My kids loose theirs all the time and I say use find my but apparently that does not work if they are in the case at least according to my kids.
I think we take for granted how easily these things come to us as tech people.
I believe newer ones can be found 'anywhere' like an airtag.
It even works for the case without the AirPods in it. That part is definitely new, since the original cases didn't have any wireless hardware in them (and depended on at least one AirPod being in it to report their battery level, for example); the new ones have their own Bluetooth/UWB chain.