On a recent trip abroad I had the good fortune to participate in several jam sessions and was kindly loaned a guitar to use for each. It’s always fun jamming but sometimes you end up not being comfortable playing a strange instrument and know that you could do a much better job with your own.
When I returned home I started thinking “What would be the ideal way to take a guitar on holiday?”
As I already have a travel sized guitar that I have never travelled with I also asked myself “Why have I never travelled with it?”
There are several reasons why I don’t play it much, the main ones being that it doesn’t stay in tune very well and the built-in amp really sounds awful (although you can get some interesting feedback from it…). The tuning issues can be sorted out – the neck is straight and the frets are good. The amp might be a bit more difficult but I’m sure I can find something that will work.
It comes with a gig bag and if you are flying it would probably fit into the overhead compartments, but whether or not you would be allowed to take it on board a flight is another matter and you don’t want it going in the hold protected only by a soft case. It would, however, fit inside a suitcase and could be padded with clothes if the neck were taken off and the gig bag folded over.
First things first though – before I can think about turning this into my dream travel guitar I need to sort out the tuning problems…
Stay tuned for part 2 (no pun intended)
