Hot Chilly T for Cold Weather

I'm becoming resigned to the fact cold weather is here to stay for a while, so I've gone through the annual ritual of putting away one set of clothes and getting out the layers. One new layer I'm liking a lot is this Hot Chilly Zip-T.

It is designed to be a base layer for skiing, with a form-hugging fit. But it also works well for cool-weather running or biking. It basically functions like a heavy-duty fleece, but is slick on the outside, fuzzy on the inside. That's a good thing if you're piling on layers or trying to be aerodynamic on the slopes or on a bike.

The Hot Chilly Peachskins zip T is deceptively warm and is quite comfortable as something to wear down the block on a fall day. My only beef with it is it is designed to be zipped up all the way on your neck, so the collar doesn't quite know what to do with itself if you're unzipped. For something you're just using as a base layer, the simpler banded crew might be better (but is only a buck less - $34).

These come in six colors and Hot Chillys also makes a whole line of base layer tops, bottoms, and socks for men and women. You can find them at various retail outlets or ski shops like Sun & Ski Sports or Finish Line. Or go to the Hot Chillys site to find a local retailer.

Are Packing Cubes Worthwhile?

I've always been a bit skeptical about Eagle Creek's Pack-It cubes. This may spring from the fact that as a travel writer, I identify more with the stance of A Perfect Mess rather than the hyper-control of Getting Things Done. I've got a pretty good packing system down with rolling and stuffing and I manage to make a lot fit into a small carry-on bag.

I used these packing cubes on my last two trips though and have to say that while I didn't fall in love with them for packing, they do make repacking a lot easier. I also didn't unpack at home and go, "Oh that's where the last clean pair of underwear was!"

These Pack-It cubes come in a variety of shapes and sizes. I used a two-sided half cube that's sized for socks and underwear and a regular two-sided cube that's good for rolled shorts and T-shirts--or dirty and clean laundry separation. The items feel rugged, with good zippers, and both these models have mesh to keep the air circulating.

Since I was pretty much living out of my bag on both trips, the biggest benefit of the cubes was to keep my bag more organized. No trouble finding what I had packed and not so much mayhem inside the pack.

So if you're a neat freak, these things will enable you to indulge your obsession no matter where you travel. If you're a total slob, these cubes will help you get packed up and out the door faster when it's time to move from one abode to another. When you're backpacking on the road for months that could add up to a lot of time. If traveling for business, well, time is money.

Eagle Creek Pack-It Cubes are available in about 10 different colors and patterns from Amazon, Backcountry.com, REI, and Magellan's.

Mini Candle Lantern from UCO

Flash back to the days before electricity and gas lanterns and nobody had any worries about global warming or pollution. If you needed light, you just lit up a candle. Now we may use candles mostly for mood lighting, but they can be a cheap, practical, and eco-friendly light source when you're camping or traveling. If you want to have the ease of a lantern but keep things small and light, this mini candle lantern from UCO is a sweet item.

It holds a regular tea light candle, which you can find just about anywhere. The one that came with the lantern burned for over three hours in my test, which ought to be plenty to carry you from sunset to sleepy time if you're out camping. Some candles will go four hours and the company estimates a "fuel cost" of 8 cents per hour. The lantern cast a nice warm glow, but barely flickered when the wind blew.

The mini candle lantern is made from rustproof, ultra-light aluminum and has a catch basin to trap any spilled wax. It only weighs 3.2 ounces, or 90 grams. A small handle allows you to carry it to your outdoor toilet and hang it somewhere when needed. And here's a surprise: it's not shipped across the ocean from China. For $11 or $12, this would be a nice gift for a camper or someone getting ready for a vacation somewhere that the power supply is iffy.

You can also get a cool sleeve for it called the Cocoon. This will keep the lantern from getting scratched up and will make it easier to stuff in your bag without the rest of your clothes smelling like melted wax.

Get the mini candle lantern at Amazon

Search for candle lanterns at REI

It's a bag! It's a ball!

I love to feature things in the Practical Travel Gear blog that can perform double duty. This 24-7 Flip & Tumble Bag sounded like a perfect candidate and I'm happy to say that it delivers. It's a bag! Yes indeed. It's a ball! Works well for that too.

OK, you may be saying, "I don't really need a ball, I just need a bag." Well, as someone who just spent 20 minutes playing catch with my daughter with this thing, her laughing as it tumbled down the stairs, I say, "You never know." If you will ever have kids around to entertain, you're always prepared. In practical terms though, the fact that it rolls up into something slightly larger than a hacky sack means you won't have any trouble stuffing it into a purse, a messenger bag, a daypack, or a glove compartment. It'll even fit in the car cupholder (but don't forget and put your hot coffee on top of it).

How 'bout that bag? It holds up to 20 pounds and is the right size for a few quick items from the deli, wine shop, or grocery store. Carry this around all the time and you'll have a lot fewer plastic grocery bags to throw away. Naturally, it weighs next to nothing and it slings over your shoulder nicely.

You can be the first on your block to have one in your choice of four colors - they start shipping next week. You may seen these bag balls in retail stores later, but for now get it at the Flip and Tumble 24-7 site.

Eagle Creek's Meridian Backpack

There's a sweet spot in packing these days that will save you a lot of grief and hassle for international travel. If you can fit all your stuff into a carry-on and can still lug that bag around easily despite stairs and cobblestones, you're set for almost any situation and any airline. This 52-liter travel backpack from Eagle Creek hits that sweet spot quite well.

