Traveling with tattoos?

[suburbanxcore]

I've never really had anything of note when traveling with tattoos. In Portugal I got a decent amount of looks, but nothing overly positive or negative.

My wife (two 3/4 sleeves) is currently in Thailand for work, and she said that she's gotten her picture taken four or five times in the few days she's been there so far. I like that she's in a country where she was able to go to a live sex show and see a woman (ahem) "shoot darts" at balloons, but she gets viewed as the spectacle because she has tattoos. Sounds like quite the place so far!

As far as TSA goes, I've never really had an issue either, but I don't fly too much.

[MLNYC]

After traveling frequently over the last two years - averaging 40-50 flights a year I feel that having tattoos and traveling can be a little frustrating. I have obvious tattoos and I feel some countries tend to single you out alot more, I frequently get 'randomly ' searched. Far more than the average.

Also living in New York on a visa and frequently coming in and out the customs officials never say anything negative, normally just ask the very standard tattoo questions... I have learnt to accept it and just be polite.

[Riyko]

Canada: (Toronto) I've had people tell me nice tattoo's and i've always been treated like a regular person

USA: (Utah) I get treated like i'm the devil and going to burn in hell because i'm not mormon and have tattoo's which go against their beliefs, they also say i'm evil and a thief because apparently only thief's have tattoos.

Chile: (Santiago) everyone kept asking me about my tattoo's in their broken english (I don't speak spanish) and i even saw one guy who just got his whole lower arm tattoo'd and talked to him.

[missmaralaena]

Before everyone had to go through the giant scanners, I was always "randomly selected" to go through instead of the metal detector. I have no idea what that means, but I definitely noticed it happening. Other than my tattoos though I'm probably the least scary person ever, so I can't imagine what anyone would assume in any random selection.

I'm in Berlin now, but it's way too cold for me to be wearing anything showing my tattoos. We'll see what happens when it warms up.

[jetwash]

I haven't travelled at all since getting my first tattoos. Can't imagine I'll have any trouble cos I'm not exactly covered and I dress like a conservative hipster anyway!

[bongsau]

Just returned from another trip to China.

I was actually shocked at how much enthusiasm and positive response there was to our tattoos this time around.

Everywhere, literally...like, here are all these cultural relics, history, ancient landmarks, wonders of the world that are hundreds of thousands of years old...but wait rook! It is a crazy foreigner with all these tattoos. "WOWEE So very beautiful" was the typical praise. Chinese all wanted to get photos with our tattooed kung fu team, kind of fun to be a spectacle in China for a few weeks.

The young kids at the Shaolin Temple were super hyped because I have lots of different animals tattooed. I would use the tattoos (and kung fu poses) to help practice their English vocabulary. Dragon, monkey, crane, tiger, eagle, frog, turtle, snake...and my miniature preying mantis tattoo was the obvious favourite, it got tonnes of laughs and what I assume translated from Mandarin into "what the...crazy foreigner...mantis...look how so tiny...funny!" I told my Shaolin friends the tattoos were Canadian chi gung, funny to hear a shaolin monk grimace about "much pain" from tattoos when you just watched them bust metal and sticks across their body.

This photo below makes me laugh. Buddy Beijing was so pumped on the tattoos on my forearms I had to hulk hogan my shirt for him. He then got so amped and insisted we take a photo with him and his baby. And then with grandma and gramps. And then the whole family. And then individually. It was a pretty magic moment and victory for international tattoo relations!

There was some confusion and disappointment though that I had near everything on my body tattooed...except for my back! Well there's always next time...starting my backpiece journey next month :cool:

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my Instagram is "dennis_kool" if anyone is interested in pics from Shaolin and China

[Graeme]

I usually leave mine at home. Seems a hassle travelling with them.