When we mentioned last week that you should screenshot your boarding pass and other important travel documents, several of you chimed in with tips on real-world things to photograph as well. Consider taking photos of basically everything, including:
Your car at the airport (or any garage or large parking lot you may end up in). Take a photo that includes the name or number of the parking area and enough context that you can narrow down which aisle and space you must be in. As StarryNight17 notes, “Six days from now when you arrive back at the airport tired from vacation, after a 7-hour flight, you’ll be glad that you can just pull up the photo rather than trying to remember whether you were in 189 Blue or 198 Purple.”
Your rental car. The company should have you do a walk-around, but this way you have proof that the windshield chip you didn’t notice at first was actually there the whole time. Make sure to include the license plate, so that when you’re checking in at the hotel and they ask, you can just whip out your phone rather than running back out to the car.
Your luggage. So that if it gets lost, you can show the airport staff what it looks like. Take a photo of any airline tags as well.
The contents of your luggage. If you have to prove what you lost to make an insurance claim, a photo will help.
Your kids, pets, and travel companions. It’s easier to scan the crowd for orange-shirted kids if you actually remember that your kid was wearing an orange shirt today. If you get separated, you can also show the photo to security when you ask for help.
I do almost all of these, and let me tell you it’s a relief to come home from a trip and be able to make a beeline to my parked car in an ocean of others. What else do you photograph (besides yourself in front of local landmarks) when traveling?