Travel Gear: Carry-On Backpack

I love to travel with just one piece of luggage: a backpack small enough to carry on to flights.

Earlier this year, I decided it was time to buy a new backpack. The final impetus was a flight I would be taking from Miami MIA to Lisbon LIS, Portugal. I would be traveling with only a carry-on, but I was concerned my backpack might not quite meet TAP Air Portugal’s stringent requirements. If I was forced to do a gate check, I would be out $180. This would hurt, as I had snagged a ticket for $100 plus the usual fees for the 8-hour journey.

Mapping My Next Travels

On a freezing February day in Minnesota, it feels good to think about upcoming travels to warmer places. Today, I've been assembling digital and print maps.

As usual, my winter trip has several phases, each with its own mapping requirements. The trip starts in the Florida Keys and culminates in a walk from one side of Britain to the other along a national trail, the Hadrian's Wall Path. This sounds grander than the reality: the path runs from coast-to-coast at Britain's narrowest point.

Travel Gear: Packing Hiking Boots

The first frost of the season nipped Minneapolis this week, signaling less cycling and more hiking. My boots are squeaky clean and ready.

Boots are bulky, which is an issue when flying with a small carry-on backpack. It's amazing how much you can stuff into boots, then further reduce the bulk by tying the laces tightly.

I took the pictures at the top of this post a few years ago to show the contents of my boots. I no longer stuff anything metal or electrical into them since my collision with London Heathrow Security. I was grateful when the kind official put my suspicious-looking boots back through the X-ray scanner, rather than have me empty them.

How I Tunneled through the Great Firewall of China

For political and commercial reasons, China blocks Internet sites. Services I use daily, like Google, Blogger, Twitter, and the New York Times, simply do not exist on China's Internet, thanks to the Great Firewall of China.

Before my trip to Shanghai in April 2017 I made sure I would have access to all the Internet services I use at home. I took the following steps:

1. Took inventory of blocked sites I would want to access. The logic used by the Chinese authorities to decide which sites to block is not always intuitive. Google's Gmail is blocked, but the Microsoft Outlook email service is freely available.
2. Researched VPN (Virtual Private Network) solutions which would provide encrypted tunnels through the Firewall to the outside world. I learned not all VPN services work in China.
3. Developed workarounds if the Chinese authorities decided to defeat the VPN services I chose.

I succeeded in defeating the Firewall at no cost. I got to use the Internet while I was in China as though I was in the outside world.

How to Dispose of Unwanted Money

Tomorrow I'll be stopping at the post office to drop off a box filled with foreign coins and banknotes.

Last year, at Newcastle International Airport, I showed my nephews an easier way to dispose of foreign currency. I led them to a big, bubble-shaped currency donation bin, then handed them some UK coins. As you can see in the picture at the top of this post, they were happy to perform The Disposal. 

They didn't think to rush over to a concession to buy candy with their new-found wealth. I'm grateful they want to help others.

I was thinking about this coin-drop the other day as I was sorting through my collection of leftover foreign currency. I always tell myself the money will be useful "the next time I go."

Imperfect Gifts for Long-Haul Travelers

The other day I came across an article at wired.com with the click-bait title: 10 Perfect Gifts for your Favorite Long-Haul Traveler.

I was skeptical right out of the starting gate: I travel light, a declaration I repeat ad nauseam. Recently I renewed my passport, and opted for the version with more pages as I was running out of visa pages in my existing passport. I hummed and hawed at the additional bulk and weight (0.7 ounces) but eventually decided convenience outweighed the additional weight, if you excuse the pun.

I don't need much. What I need for a two-day trip is identical to what I need for a two-month trip.

But what goodies would the article reveal: essential items, or things I didn't realize I didn't need?

Travel Gear: Wot, No Passport?

On a recent flight from Tokyo to San Francisco, I found a Canadian passport.

Travel Gear: UK Electrical Adapter

Next month we'll be taking our nephews and their parents to the UK. Today the mother of the nephews asked me about adapters for UK electrical outlets.

I had anticipated the question and had stocked up on this necessary item. Ax-Man, a local surplus store had a supply of UK adapters at 75 cents apiece.

Travel Gear: Hiking Pants

As I was stretching, clambering, grappling over rocks in Kirishima National Park, I replayed in my head the most recent encounter with a fellow hiker.

The woman had made the usual greeting, then a look of dissonance flashed across her face.

I'd seen that look before when I've thoughtlessly put a shoe on tatami, or walked into the Ladies. I had done something egregious.

Travel Gear: Mesh Stuff Sack

On a train or plane, it's good to have stuff immediately to hand.

My solution is a mesh stuff sack that closes with a drawstring and toggle. It's light and durable, it keeps things together, and I don't leave random possessions behind when I disembark. My partner and I have been traveling with the same sacks for decades.

