The first castle Dave and I visited was Dunamase Castle in County Laois, Ireland. In actuality, it is better known as The Rock of Dunamase as it is in complete ruins, which was completely awesome! We had been through a bit of western Britain and a few highlights in Dublin, and we were driving across Ireland to the west coast to stay near the Cliffs of Moher. We decided to stop here because it wasn’t far from the highway and I had thought Dave would find it neat (and I was right).
As I previously mentioned, I love traveling. That being said, taking my gear through airport security and then onto the plane worries me. I don’t use film, so the scanners they use in the security screening don’t destroy gear, but I still get a little worried when they are in there. I remember the first time I put my gear through, I literally watched it the entire time while crossing my fingers. Then when I put my gear in the overhead compartment, I spend most of the flight worrying about it tossing around up there.
So how do I resolve this you might ask? When it comes to security, there isn’t anything I can do. The technology used doesn’t damage dSLRs so there really isn’t anything there to worry about – my fears are mostly artifact fears leftover from the good ol’ film days. When it comes to the overhead compartment, I always keep my camera and lenses in proper camera bags with lots of padding and make sure to have them packed with little to no empty spaces so they don’t really have anywhere to go around the bags.
Checked bags is a whole other beast. To date, I haven’t had to check anything other than tripods or other less fragile equipment. I have also never had any bags get lost in transit (whether or not they had photography equipment in them). When purchasing gear bags I try to keep size in mind and keep an eye out for ones that are a suitable size to act as a carry-on.
All of this being said, I tend to be a worrier, so perhaps I need not worry about all of this so much. Either way, I have been lucky to date and I haven’t had anything get damaged while traveling and hopefully I never will.
The first castle Dave and I visited was Dunamase Castle in County Laois, Ireland. In actuality, it is better known as The Rock of Dunamase as it is in complete ruins, which was completely awesome! We had been through a bit of western Britain and a few highlights in Dublin, and we were driving across Ireland to the west coast to stay near the Cliffs of Moher. We decided to stop here because it wasn’t far from the highway and I had thought Dave would find it neat (and I was right).
