{"id":162,"date":"2016-07-30T03:10:51","date_gmt":"2016-07-30T03:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/?p=162"},"modified":"2017-01-11T16:46:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T16:46:32","slug":"traveling-with-a-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/30\/traveling-with-a-drone\/","title":{"rendered":"Traveling with a Drone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the question I get asked most often is about how I travel with the drone.\u00a0 <\/span>Is it allowed?\u00a0 <\/span>Is it tedious?\u00a0 <\/span>Well, there is no simple answer.\u00a0 <\/span>For me, I pack very lightly (I mostly travel to warmer places as I don\u2019t do so well in the cold), so this means a few t-shirts and pairs of shorts.\u00a0 <\/span>I keep my drone in a hard case that came with the drone.\u00a0 <\/span>I have the Phantom 3 Advanced and it came with a hard backpack from DJI.\u00a0 <\/span>While traveling, I almost always opt to rent a vehicle, unless I am just staying in a single city.\u00a0 <\/span>Having a vehicle makes the traveling with the drone easy as I will just always keep it in the trunk.\u00a0 <\/span>If I see an opportunity for some good aerial photos and videos, I am usually never far from my car.\u00a0 <\/span>If I was backpacking on trains and buses, I could see how carrying the added baggage can be tedious, but I try to avoid buses and trains as much as possible when traveling.\u00a0 <\/span>Nevertheless, I feel like it is almost always worth it because the quality of the footage you can get is 100 times better than you can do with a handheld camera.\u00a0 <\/span>It is really a matter of personal preference. <\/span><\/p>\n

As far as legality, traveling with it, by other peoples\u2019 accounts, is hit or miss regarding customs\/security.\u00a0 I, in particular, had no problems in Asia.\u00a0 I was a little concerned about China as they are nuts about security and supposedly the drones are banned there:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.stuckincustoms.com\/2014\/06\/19\/dji-quadcopter-china-detention\/<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve also read that theyve just recently been banned in Thailand, but I faced no issues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/tech.thaivisa.com\/drones-fitted-cameras-banned-thailand\/3290\/<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

and also Cambodia:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/thediplomat.com\/2015\/02\/cambodia-bans-drones\/<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As for Indonesia, a license\/permit is required.\u00a0 So they conceivably COULD seize it from you at customs or arrest you for flying it.\u00a0 As you can probably tell from my videos, I’m a bit of a risk taker so was willing to take mine with me. I did not even inquire about the permit.<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/jakarta.coconuts.co\/2015\/08\/05\/flying-drone-illegally-now-punishable-3-years-prison-and-fine-rp-1-billion<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If, after reading this, you still want to take a drone with you, I would 100% recommend you carry it on with you. You must discharge the batteries below 50% and are supposed to put the batteries in a fireproof li-po bag.\u00a0 It is also illegal in US and pretty much everywhere to put the batteries in your checked bag.\u00a0 When searching my drone bag, I feel like I looked like an unassuming tourist with a snapback, so I was likely not perceived as a security threat.<\/span><\/p>\n

One other thing that you may consider doing is detaching the camera from the drone.\u00a0 Its the camera that is a real concern for many governments, so if you stow that in your checked bag, it only looks like you are bringing a toy.\u00a0 This method probably saved my ass in Dubai, as camera drones are illegal there.<\/span><\/p>\n

So basically, you really have to be pretty comfortable with the fact that you may get it taken away.\u00a0 Its really a matter of whether low-level officials have been briefed on the relevant laws, because even in USA, some TSA agents had no idea what my drone was (which is a little concerning for our security).\u00a0 But, again, I went through customs in 8 different countries in Asia in April and didn\u2019t have any problems.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the question I get asked most often is about how I travel with the drone.\u00a0 Is it allowed?\u00a0 Is it tedious?\u00a0 Well, there is no simple answer.\u00a0 For me, I pack very lightly (I mostly travel to warmer places as I don\u2019t do so well in the cold), so this means a few t-shirts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/anti-tourists.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}