Weird things people try to take on planes

In 2010, security staff at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport were checking through a bag of stuffed animals in a passenger's hand luggage when one felt warm to the touch. Heavily sedated, the two-month-old tiger cub was on its way to Iran.

In another animal act, a Chinese traveller identified as Mr Li tried to smuggle his pet turtle, disguised in a hamburger bun, on a flight from Guangzhou. "Nothing to see here," Li reportedly said when quizzed by suspicious security staff, "No turtle, just a hamburger." A friend was summoned to the airport and Li boarded his flight to Beijing, sans turtle.

Transporting the deceased by air is expensive and when an elderly German gentleman took his last breath in the UK, his widow and stepdaughter decided to ship the corpse to Berlin as a passenger. At the check-in desk, despite reassurances from the pair that the corpse was merely resting his eyes, police were called and the women taken into custody with the stepdaughter still insisting "He was alive. He was pale but he wasn't dead."

When it comes to sneaking drugs onto a plane, smugglers are given to light-bulb moments, some more promising than others. In a spectacular brain snap, a passenger boarding at Denver International Airport hid his marijuana stash inside a fake grenade. According to a Transport Security Administration operative, "We're not looking for drugs, but you can guarantee the odds are in our favour of finding them if they're stuffed in a grenade."

SAVINGS PLAN

City walking tours are generally cheaper and more immersive than big bus tours, and you'll pay less if you book through a tourist office rather than your hotel.