The new CTX 5000 scanners used on checked bags can utterly destroy your film and make your trip a total loss. We suggest you put all film in clear canisters and then in clear Ziploc bags and ask for hand checking at the gate. Most American airports will do this, especially if you arrive early and have a nice smile. Overseas be prepared to have it X-rayed. Normally this won t harm it, so avoid it if possible, but don t worry if it s not.
Many photographers carry their gear in backpacks designed for the purpose.
We prefer locked hardsided cases with wheels. If traveling business class, we hand carry both the film and the cases. But if something must be checked, then the hardsided cases are chosen. All this seems cumbersome, and it is. But once you see the African sun rise behind a flat-topped acacia tree with elephant silhouettes in a line, or thousands of penguins crowded together at the edge of the ice, or a brilliant macaw in a bright green tree, it will all be forgotten, and you can breathe Jim Zuckerman left his medical studies in 1970 to turn his love of photography into a career.