This time of year, travelers in the Northern Hemisphere start going on food and wine trips. If that’s your style, there’s no doubt you’re going to want to bring back some vino home with you, and that means you’re going to find yourself with a dilemma: how to pack bottles of wine so they don’t break! You can’t carry wine through security and you don’t want the bottle(s) to break in your checked luggage, ruining all of your clothes (happened to a friend of mine, who wasn’t happy). Personally, after the TSA’s carry-on liquid rules went into effect a few years back, I stopped traveling with bottles of wine simply because it was no longer worth the risk. So, what can you do? How do you pack a bottle of wine so it can fly safely?
For starters, if you’re flying with Alaska Airlines, you may be in luck. Beyond that, you can buy a bottle protector like a WineSkin. WineSkin is “the original and still the best” bottle transport bag. Each WineSkin is made of a cushion of bubble packaging and a thick-grade vinyl exterior. You simply put one around a bottle of wine (or olive oil, etc.), peel the inner seal, compress it against the protective outer vinyl covering, and pop the whole thing in your bag. Each unsealed WineSkin measures 17.75″ x 7″ x .25″ and fits a bottle up to 750ml in size (standard wine bottle size).
Right now, you can pick up a pack of eight WineSkins for $21.99 on Amazon.
More packing help
- How to Make Packing Toiletries Easy Peasy
- 10 Things You Don’t Need to Pack
- This Expandable Backpack Is Great for Travelers
- Video: How to Pack Over 100 Items Into a Carry-On with Rachel Grant
- Always, Always Pack Your Liquids in a Plastic Bag
- Travel Product of the Week: Pro Packing Cubes
- Video: How to Pack for a Trip to Iceland
Have you heard of clothes? Makes a great packing material and most travelers have some with them. I’ve packed bottles of wine dozens of times in my checked luggage without incident. Just put the bottle in the middle of luggage and surround with clothes.
Yes, I’ve done that and once the bottle exploded and red wine all over my clothes.