The best tracking is through airtags. There are some circumstances where things even out between them and all the competitors/homebrew options but nothing else is better.

The benefit of airtags over all the alternatives isn’t that they work best and most consistently, but that everyone understands the technology and isn’t going to give you the run around when you show up claiming that your suitcase is in the wrong country.

Even though the alternatives use the same underlying technology, the branded airtag version and its implications are understood from the baggage handlers all the way up to the late night magistrates. Alternatives often need to wait for someone who recognizes that they’re near incontrovertible evidence of a fuckup to come around and whip all the rest of their colleagues into a frenzy over it.

There are some cheap macos and ios doodads out there if it’s just gonna be a tracker.