Key Highlights
- It's not a charger, neck pillow or noise-canceling headphones — just a simple pen with blue or black ink. Travelers who assume pens will be available at the airport risk unnecessary delays and frustration because many destinations still require paper immigration and customs forms and writing utensils can be in short supply, Travel + Leisure recently reported.
- WANT TO AVOID GETTING SICK ON A PLANE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON?
- MEDICAL EXPERT REVEALS BEST SEAT One travel expert learned that lesson the hard way while arriving in Tanzania after a red-eye flight.
- Travel experts say carrying a basic blue or black ink pen can prevent delays.
- (iStock) "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," Georgia Fowkes, a Pennsylvania travel advisor for tour operator Altezza Travel, told Travel + Leisure."There I was, holding up the line, with the rest of the no-pen folks, waiting for my turn to borrow one," Fowkes added.
