Coping with Lost Luggage on a Family Trip

It’s among the most stressful few minutes of a trip — when the baggage carousel starts moving and you strain to see your family’s luggage roll onto it. It’s bound to happen eventually: You’ll be one of those few lost souls still standing there when the conveyor belt stops and everyone else has left.

What do you do? You go to the nearby (you hope) baggage room and fill out the forms so your bag can be identified, located and reunited with you. And the good news is, it probably will be.

But what you should do really begins before your family even checked in for your flights? Here are some ahead-of-time tips to prevent and retrieve lost luggage:

1. As you pack, lay everything on the bed and take digital pictures of it. Photograph the bags from two sides, next to a yardstick. Keep the pictures on your phone. This is your proof of their contents, as well as a way for the airline to identify a tagless bag or its scattered contents.
2. Put luggage tags inside, as well as outside each piece of luggage. Also inside, and in a conspicuous place right on top, put a complete copy of your lodging and flight itinerary with phone numbers so an airline can find you when they find the bag. Carry a spare copy with you, too, since you’ll want to attach it to the lost baggage forms.
3. Put something on the outside of your bags that distinguishes them from others, not just so you’ll see it, but so someone else won’t take them by mistake. This shouldn’t be something floppy that can get torn off or catch on equipment. A bright colored web belt works well, or a large colorful sticker.
4. Even of you are changing airlines en route, try to check your luggage straight through to your destination. That way, if it is lost on the first flight, it will be the airline’s responsibility to bring it to your final destination.
5. While packing for a family, try to distribute basic clothing between bags so if one bag is lost, everyone will still have a set of essentials. (We once neglected this rule and spent an entire day in Venice trying to find men’s underwear on streets of shops selling glassware and carnival masks.)

None of these will guarantee your family and your bags will have the same journeys, but these simple precautions can help you retrieve them and survive until they reappear.