Here are a some handy tips for you if you intend to travel with your didgeridoo. It can be easy, safe and hassle-free.

First of all, pack your Didgeridoo for safe travel:

It is important to protect your didgeridoo against the bumps (and more!) that most luggage endures when traveling on airplanes. A good padded didgeridoo bag is important. A good quality Didgeridoo Bag will protect the instrument finish from contacting other baggage or hard and irregular surfaces, which may otherwise cause damage to your instrument.
The ends of the didgeridoo are most susceptible to damage – the mouthpiece and the bell. To add extra protection to these areas, we recommending padding both ends with bubble-wrap, clothing or any other soft protective material. Our travel safe test is to pad the ends enough so your Didgeridoo can drop vertically onto its end from about 30cm and not touch the ground. Ideally you can bounce your didgeridoo without it touching the ground. This will strongly reduce the chance of damage occurring.

Checking in:

Because of the size of most didgeridoos, their timber construction and club like appearance when wrapped up, it is rare that they are allowed to travel on board planes as hand luggage.  Your didgeridoo will most likely be transported in the fragile service with the golf clubs, fishing rods and surfboards etc. We have traveled many times as have our customers and with the right packing of the instrument, it is extremely rare that any damage occurs. In fact since we opened in 2002 we have never had an instrument damaged in flight, including multiple UK, USA, Japan and Europe adventures from here in Western Australia. We have found that the check in and pick up of fragile luggage is very simple, no additional cost and very safe. You may wish to investigate the check in process with your airline.

Customs:

Different countries have different regulations on what products they will let in. Australia and New Zealand are very strict on importing timber and beeswax. In fact in all our travels’ it has only been returning to Australia where Customs wished to look inside the Didgeridoos to make sure there were no live bugs! Yet Didgeridoos are timber instruments like Guitars and violins. The timber is dried, sealed and treated the same as Guitars and Violins.
In all our days to the best of our extensive personal knowledge, our Didgeridoos have been granted access to every country on the planet that they have ever traveled to! That’s thousands of Didgeridoos all over the globe!

We always declare our Didgeridoos as instruments made of wood, just like Guitars and Violins.

If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact us.