When I board, I drop the sack on my seat and stow my backpack in the overhead. I then sit with the sack sandwiched between my back and seat. Flight attendants never ask me to stow it.

Once I'm settled, the sack and its contents fit in the pouch along with the safety card and airline magazine.

Travel Gear: The Carbon Footprint of Hiking Boots

I'll soon be crossing The Pond to hike in my beaten-up boots. At the end of the trip the boots might be good for a few more day hikes.

All this leaves me with The Big Question:

Should I bring the boots home to the USA at the end of my trip?

Travel Gear: Clean Clothes

For me, freedom is traveling light with just one change of clothes. That still translates into wearing clean clothes every day.

The downside is doing a bit of laundry each day.

Travel Gear: Buying the Wrong GPS

Whether it's investments or stuff, I'm a buy-and-hold kind of person.

I'd had my handheld GPS (a Garmin, function-key-driven GPSMAP 6OCSx) 8 years when I lost it on a trip in January 2015. I was not ready to replace it because it still performed well relative to current units.

But now I had no GPS. I decided to stick with Garmin because I have sets of Garmin maps, and am impressed how rugged my GPS had been. It has survived immersion in water and many falls onto hard surfaces.

I looked at Garmin devices positioned for hiking and narrowed my choice to two units:

A touch-screen unit: Oregon 600. 

A function-key-driven (non-touch-screen) unit: GPSMAP 64S.

I decided to try something new and settled on the touch-screen unit, the Oregon 600.

Over the course of a two-month trip, February through April 2015, I decided my chosen GPS is unfit for serious hiking.

So, where did I go wrong?

Travel Gear: Eye-Fi Card

The best travel brings me face-to-face with the unexpected.

I try to welcome the unexpected as part of the great adventure. Something to relish, a puzzle to solve, or an opportunity to practice wisdom and move on.

With a bit of luck, I get to choose whether to make the unwelcome a positive experience, or to allow it to suck the energy out of the day. Maybe there's humor to find, lessons to learn, or a diversion to spice up an otherwise bland plan.

When our camera was stolen from our daypack in India, we both felt depressed for the rest of the morning. We had lost pictures of hikes 11,000 feet up in the Himalayas and walks around the Taj Mahal.

This led me to a solution that would prevent the loss of so many pictures again.

Travel Gear: Spectacle Case

You pay attention to every item that goes into your backpack if you're going to carry it for 330 miles (about 530 kilometers).

That was my state of mind when I planned a walk around the north of England with my partner.

I scrutinized every item. Does it provide sufficient value? Can I find something equivalent but lighter?

I used a spreadsheet to maintain a running total of the weight of our packs. Eventually each pack would weigh 14 lb (about 6.4 kilograms).

Our spectacle cases at 3 to 4 ounces (around 100 grams) each were preventing me from reaching the 14 lb goal. Our three cases would be approaching 3% of our total load. Not a lot, but I was getting compulsive about that goal.

I couldn't find spectacle cases that were sufficiently lightweight and crushproof. Then I learned from a Web discussion group about tenite butyrate tubing.

Travel Gear: Trekking Gloves

In Marketing class I learned about a man who had a bunch of folding stools to sell. He first positioned them as general-purpose folding stools, but there were no takers. He sold them all when he positioned them as fishing stools.

A well-positioned product connects with a specific market. With a bit of luck, the sale requires minimal targeted advertising and fetches a premium price.

This week I've been in the market for gloves. Not just any gloves, but gloves to protect my hands when I clamber over rocks and ride scree.

Travel Gear: Rain Jacket

The rain was torrential.

"You look funny" commented some miserable-looking middle-aged woman as she stumbled towards us on the Wainwright Coast-to-Coast hike across England.

I gurgled something to show I was glad I had added to her happiness on that grey day. I suspected this was her first and last long distance walk.

We certainly looked unusual. This was probably her first encounter with rain jackets with humps to accommodate backpacks. Fewer than 200 are sold each year.

Travel Gear: Trekking Pole

 

I often hike with one trekking pole. Some hikers prefer two poles: I don't have enough hands to carry two while operating my GPS, or grabbing tree limbs.

It's largely about balance, but I suspect my knees are grateful when I lean on the pole while climbing.

Unfortunately, a trekking pole makes air travel more complicated.

Travel Gear: Headphones

I rarely use headphones when traveling. On a long-haul, I prefer to read, snooze, or watch a movie in silence with subtitles turned on. I have yet to find comfortable, compact headphones.

Back in 1980, when the Sony Walkman was introduced to the USA, the airlines were still handing out pneumatic headsets in Economy.

Travel Gear: One-Time Password Generator

My smartphone and tablet make it easy to access my Internet accounts, maybe too easy: what happens if my devices fall into the wrong hands, or if a username and password are somehow intercepted?

On my most recent trip, I used a YubiKey Neo one-time password (OTP) generator.