I travel a lot and have made many border crossings. Like anyone who travels a lot, occasionally I get searched. The first time this happened, I would stand the

I travel a lot and have made many border crossings. Like anyone who travels a lot, occasionally I get searched. The first time this happened, I would stand there passively and take questions. This seems to be most people's default reaction. Now, however, I take a bit more initiative - I help a customs officer unpack my things, and I intentionally point out things they'd want to question me about and explain their usage. For instance, I was stopped flying into London from Barcelona, and I had some Spanish anti-inflammatories, anti-biotics, and a freezable gell-pack for my knee for after working out. I said, "Sir, I'm going to unpack this part of my bag. I've got medicine in here - the Spanish equivalent of tylenol and antibiotics that I bought at a pharmacy, and a gel pack. I have these because I have a knee injury, and I also work out, but I need to take care of my knee after workouts." Then - no problem. I used to travel with some audio/visual equipment that would get searched like crazy, until I started saying, "I've got some A/V equipment with me, I make short little snippets when I travel. I'm not a formal journalist, it's just a hobby. I can explain what any of it does, if you need me to." This kind of preemptively explaining medicine, electronics, etc. would've probably helped this guy. "Excuse me, officer, I collected some weird artifacts while traveling. This here was a gift I received from a child in XYZ city, I bought these books while traveling since I was trying to learn about the influencers of the culture and they came sold in a pack together, etc, etc..." Take the initiative, be polite and friendly and explain well. It'll help, especially if you have things they'd typically question you about.