Traveling with Cigars
When you’re going on a trip, you don’t want to leave your favorite cigars behind. Part of the fun when visiting a new city is discovering new cigar shops, but what if they’re awful, or even worse – there aren’t any? Here are a few of our quick tips on traveling with cigars.
The first thing you want to do is plan ahead. Traveling can be tough on cigars, so the last thing you want to do is bring more than you need and end up with some dry/damaged extras. On the other hand, you don’t want to run out halfway through your trip. Think of your itinerary, and how often you normally smoke cigars. It’s best to bring as many as you’ll expect to smoke, and then maybe one or two extra, in case some get damaged, or you end up sharing.
Your best bet for flying with cigars is a hard travel case. Once your baggage leaves your hands at the airport, it’s getting tossed, dropped, etc. Even if the sticks are in your carry-on, you never know when another traveler will try to make their bag fit in the overhead by crushing it against yours. A hard case will keep your cigars intact through the journey.
If your hard case isn’t air-tight, simply place it inside a larger, quality ziploc bag. If your case doesn’t have an option for a humidifying disc, you can add a little bit of damp paper towel to the ziploc bag. Cigars are generally fine for a few days on their own in a ziploc bag, so this is more important for the extras you’re bringing home at the end of your trip.
When going through airport security, remember that no lighters can come through. Zero. As for cutters, it’s really a case-by-case basis, and know that if a TSA agent doesn’t like the look of something it’s game over, regardless of what you read. Best advice is to leave your favorite cutter at home, and go with something cheap for travel. Or, simply cut your cigars before you go, and you won’t have to worry either way.