Over at One Bag One World there's a mention of a novel luggage tag idea. Red Oxx announced something similar, but I got one from them as a comp (they forgot to send me a plastic one I ordered) some time ago. It's your basic dog tag with a nice threaded cable loop for attaching it to your luggage.

It's a little annoying because it jingles a bit when I walk so I replaced with a non-metalic tag on my Air Boss carry-on, but I got what I thought was a clever idea when I got the tag.

Jim Markel asked me what I wanted engraved on my tag. My first choice was:

DO NOT MOVE BAG
DHS TEST LUGGAGE
CONTACT LOCAL
AUTHORITIES
AFTER 48 HOURS

But I figured with civil rights being what they were under the Bush administration it was a bad idea.

Instead I opted for my name, my email address, cell #, my website URL, and a password. My thinking was that if I end up on the kind of long trip where it's good for the luggage finder to have my itinerary, I could just put a password protected page on my site, with a notice that anyone finding my bag could log in with the password to see my itinerary or leave me a message.

My travel died down, and I never implemented the idea, but I think it's a good one.

I would also mention that the metal tag is a good idea because a) it's hard to read from far away (think nosy stranger) but easy to read when it's in your hand and b) the writing ain't coming off and neither is the tag. If I check a bag, I'm using it.