Radar Folding Brim Cap

Often it's the simple travel gear tweaks that make a difference. Here's a dead simple one with huge results: a hat with a folding brim.

Packing a baseball cap or something similar is a pain. In your checked luggage it gets crushed and bent. In your day pack it gets in the way. On your head you have to take it off at every security check. But what if you could just fold it and stick it in your pocket or stuff it between a book and a magazine in your day pack or laptop bag? Enter the Radar Pocket Cap from Outdoor Research.

I just used one of these for two weeks on the road and it delivered as promised. I folded and unfolded it about 20 times and it kept its shape. I carried it on the plane going and stuffed it into my checked bag coming back. It still looked good, stylish even in a Fidel kind of way. (But Fidel would never wear it in "burnt orange"--one of the choices.) It lists for $24 and I'm confident it's going to last. If it doesn't, well the tag says, "Outdoor Research products are guaranteed forever."

The only drawback is there's no give anywhere so you have to know your head size to order it. Get out that measuring tape, then go pick your color at the OR Radar folding cap page.

Comfy Casual Beach Shoes from OKA b

When a shoe company's website is www.shoesthatloveyou.com, those puppies better be comfortable. When the little tag attached to said footwear also says, "Love at first step," they had better be really comfortable.

Fortunately, it's not just hype and spin with the line of beach-friendly shoes and sandals from OKA b (short for Okabashi). For the past week I've been wearing a pair of the Cambden ones for men. The female with me, who is genetically wired to have a shoe fetish, has been bopping around the beach house with a pair of Savannahs. The verdict? "They're fabulous," she says. They look good and feel good.

I say they're comfy and they go on and off quickly, so mission accomplished. Granted they don't have a beer bottle opener like my Reef ones, but hey, fashionable people frown upon such utilitarian genius. These go over the foot rather than requiring a toe wedgie though, so points for that. Like Japanese onsen shoes but more pliable. You can even put them on the top shelf of the dishwasher to get them clean!

The big differentiating features of the Oka b line are raised arch supports (actually a minus for flat-footed me), non-slip soles, and massage beads where your foot comes in contact with the shoe. They're also impregnated with things to keep them from smelling and clean-up takes no time--there's no fabric. True, they're a long way away from being "green," but they'll last you years, which in itself puts them above most of the glorified flip-flops out there. Plus they're made in the USA; when's the last time you saw that on a pair of shoes?

For the full selection see the shoes that love you website, or look for them at hip shoe stores. The Camden ones I've been wearing retail for $20. The Savannah ones for women retail for $30. Good beach shoes, good price.

Transformers-style International Travel Adapter

Back in the day, I used to carry around a felt pouch with a half-dozen different plugs in order to be prepared for what the world threw at me in terms of odd electrical plugs my ancient laptop would face. Thanfully there are now more compact choices out there, including this SIP-3 “Ultimate International Travel Adapter” from Sima Products.

This model doesn’t go with the one-piece design you find in other electrical adapters. Instead Sima choose to offer a series of plugs that fit together in a way that ends of taking up about the same amount of space, but giving you the option to leave the ones you don’t need stowed away. It’s an elegant, efficient design that makes me wonder why it took this long to appear. Once you pull it out and put it back together, it just feels natural, almost intuitive. Plus the price is right--under $12 in some spots.

This set will cover you for some 150 countries, from Australia to China to the UK, so it is a handy item for any international business traveler or backpacker about to take off on a round-the-world journey with something that needs to be plugged in.

As with any basic set of adapter plugs, there’s no actual electric conversion. Don’t plug your 110v hair drying into one of these plugs in Europe and expect the motor to keep working. There’s no fuse either, so you need to use common sense and only plug in electronics that are designed for dual voltage.

You should be able to find this on their site, but if not click the link below to find the best deal elsewhere.

Find the best price for a Sip3 adapter

Learn a Language With Some Earworms

I've discovered through my travels that some people have a knack for picking up languages and others struggle to retain every single word of vocabulary. I'm probably somewhere in the middle, but closer to the struggling language learners than the naturals. So I've tried just about every method out there and was intrigued by these CDs from Earworms.
Think of them as the hipster's no-effort language course, or maybe as something that will enable language to creep into your brain like a worm. Play a little chill-out electronica, slip in some repetitive language lessons, and next thing you know the listeners are ordering cervezas like they own the place.

It's not quite that simple of course, but points to Earworms for taking the Pimsleur method and making it less nap-inducing. There's lots of necessary repetition and repeating, which despite all the desire for shortcuts, just plain works. The trick here is you get to listen to some cool music while it's all sinking in.

My only real beef with this system is that it really doesn't give you all that much for the money. When the Spanish one with "200+ essential words and phrases" stopped playing on my car CD player after what seemed like a pretty short time, I really thought something was wrong. Turns out that the 11 lessons, ranging from about a minute to nine minutes, were all there is. You're going to need three or four of that length before you can say much of anything. By the time you start adding up the tab (at $17 to $30 a pop), Rosetta Stone starts looking a lot more attractive.

