on the plane: sneakers or sandals?

[keithomas]

When you empty your pockets, watch, etc.....DON'T use the separate little baskets. Just place your wallet, keys, watch, change inside your carry-on piece of luggage! I did this on our trip to Las Vegas in March, and it works great. You only have to collect one bag, and you don't have to stop at the end of the Xray machine to put it all back in your pockets!

Also, no matter what type of shoes you are wearing I recommend that you go ahead and take them off while you are waiting in line. If they will fit in your carry-on use the tip above, but if not, it makes the tip with all the loose articles even more helpful!

 

[Maddle]

Slightly off the original topic, but....My DH does a lot of traveling - his advice is to hang on to your stuff until YOU are going through the screener - try to wait so that you go through at the same time. Usually, you'll pass the metal detector before your carry-on passes the x-ray, and you will be able to meet your stuff as it comes through.

Otherwise, with the person in front of you sometimes passing a couple times in order to clear (removing watch, etc.) your carry on can get way ahead of you...and who knows who might pick it up, intentionally or by mistake?

As for the original question, I would always recommend a shoe that covers your entire foot. There can't be anything worse than getting stepped on or run-over by a suitcase just as you start your vacation.

 

[RickinNYC]

My advice is to always wear shoes and never sandals. Not only for practical purposes in packing, but for life saving reasons. I know it's a fatalistic attitude to think you MIGHT be in an accident or in harm's way, but you never really know.

In fact, years ago (20+), my brother, I and my father were flying from Tokyo to Seoul, Korea for a holiday vacation. Immediately after the plane levelled off after take off, we heard a muffled pop and a section of the rear of the cabin was on fire. Everyone had to run to the forward section and buckle in, the breathing masks dropped from overhead and we took a nose dive. We thought we were crashing when in fact, the pilot had been advised of the situation and thankfully was coming in for an emergency landing at the airport we just departed.

In any case, because they had to evacuate the plane as quickly as possible due to smoke conditions, we had to slide down the emergency slides to get out. NOT fun. Folks who wore sandals and flip flops seemed to lose them in the rush and had to run on the tarmac in their bare or stocking feet.

I'll never forget what happened. Thank God the flight crew acted as fast and as calmly as they did. Not a single person was hurt and there were only a couple of mild cases of smoke inhalation.

So the moral to the story is wear shoes! You never know!

 

[powellrj]

When we flew out of Indy everyone had to take off their shoes. Even people with strappy shoes... The line was really, really long but they had several open (this was at 5:30am) and things moved pretty fast.

 

[beccasmom]

Slip-on sneakers get my vote, too. They are comfortable, safe and you will feel stable walking in them. My brother wore slip-on sandals on his last trip and was asked to take them off going through security, so anything is possible. Sometimes it is just a random selection. Many people were asked to take their sneakers off in Orlando on my recent trip.....and a couple forgot to pick them back up and walked off without them!