I have been doing a lot more flying this year than I thought I was going to. I move 3000 miles away from home and all of my old friends decide the it’s time to get married. This means that I have been packing up my hookah supplies and trekking across the country a lot.
Firstly, forget about taking your tobacco on carry on. If the TSA wants to get testy with you, they can claim that hookah tobacco is a liquid or paste and confiscate it or destroy it. If you break t down into containers of less than 3 fluid ounces then you may be able to pass by without losing your tobacco, but I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. Some of the tobacco that I have is rare enough that if it were confiscated I would never be able to get my hands on it again. That means I am not taking the risk.
Seal your tobacco up twice as well as you think you need to. I suggest keeping your tobacco in a double- lock Ziploc bag and then pack those bags into a larger Ziploc. The juice from hookah tobacco has a tendency to stain and you don’t want to get to your destination only to find that all of your clothes have big red splotches on them and you reek of mint. Remember that the pressure is going to change a lot in the cargo hold, so flexible plastic bags are better than rigid containers liker Tupperware. I usually go a step further and wrap all of my tobacco in a plastic shopping bag to safeguard even more against leaks.
Try to avoid having really strong flavors in contact with each other and weaker tobaccos. It may seem silly, but I have had some tobaccos infect the others around them with their scent. Try to group like flavors together and give them their own space.
Pack a reasonable amount of tobacco. If you are only taking a weekend trip and will only have time for one or two sessions, you don’t need to bring 3 kilos of tobacco. 3 Ziploc bags with about 50g of a different tobacco in each will treat you fine and require very little hassle.
These are just some tips to help my fellow hookah smoking jet setters and vagabonds. I hope these help save you some trouble and I wish you safe travels.