Everybody’s Scalin’ – The Travelin’ Man

My wife and I have booked a week long northern California trip for this fall, so naturally the first thing to hit my mind was “How can I get my scaler out there safely so I can trail in the mountains?”

This is the question that many of us ask when heading to a vacation destination with cool terrain. I blame my friend Matt who recently took his Trail Finder 2 on a trip to the beach (see pic above) and had a blast with it. Now I gotta do it. And while the topography of my trip isn’t the same, the idea still is. The call of exotic land beckons!

Most of the time, if you are driving to a destination it’s not too tough to make a little extra room and throw in your vehicle, radio, batteries, and a couple tools…but if you’re flying, like me, it becomes a bit more of a pain. Yeah, yeah, I know that globe trotting racers have had this problem for years, but I don’t have a fancy schmancy traveling tool box/pit bag nor do I feel like checking a big box full of stuff.

Lipos are also another bone of contention when it comes to air travel. The TSA is still lagging behind pretty badly in proper policy for them, but in general you should be allowed to carry them on. Do NOT check Lipos in a bag as that can end badly in a variety of ways. Your best bet is to contact the airline you plan on traveling with and finding out their policies. You’ll then want a print out of said policies to back you up should you run into any trouble at the gate.

My solution? I’d rather not hassle with any of that as I’m staying with family which affords me the ability to just ship everything out a week ahead of schedule. That means when I arrive I should have my truck with support equipment ready to rock up in the mountains. When I leave I’ll ship it back to my house here in Missouri.

So what’s your play in this situation? If you have stories, both good or bad, as it pertains to traveling with your scaler then I’d love to hear them. You can e-mail me at doug@bigsquidrc.com and if you have a particularly good tip or other piece of pertinent information I’ll share them in a future column and you’ll get hooked up with a sticker pack!

Oh, and hey, if you live the NorCal region (particularly around Chico) I’d love to hook up with some readers and be shown the sweet trail spots later this year so feel free to drop me a line for that as well!