The dirtiest travel item was recently determined by a set of microbial tests conducted by experts—and it wasn't even close.
Worse, the germiest object is something you definitely must have for certain types of travel, and you definitely must touch it.
The item in question: your passport.
In a recent lab experiment carried out on behalf of JRPass, a provider of the Japan Rail Pass, samples were taken from six common travel items: passports, cell phones, shoes, coats, carry-on luggage, and checked luggage.
Swabs were taken from at least three contact points on several items in each category, then transferred to petri dishes treated with a food gel for growing bacteria and fungi. After 8 days of incubation, bacterial colony-forming units (CFUs) were counted to see which item was the grossest.
The dirtiest travel items ranked by bacterial load
Here's how the six commonly handled travel items ranked by number of colony-forming units per 3 square centimeters.
- Passport: 436 CFUs
- Checked luggage: 97 CFUs
- Shoes: 65 CFUs
- Carry-on luggage: 56 CFUs
- Phone: 45 CFUs
- Coat: 15 CFUs
Note that passports won this dubious distinction in a landslide—or mudslide, as the case may be?—with "more than four times the bacterial count of hold luggage, and nearly seven times that of shoes," as JRPass's summary puts it.
Why are passports so disgusting?
Because they're touched by so many people—not just you but also border agents, airline workers, and others. Then there are the airport scanner machines that require multitudes of people to press their passports to the same infrequently cleaned screen, allowing for the transfer of even more potentially nasty microbes.
"The greater the handling of a passport by different people’s hands, the more and greater the variety of bacteria, fungi, and even viruses will be deposited onto the surface,” Dr. Primrose Freestone, an associate professor in clinical microbiology at the U.K.'s University of Leicester, explains in the report.
Evidently, your filthy mitts are why your passport carries significantly more germs than your shoes. A microbiologist consulted by Reader's Digest reports that's because footwear continually transfers microbes but doesn't actually hold onto them very well. Heartening news for anyone who has walked through a poorly maintained dog park.
Germ-reducing tips to remember when traveling
Dr. Freestone's advice for protecting yourself from dirty passports isn't going to surprise you.
First, wash your hands regularly or use alcohol-based sanitizer. Airports and other transportation centers are high-touch environments—think of all those screens to poke and handrails to grasp—so make sure to wash your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and water or rub them down with sanitizer.
Note that the latter course of action is probably wisest on an airplane; studies have found the water in the lavatory is often far from clean.
Another good idea: Clean your passport with antibacterial wipes after use in order to limit the amount of bacteria you take home as a souvenir. Likewise for your phone, luggage handles, and other items prone to accumulating microbes.
While you've got the wipes out, you might want to give the once-over to the dirtiest surfaces in plane cabins and hotel rooms, too.
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Frommer’s books aren’t “written" by A.I., like so many others, or by travel writers who simply pop in briefly to a destination and then consider the job done. We use seasoned, locally-based journalists like Peter Barron (formerly of the BBC), along with writers who live part-time in Spain, like Patr...
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Frommer’s books aren’t “written" by A.I., like so many others, or by travel writers who simply pop in briefly to a destination and then consider the job done. We use seasoned, locally-based journalists like Peter Barron (formerly of the BBC), along with writers who live part-time in Spain, like Patr...