I just got back from two weeks of international business travel. The trip involved traveling through multiple airports over the course of two weeks. While my new Skooba bag performed extremely well and made it so that I didn't have to take my laptop out (except once on the return to the US), I still ran into the "too many electronic devices – bag check!" scenario.
Lots of little gizmos
I carry lots of little devices and cables when I travel. Unfortunately this is sometimes too much for the TSA agent to try to see through and the easiest thing for them is to yell "bag check" and let someone else have a closer look. I knew this would be a problem so I started putting several items in two mesh bags and taking those bags out of my laptop bag so that they go through separately. This works most of the time, however, the two bags don't hold everything and it started to become an even bigger hassle to take out both bags and still have to take out individual items.
Enter the Think Tank Cable Management 50
This bag is big enough to hold all my little items including portable hard drives, yet small enough to still fit in a compartment in my Skooba. I really like the setup because it's one bag with 3 separate compartments/dividers. It even has a little handle on it to make it easy to pick up and take out of my bag. It's just the right size and it's almost like it was designed just for my new bag. I'll be giving this new configuration a test on my upcoming trip.
My only complaint would be that Think Tank choose to go with a frosted plastic instead of simply going with a clear plastic. If it were clear then airport security could more easily see the contents right away. I can't think of any reason to go with frosted. Either you want to be able to see the contents or you don't. Otherwise, I really like it and hopefully it will keep me moving through the security lines at a good pace.
You can get the Think Tank Cable Management 50 here for about $29.50
Ahh…the little things that make life much easier !! Thanks : )
Excelent !!! I think i’ll buy one.
Gracias y saludos
ThinkTank makes some very high quality and well designed camera bags, and a laptop bag the compliments the line. The cable management bag fits nicely in their laptop bag. I own several of their products.
I used one for about a year, but there are two drawbacks to it: 1) The darn frosted plastic. It makes it so the TSA person can’t see through to what’s inside. 2) When the TSA person takes you aside and tries to open it, they always have a problem with the strange makeup of velcro dividers. The person expects that when they unzip the big zipper it should open like a case. Instead they become frustrated with the two center column velcro spines holding it closed. I actually gave this up for your solution of the two little bags and put this away. I wrote to Think Tank suggesting they move to a clear plastic on both sides, and it could be redesigned so the top flap could completely open. Probably hard to do as you’d have to make the inner spines rigid.
Terry, what seems to work for me now is to use a think Tank roller bag. I put my cameras, lenses, vid cam, mic’s, chargers in the bag. For all the cables I use your solution of the two little bags and then put those in their own compartments of the roller bag…and here’s what seems to make the difference: I unzip the flap of the roller bag and leave the top of the bag open and all the equipment exposed in their sections when the bag enters the machine. Nine times out of ten it gets a quick second look and goes thru. The one time out of ten the TSA operator will physically look into the top of the bag for a second, see that it’s completely open for viewing and send it thru. It’s working for me so far. The model I use is the Airport International.