Here at L.A. Weekly, we have spent the last 12 months on an international quest for the heat and we want to share some travel tips from our adventures ahead of many of you heading to Spain next week for Spannabis. 

As the world continued to open back up, we started our travels at Spannabis 2022, later in the year we’d hit the Canary Islands for White Ash Weekend, and make two trips to Bangkok to check out its rapidly evolving dispensary scene. This is in addition to all our domestic adventures and traveling California from Arcata to Adelanto in search of the best cannabis in the world. 

In the process of all that, we’ve made a few key observations to make your travels more fun. 

Preflight Sesh

Is there anything more fun than getting rocked before you go through TSA to depart to god knows where to enjoy some exotic marijuana? Probably. Regardless, it’s a great time. Some people are scared to smoke giant joints or blunts at the airport, but you’ll more than likely be fine if you’re somewhere cannabis doesn’t get you prison time. As for TSA, I carry an ounce on me with a doctor’s recommendation PDF ready to go in the event of a worst-case scenario. Also, it’s best to keep your weed in your carry-on. Most of the dogs you actually see at the airport are bomb dogs, the drug dogs are smelling stuff as it lands in the international terminal. But if you’ve already landed on an international flight and see a dog, it’s probably a drug dog. They figure you would have blown up by the time the plane landed if you were a terrorist and they keep the different types of working K9s separate — the dogs get confused seeing the other dogs get alerted and affection over smells they haven’t been trained on.

The More Exotic the Destination, The More You Need to Bring Your Own Rolling Supplies 

You can probably buy most of your favorite rolling supplies in any major city in the world, but prices are going to vary. For example in Barcelona, I spent the second to last day of the trip hunting for Backwoods, while the homies prepped for a party. The box of woods I found would run me about €60. That’s roughly $63, which is very comparable to buying a box in America. They’re most expensive in CA these days; you can score them a bit cheaper than that in other parts of the country. In Bangkok, that same $63 only gets you one pack from that box of eight we got in Barcelona with five blunts in it. Even worse, if you get a stale pack, you’re screwed. But Bangkok is so humid that every wood we got in our pack seemed pretty fresh.

Be Polite About Spliffs

Don’t hate the culture internationally. Just say you don’t use tobacco, in a nice way. If people want to mix tobacco with their weed because they love spliffs, or just to stretch it out due to living under the yoke of the oppressor, don’t be a hater. You have to remember soccer and spliffs have a lot in common, they’re the most popular thing outside America. On a positive note, since spliffs are so popular you can basically smoke blunts everywhere you can puff. 

Swiss Army Trail Mix

There is a solid argument to make that trail mix is the most underrated drug smuggling tool in the modern era. You just bring your weed or mushroom chocolate bar to the airport, buy a fresh pack of trail mix available at nearly every domestic U.S. airport, break up your drug chocolates in bigger chunks than the regular ones and throw them in the bag. This is also one of the best ways to get weed into the worst places if you’re understandably scared to pull the trigger on flowers or hash. 

Make Sure You Know Just How Mad The Locals Get

Speaking of the worst! Don’t get Brittany Grinered — there is a good chance you’re not even an Olympian. It’s best to figure out ahead of time where things are going to fall on a scale of all good to having to bribe police, or worst-case scenario, becoming a political pawn over munitions shipments to Ukraine. But a lot of places are great. In Thailand, the most popular answer I got about smoking in public was: just don’t bother anyone. Seemed pretty fair to me. 

Local Access 

Before I was L.A. Weekly’s pot critic, I was regularly hunting for pot in different locations. One time in Mexico I ended up in a bait and tackle shop run by the cartel standing in a line five people deep. Everyone else was there for blow, and when I got to the front of the line the dude was like, “Hey, it’s the weed guy!” in reference to my appearance. A couple of armed men and I had a good laugh. But that’s the advanced class! You should start by asking bartenders and bellhops. They know they’ll get it back in tips if they hook you up. 

 

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