, but you'll need to protect it very securely in bubble wrap. And you're going through Customs three times: people who say you don't get stopped at Customs when arriving in Europe haven't tried taking a 4 foot long tube through lately.

Each time, you're laying yourself open to a diligent officer asking to see it (which means unwrapping), then checking to see whether it's on a list of illegal imports. Not all customs officers are Nobel Prize potential - but they all have the power to seize suspicious items. Even if thet don't seize it, you're very likely to have to rewrap it each time.

The Canadians are likely to be the worst, incidentally: Canada has extraordinarily obsessive rules against importing anything organic (think Australia and multiply tenfold) And not much happens in Calgary.