I need to work while on vacation and will be taking my laptop. Can anyone tell me what to expect at security/customs. I will fly out of SFO to Heathrow and onto Munich landing in Pisa.

You may be asked to turn it on, so be sure you either have the battery charged or the power cord handy.

I live in Switzerland and fly weekly with my laptop. The only place I am ever asked to take it out of the bag and/or turn it on is at airports in the US.....In my experience, you will also have no issue at customs in any country including the US.

At Frankfurt, they sometimes ask you to remove it and they swab it with a giant Q-tip and then check that for something. Most places just have you take it out and pass it through the scanner in the plastic bin.

Thank you. It sounds like it will not be a problem.

Take a plastic bin. Remove your laptop from its case and put the laptop in the bin and send the cover through separately. I've never been asked to turn mine on but always have it charged just in case. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't disappear.

I've never had any problems at all. They are so used to laptops that it's considered normal luggage these days.

You will very occasionally get your laptop swiped with the explosive trace detection system-which, as its name implies, searches out any traces of explosive material in and about your electronic device. Other than that, you may be asked to turn it on, particularly in high-capacity airports where there is an elevated threat level in effect-which would be NYC and DC at present.

Other than that, take care not to forget your laptop at the screening checkpoint-this happens quite frequently! -and watch that the bin holding the laptop is not pushed off the end of the x-ray machine band as other articles are moving through.

In Amsterdam they once had me turn it on and show them a file with a date to prove it wasn't brand-new, I guess for customs purposes - since I'm resident in Europe, they might have charged me for bringing in a new computer. Dumb test, though - I could have copied a ten-year-old file from an old backup CD, or backdated a few files...


best regards,
Deirdré Straughan

http://www.straughan.com