This Is the 1 Thing Travel Experts Say You Should Always Bring on a Flight—and It’s Not What You Expect

The one item you should be stashing in your bag before every flight is tiny and costs next to nothing, but it could save you from a huge headache on your next trip. It’s the humble and often-overlooked ballpoint pen. This handy writing utensil is an absolute must-have, especially on international trips that require you to fill out immigration and customs paperwork.

Georgia Fowkes, a travel advisor for tour operator Altezza Travel, experienced this firsthand when she recently visited Tanzania. “I landed in Dar es Salaam after a red-eye, [with the] immigration hall packed and buzzing, all of us funneling off the plane, and by the time I reached the counter every pen was gone—dry, vanished, even the chained-up one,” Fowkes says. “There I was, holding up the line, with the rest of the no-pen folks, waiting for my turn to borrow one. Not my finest travel moment.”

Fowkes’s experience isn’t unique. Many countries still have paper customs and immigration forms that travelers are required to fill out before entry. The hunt for pens can be stressful, especially in larger international airports that see significant numbers of people moving through each day. 

“People assume there will be pens waiting at immigration. Maybe, but with a few hundred passengers hitting the counter at once, those pens disappear fast,” Fowkes says. She adds that late-night arrivals present even more challenges. When you land at 2 a.m., there aren’t as many people around to borrow one from.

Instead of relying on borrowed pens, Fowkes now travels with her own. She always brings along an extra just in case someone else may need one. “Pull a spare pen out of your pocket at 35,000 feet and people look at you like you’ve just invented fire,” Fowkes says. “In that moment, a pen is social currency.”

As for what kind of pen to bring, she says she always goes for basic, nonmetal pens. Fancy metallic pens or fountain pens can sometimes cause issues with airport security. Additionally, you should opt for basic ink colors rather than bright, eye-catching hues. “I stick to cheap plastic, blue or black only—anything else and you risk being told to rewrite the whole form,” she says. 

And there are many instances, beyond immigration paperwork, when a pen could come in handy during your travels. Erin Carey, founder and director of the travel public relations agency Roam Generation, explains that she always brings a pen as backup in case her phone dies. “What if your phone goes flat and you need to jot down an address or a phone number, or you meet someone you’d like to reach out to again, and you need to get their email address?” Carey asks. “Maybe you need to have something written in a local language to show a taxi driver, or you lose your luggage and want to fill out a form for that.”

There are many surprising things that could happen during a trip—and you’ll be all the more prepared for them with a pen on hand.