It's a travel backpack, which means you can use it as a backpack or zip the straps into a compartment and make it a suitcase - as in when you want to check it for a flight or upon arriving at a swanky hotel. Unless you totally overcram it to the gills, it meets the requirements for an overhead compartment bag. Since it doesn't have wheels and is made from lightweight materials, it's weighs less than 2.5 kilos (5 pounds, 4 ounces).

This doesn't mean it won't hold a lot though. There is a capacity 3,150 cubic inches (52L), with lots of zippered compartments and two side pockets outside. I like this model though because it dispenses with the zip-on daypack, which to me always sounds better in theory than it works out on the road. There's a cinch sack inside the bottom compartment which allows you to keep dirty shoes or laundry away from the rest of what's in there. An external front pocket and a zippered smaller pocket provide places for smaller, quick-access items.

In my test during a recent trip, this pack performed admirably at it will probably be my main go-to bag from now on. I was able to use the side strap or top strap when it wasn't on my back without it dragging on the floor and the straps were comfortable when I was ready to go into backpack mode. I was using it in New York City and had fun breezing past all the wheelie suitcase people struggling with subway stairs, escalators, and the never-ending construction at JFK.

The drawbacks? The zippers felt kind of grabby and not all that rugged to me. But with a lifetime guarantee, maybe there's no worry and they just need breaking in. If you're traveling around the world in varying climates, this bag might not offer enough capacity and you may have to resign yourself to 70 liters and always checking it for flights. If you're just going to one spot on the globe for a short time, however, this model should be fine if you pack right. At a list price of $180, this is priced below many comparable packs.

Note that this is, for some odd reason, listed as a 55-liter pack when you're searching product listings online. Rounding up I guess...

Get the Eagle Creek Meridian Travel Pack at Backcountry.com

See more on this bag at EagleCreek.com

Epson PictureMate Portable Photo Printer

A funny thing happened when we all switched to digital cameras: we forgot to order prints. In the old days you just dropped off your rolls of film at the photo lab and then had a stack of shots to pass around, send to the relatives, and plop into a scrapbook. Now we have more photos, better photos, and a less bulky way to store them, but they're all just bits and bytes that seldom make it into our physical world. We either have to upload them to an online service or fiddle with special paper and settings on a good computer printer to get real photos we can hold in our hands.

Enter the Epson PictureMate Dash printer, which turns the printing chore into something convenient and dead simple. It cranks out amazingly good photos from a variety of media and is barely bigger than a lunchbox. You could easily take this along on a road trip and print out family reunion photos right there on the spot.

The set-up instructions were excellent with a "Start Here" flyer just giving me the basics, then a clear, well-written manual explaining how each function works once it's set up and ready. With the basic PM260 model I tested, you can print photos from a memory card, direct from your camera, from a computer, from a Bluetooth device, or from a USB drive. With the larger PM290 model, there's a CD drive for printing from a disc or saving to a disc.

The only bug I encountered was an inability to print proper photos from the imaging program already on my computer (Ifranview). I got extra white space down the side. I had to install Epson's software that came with the printer, then everything went swimmingly. The photos are crisp, clear, and exactly like what I was seeing on my screen. There's a basic built-in editor on the printer itself too, so in several cases I was able to crop or zoom before printing and improve the image before it printed. Photos took less than 40 seconds each to print and came out dry, ready to hold.

I would advise buying an extra pack of paper and ink when you order this though: the print pack that comes with the machine only allowed 23 prints in my test before running out. (The "low ink" warning started at 19 prints). That will cost you close to $40 for 150 prints. As with any of these photo printers, you're going to spend more per print than you would if you just ordered from Kodak Gallery or Shutterfly, but you get instant gratification and the ability to adjust on the fly. I printed out lots of family pics and vacation pics for the relatives and am in their good graces again. Now if I could just remember to back up my hard drive for the rest...

Overall, this is a convenient, well-designed printer that does one job exceptionally well: the printing of quality 4X6 photos. Epson's photo prints are reputed to last 96 years in a frame or 200 years in an album. It's got lots of cool features a techie would love, but it's easy enough for Grandma to figure out on her own. At a retail price of only $99, this item is highly recommended.

Get the Epson PictureMate Dash at Amazon

Visit the Epson PictureMate site


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In Praise of the Lowly Spork

The folks at Industrial Revolution sent me a cool mini candle lantern to check out (more on that later) and in their note said, "We threw a spork in the package too." Poor spork - it's just an afterthought.

The spork is actually a beautiful and supremely practical piece of travel gear. It performs multiple functions, it's light, and it's compact. Plus it's cheap. Right up my alley. It's a spoon, it's a fork, and in this model, it's even a knife! (There's a serrated edge on one side of the fork.)

Yes this Light My Fire Spork - made in Sweden even - is an elegant piece of indestructible plastic that comes in a rainbow of colors. It's obviously a useful piece of gear for a camping trip, but would be a worthwhile addition to any round-the-world backpacker's list as well. This is especially true if you're heading to the land of chopsticks or a place where the favored utensil is the right hand. I can think of quite a few train or bus journeys where I would have given half my 50-cent meal to someone who could make my life easier by giving me a spoon, a fork, or - even better - a spork. Get your own for $2.99 at Amazon.