How to take your instax™ camera and film on holiday

The best souvenirs from a trip aren't the ones you buy, they're the ones you get to hold. Like your boarding pass folded into a notebook or the print of everyone squinting into the sun on day one. Your phone fills up fast and those pics sink to the bottom of the camera roll, but an instax™ print doesn't. It's right there in your hand, ready to give away or slip into a journal before you've even unpacked.

Travelling with instant film does take a little planning, though. Airport scanners, stuffed suitcases and hot weather all have opinions about your film, and not all of them are kind. Here's how to get your instax™ camera and film through security, into your bag and back home with every shot intact.

It's worth the effort, because instant prints capture travel in a way a phone never manages. You can hand one straight to the person in it, tuck a few into a travel journal as the days go by, or swap prints with the people you meet along the way. The photos you give away on a trip tend to outlast the ones that just sit in your phone.

Can you take instax™ film on a plane

Short version, yes. You can absolutely take instax™ film on a plane, and plenty of people travel with it every summer. The part worth getting right is how you pack it. Unexposed instax™ film is sensitive to X-rays, and the strong scanners used on checked luggage can fog it before you've taken a single shot. Those random streaks and cloudy patches you sometimes hear about? That's where they come from.

So the rule is simple. Keep all your film, plus any camera that's loaded with film, in your hand luggage. Carry-on scanners are far gentler than the ones used for the hold, and any prints you've already taken are completely fine either way. If you want the precise technical guidance on instax™ film airport security, our airport X-ray FAQ has the exact wording to quote at the desk.

How to ask for a hand check

Want to skip the scanner altogether? You can ask. At security, politely request a hand check for your film before it goes anywhere near the machine. Keep it somewhere easy to reach, ideally in a clear bag, so staff can look it over quickly without holding up the queue behind you. Arrive with a bit of time to spare and it's rarely a problem.

A few questions come up again and again, so let's clear them up. 

• Can instax™ film go through airport X-ray scanners safely? It can, but the effect is cumulative, so fewer passes is better. 
• Does instax™ film get ruined in airport security? The real risk is unexposed film going through the powerful hold-luggage scanners, so never pack it in the hold. The newer CT scanners on some carry-on lines can affect film too, which is why a hand check is the safest option.
• Can instax™ film go through airport checks in carry-on? Yes. Getting instax™ film through airport security really is routine once you keep it out of the hold. 
• Can I take instax™ film on a plane without the hand check? You can, and on the older carry-on scanners film usually comes through fine. But with CT scanners now common, asking for a hand check is the surest way to keep your film untouched.

If a hand check ever gets turned down, don't move your film into the hold as a backup. The carry-on scanner is still far safer than the hold. Leaving your film in its sealed foil wrapper until you're through can speed up a manual inspection, and it keeps stray light off the unexposed sheets while you wait.

Packing film and a camera that can take the heat

Film dislikes heat almost as much as it dislikes X-rays. instax™ film is sold in packs, not rolls, so it's easy to tuck a couple of spares into a side pocket, but where you keep them matters. Don't leave film or your camera in direct sun, on a windowsill or in a hot car while you're off at the beach. Stash spare packs somewhere cool and shaded instead, and a padded travel case like the instax mini 41™ camera case adds protection from knocks and sand while keeping prints you've already taken from sliding around loose.

Stock up before you fly, too, since instax™ mini film isn't always easy to find abroad, and it's sold separately from the camera. Once you're out, let each print develop on a flat, shaded surface rather than waving it about, and keep your finished prints off sunny windowsills. Our guide to keeping your film fresh and flawless covers storage in more detail.

Which instax™ camera travels best

The right camera comes down to the kind of trip. For a city break or a festival where you're travelling light, a compact mini is the easy pick. The instax mini 41™ runs on simple auto exposure, so you can shoot without fiddling, and its credit-card-sized prints slide straight into a wallet. The newer instax mini 13™ is just as travel-friendly and adds a self-timer with 2 and 10-second options, so you can set it down somewhere steady and get into the group shot yourself instead of reaching out at arm's length.

If your trip is more about big views, the instax WIDE Evo™ earns its place in the bag. Its wide-angle lens pulls whole coastlines, mountain ranges and busy market streets into one frame. Because it's a hybrid, you choose which shots to print rather than printing every one, which saves film when you can't easily restock. 

A holiday shot list worth packing

A loose plan keeps you from coming home with ten near-identical shots of the same view. It also helps to keep strong light behind you rather than pointing the lens into it, so your shots come out bright and clear.

 Jot down a handful of shots to chase before you go:

• The arrival shot, bags and all, before the trip has properly started
• A local breakfast spread, framed from above
• The view from wherever you're staying, taken on the first morning
• The people you meet along the way, not just the ones you arrived with
•  The view out to sea, or whatever made you stop and look twice
• One print you give away to someone before you leave

That last one is the whole point of instax™. A print pressed into the hand of someone you spent the day with lands differently to a photo that only ever lives on a screen. It's a small thing to give, and it tends to be the bit people remember long after the tan has faded. Leave a couple of frames spare for the unplanned shots too, the detour that quietly turns into the best afternoon of the whole trip.

Building your trip album back home

Back home, that stack of prints turns into a holiday you can flip through whenever you fancy. Resist leaving them loose in a drawer where the corners get scratched. Collect them in an album instead, roughly in the order the trip happened, so it reads like a little story from landing to last day. Slip the odd ticket stub or postcard in alongside the prints and the album starts to feel like the trip itself.

You can add a few words along the bottom of each print, a place name or an inside joke, to jog the memory months later. Keep the album out of direct sunlight on the shelf and your prints will hold their colour for years. Flicking back through it on a grey week at home is about the closest thing to going again. Then start a list for the next one, because you'll want your next instax™ camera packed and ready long before the trip comes round.