Travelers Aid + travel tip

I’m a volunteer for Travelers Aid (202/546-1127, www.travelersaid.org). This charitable organization, founded in 1914, has information desks and helps travelers at 36 sites in the US, mainly in airports but also at bus and train stations.

I’m one of 300 volunteers at Washington Dulles International Airport. (All staff are volunteers; program managers are paid.) We have three information desks in the main terminal manned daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. plus volunteers behind podiums in the other concourses and at two locations inside Customs and Immigration.

It’s a challenge to keep all the spots staffed, but that’s what’s in our contract with the Transit Authority. The understaffed airlines can’t help folks, so it’s fortunate we’re there to do it. It’s not unusual for us to help 80,000 people a month at Dulles. (We count all the members of a family or group even if just one of its members asked a question.)

Most questions are routine: how to get to the center of Washington, which baggage claim to go to, etc. We do all the paging for people looking for someone, we book hotel rooms for people (at a special rate) when their flight has been canceled, and we help track down children or elderly travelers lost in transit. Some cases require the intervention of a police officer or social worker.

Most volunteers are retired; some are former airline employees who have air travel in their blood, and some worked with the Foreign Service, as I did. Many of us know more than one language.

I really enjoy the work and have been doing it once a week for six years.

Travel tip — we see people accidentally picking up the wrong bags at luggage carousels all the time, even those with “unique” bags. Also, many people do not tag their carry-on bags, so if one gets left in a restroom or elsewhere (where it’s picked up by the police as “abandoned and suspicious”), it’s not easy to locate the owner.

I recommend that you put bright or unique ID tags on all your luggage. The neon-colored tags from Magellan’s (800/962-4943, www.magellans.com) are great, as are the bright Easy Spot Handle Wraps.

My carry-on, from Magellan’s, has a large round leather tag with one initial on it.

DONNA SANDIN

Reston, VA