The Overlooked Item Rick Steves' Protégé Always Snags From Airplanes

Talk to any traveler of a certain age and they'll tell you that air travel just ain't what it used to be. Back in the golden era of commercial flight — embodied by luxurious airline companies such as Pan Am — travelers were seemingly treated like royalty with spacious seats, excellent service, and complimentary drinks and snacks. Today, in the era of budget air travel, most of those premium perks are gone for regular air travelers. Instead, the news is full of reports of delayed or canceled flights, lost luggage, and air rage incidents that together make air travel more of a trial than a luxury.

Nonetheless, there are still some freebies to be found on budget flights, however meager. Surprisingly, travel writer Cameron Hewitt, the protégé of European travel expert Rick Steves — who's always got more than a few top travel tips to help people navigate their trips — argues that air travelers should always reach for one thing: their barf bag, whether nauseous or not. 

According to him, the bag in question can actually help you stay organized on your travels. "I've never used one of these for its intended purpose," Hewitt writes on Rick Steves' website, "but I never leave one behind when I get off the airplane. I have quite a collection of these practical little enclosures, which are just the thing for organizing receipts, postcards, or other random bits of paper ... or for just about anything else."

Sure, Hewitt's practical advice to snag your complimentary barf bag when you fly to help you keep track of the bits and pieces you might otherwise lose makes sense. Good travel sense often comes down to being organized, and anything that can help you get from A to B with less effort is worth taking into account as you head toward your destination.

But, for others, collecting airline barf bags is more than an organizational tip: it's actually a pursuit in itself. As CNN reported in 2024, there is known to be a community of around 100 barf bag collectors — some of whom have collected barf bags in the thousands over the decades, and even have their collections shown in public exhibitions. There is even the Air Sickness Bag Museum, a website dedicated to barf bags that has been operational since 1997.

Sadly, however, the truth is that airline barf bags are dying out. With smoother flights, the availability of nausea relief medicine, and a long list of tips to help travelers avoid suffering from motion sickness in the first place, they're no longer as necessary as they were back in the day. So, if you see one, maybe go ahead and grab it for nostalgia's sake — whether you plan to use it or not.