Travelling is always a hassle and hookahs are a whole project in themselves when packing. The most fragile pieces of a hookah are the vase and bowl. Making sure that they arrive safely at your destination is paramount. A hookah without a vase is pretty much useless. Today we are going to learn how to pack up a vase as safely as possible.
The first step it to gather your materials.
Packing tape
Bubble wrap
A cardboard box
Newspaper, packing paper or packing peanuts.
The most easily broken part of a vase is the neck. This is the place where flexing and quick pressure are going to be a big problem. What you need to do is take a square of bubble wrap, about a foot, and fold it twice in one direction. This will make a long strip you can wrap around the neck and tape in place. I usually use smaller bubble “bubble wrap” for this and then wrap the entire vase in large bubble. I also make sure to push some excess into the mouth of the vase to make sure that every surface is accounted for.
You want to make sure that the full vase wrap is large enough to cover the bottom too. It’s easy to forget small surfaces and, if you get unlucky, that will be the one spot that gets bumped.
At this point you need to fill half the box with your packing material. If you are using paper you need to bunch it up and make sure it fills the space. The vase is placed on top of that and then all of the extra gaps are filled with more packing material. Try to avoid having the vase touching the box as an extra fail safe.
If you are packing multiple vases in one box I suggest alternating them so their necks lay side by side. This helps save on space and packing material. If you are only using packing peanuts the tighter you cram the box full of them the less the vase will move inside.
At this point it’s just a matter of taping up the box and trying to avoid the urge to play an impromptu game of soccer with it.
I just finished a 3000 mile drive across the country with 8 vases and they all survived so my advice isn’t half bad.