One-bag, carry-on, light travel tips, techniques, and gear

Here’s a story from MSNBC that suggests this is so:

The Transportation Security Administration’s unpopular restrictions on liquids, gels and aerosols in carry-on luggage — better known as the 3-1-1 rule — are history.

Passengers say the TSA has all but stopped screening their baggage for liquids. They say transportation security officers no longer ask them to remove lotions, shampoos and even water bottles from their luggage, and overlook all manner of liquids packed in their carry-ons during screening.

“I was never asked about the liquids in my bag or asked to remove them,” says Doris Casamento, a retiree from Naples, Fla., who recently flew from Miami to Rome. “My husband had a bottle of water from the hotel he forgot was in his carry-on and it was never confiscated. The water was in a shallow shoulder-bag bulging practically in plain sight.” - MSNBC/Christopher Elliot

Whether this is the result of blessed restraint, screener fatigue, mission creep, or serendipitous laxity, who knows? Be sure that the “discretion” mentioned by the TSA official can never be counted on when you’d most like to have it. We’ve heard several times before that this easing would come. But I’ll bet if this policy could talk, one day soon it will say, “Reports of my death were greatly exxagerated.”