A Swiss Army Knife with 85 Tools

Have you ever wanted a Swiss Army Knife containing every single tool ever included? Apparently this monstrosity came out last year, but I just saw it in a magazine. It's the Wenger Giant Collector's Swiss Army Knife, selling for a mere $1,200.

No, it's not cheap and it's certainly not practical: it weighs in at 2 pounds, 11 ounces and is 8 inches long. But you've got to admire them for managing to put this together. It's got pliers, a corkscrew, cigar cutter, tire gauge, golf club face cleaner, scissors, fish scaler, and anything else that's ever shown up on any version. (See the full list at the link above.)

I'm not posting this because anyone should actually buy this thing and it looks like they're out of stock anyway. If you do have money to burn and just have to have it though, try eBay.

Packing Light, Packing Smart

I got a note yesterday from the author of Smart Packing for Today's Traveler and there were some good reminders on why packing light is getting to be more essential.

- As of Feb. 10, Spirit Airlines in the U.S. started charging $10 for a second bag, $100 for a third.
- As of Feb. 13, British Airways started rejecting any bag over 50 pounds (and many others will charge you a hefty fee).
- Aer Lingus, the Irish carrier, now charges for every bag checked on flights within Europe.

Not on this list is the fact that baggage is a profit center for European budget carriers EasyJet and RyanAir. They make no bones about bag charges being more profitable than ticket sales.

So pare down and remember that pretty much anywhere in the world, they do laundry. Get Susan Foster's book for plenty of good advice, or visit her site SmartPacking.com for lots of great articles and tips.

Then when you're getting ready to buy a sensibly-sized bag and some cheap and light essentials, go to this travel gear resources site for some deal links.

Eagle Creek and North Face Get Married

This news is two weeks old, but it seemed fitting to announce on Valentine's Day that Eagle Creek was recently bought up by VF Corporation, a company that already owns North Face, Vans, and even an underwear brand last time I checked.

"VF said it expects Eagle Creek to add about $30 million to 2007 revenues and to grow at a high single-digit rate for the next several years. Eagle Creek founder and President Steve Barker will continue to manage the brand, reporting to Dave Gatto, president of VF Outdoor."

What does it all mean? Probably not much for now, but the company always seemed to have a plucky independence that went against the grain with new (and usually affordable) designs that nobody else had thought of yet. Let's hope the brains behind the innovations don't take off and leave this as just another boring luggage brand.

Indestructable Travel Wine Glass

The always fun Jaunted travel blog caught my eye with a post titled "Travel Gear for Lushes." It turned out to be a post about this very cool travel wine glass from Le Travel Store.

I can't top the description on the site, which says, "The Travel Wine Glass is made of General Electric's virtually indestructible Lexan Resin. The stem unscrews at the base of the bowl for easy packing and storage. The durability and elegant shape will enhance any beverage."

Forget "any beverage." We can drink any beverage out of any old cup. But if you buy a bottle from a store and open it on the top of a hill, with a vista you've never seen before, it would be quite handy to have this technological wonder in your day pack. And hey, it's only $8.95, which is probably about what you'll pay for a drinkable bottle of wine in most stores. Unless you're also carrying a Swiss Army Knife with a corkscrew, you will want to go for a screw bottle---trust me on this one. Get it here: travel wine glass.

Water Purification for Travelers

In the February 2007 issue of Conde Nast Traveler there's a pretty good rundown of the foreign drinking water situation for travelers. They give the lowdown on how and where the drinking water is dicey. They rate six different options that can help you get over the environmentally disastrous practice of chugging water out of plastic disposable bottles. (Most developing countries have no means to recycle them, so you're just adding to the local litter problem.)

Unfortunately, as often happens with glossy magazine articles that get posted online, the graphics are missing. In this case there was a very important "how to purify your water" graphic that was omitted. This makes the online article a lot like the Inconvenient Truth documentary---thanks for scaring me half to death, but what do I do now?

The suggestions were a bit odd anyway in some areas. The writer mentions iodine tablets, but not MicroPur---which tastes better and kills more to boot. Household bleach was mentioned, which seems a bit risky. Who's going to properly measure four drops per quart? There's a pump, but not the more traveler-friendly items like the water bottle purifiers. There's the Solar Cookers AquaPak though (pictured here), which I hadn't run across before. Pretty cool if it works: it's only $20.

Which Rolling Bag is the Best?

Some rolling suitcases cost $40 and some cost $400. Do you get what you pay for? And which wheelie suitcases deliver when you really put them through their paces?

Budget Travel magazine set out to answer these questions for us and put five bags through some rigorous real-world tests. You can see the results in this wheelie bag road test. They tested five quality bags, from the $170 Ogio Terminal to the $450 T-Tech Pulse Cooper Square from Tumi.

Do you get what you pay for? Well, sorta. The expensive Tumi one came in second and the Ogio one didn't fare too well. The winner in their tests, however, was Eagle Creek's Velocity bag (pictured here), which goes for $340 at eBags. If you're a road warrior that travels a lot on business, this one would be worth the investment.