Of course you can't listen to Rosetta Stone while you're cruising down the highway on a road trip, which is why I still think these Earworms are a nice place to start. Go see more at the Earworms site, but be prepared to endure an intro screen, lots of Flash, pop-ups, and other annoyances before you get to the core.

Wicking Shirts from Coolmax

I will admit that I took my good ole time jumping on the synthetic "moisture wicking" shirt bandwagon. I could always smell someone with one of them on from 10 yards away and didn't want to be a walking sweatbomb myself. So I stuck with reliable, sustainable cotton except for one t-shirt I bought on sale at REI that I only used when with someone who loved me.

The shirtmakers finally woke up to this problem a while back though and started building odor-killing properties into the fabric, so now it's possible to not smell like a laundry basket after every bike ride or hike. I've had good experiences lately with a "Ride On" one from Life is Good and a surprisingly supple one from Coolmax Clothing.

This Coolmax one feels like a 50/50 cotton blend rather than something you would wear to a disco in the 1970s. It's soft, it feels good, and it looks like a normal T-shirt. But it effectively wicks the sweat away and isn't stinky. It dries quickly after a washing too, which is a big plus when you're packing light.

The Coolmax shirts come in 9 colors and are only $14 if you buy direct from their site. Or you can get one of the long-sleeve compression shirts (pictured here) for $29.

They'll do custom imprinting if you want a logo for your club or business. They also sell quick-dry boxer shorts, like the Ex-Officio ones I reviewed earlier, but for $15. Good stuff, good price all around.

Pack Light or Pay More

Travelers accustomed to the bare-bones service of the likes of EasyJet and RyanAir already know that packing more will make a flight more costly. That penalty is now coming to the U.S., where struggling airlines keep adding more fees to squeeze more money from passengers. These are not bare-bones airlines either: they are the legacy airlines that used to be called "full service" airlines. (Remember those days? Hate to tell you, but they're not coming back.) United and bottom-of-the-heap US Airways will now charge you $25 one-way or $50 round trip to check a second bag.

As Middle Seat columnist Scott McCartney notes in Baggage Becomes a Big Ticket Item, overpacking is now going to cost you a lot of money. The baggage fee could represent an additional 10 or 20 percent tax on your ticket cost. If one of the bags weighs more than 50 pounds, look out! As the article notes:

The stiff penalties can add hundreds of dollars to a family vacation, especially if travelers show up at the airport with bags heavier than 50 pounds or larger than the size limit airlines use -- 62 linear inches, the combined measurements of height, length and width.

Fees for overweight and oversized bags have been raised by some airlines in the past year, even as baggage-service reliability has declined. And the fees are charged cumulatively -- an extra bag that is overweight and oversized gets hit with three fees. So a second checked bag that is overweight and oversized will cost $450 round-trip at United after May 5. At Delta Air Lines Inc., a third checked suitcase that weighs 71 pounds and is oversized costs $660 round-trip.

The thing so many vacationers don't seem to remember is, clothes are washable. You don't have to pack two weeks' worth of clothing for a two week trip. Even using the overpriced hotel laundry service is going to cost you less than the extra $50 if you don't go crazy. Wash socks and underwear in the sink or send them out to a corner laundry service that will do a whole suitcase worth for 10 or 20 bucks tops. For gear that helps with all this, see the Packing Aids and Travel Light options.

Small Retractable Cable Lock

A long while back in this blog I pointed to a retractable cable lock as an essential piece of gear for any long-term traveler. The Lewis & Clark one I had used for about a dozen long trips finally croaked at the end of last year and I snagged one of these much smaller retractable cable locks from an old standby: Master Lock.

It was only eight bucks, so I was not expecting much really. Half the size of my old one and half the price. That may be normal for computers, but it doesnt usually work that way with simple hardware. This cable lock is an exception. It shrinks by giving you 2 feet of cable instead of 3, but otherwise it is just as well made and rugged. So the question is, do you need 3 feet of cable or would you rather have more space?

My vote would be taking the larger models out there if you are traveling as a couple and sometimes need to lock two backpacks to a bulky chair or bedpost. Buy the smaller one if you are on your own. At this price, for something this light, you truly can't go wrong taking one along for security.

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Big Surprise: Airborne is a Scam

At least twice a month I get some pitch from a company promoting something guaranteed to keep me healthy while I travel on a plane. No doubt this rash of products has been inspired by the success of Airborne, something I always felt was a big placebo scam, one step up from a Flintstones chewable.

Surprise surprise, if you bought this stuff you got duped. But you can have the last laugh. The company just settled a lawsuit and will have to pony up $23 million. Turns out there was no scientific basis for any of their claims. They just said, "Hey, it works for us!"

"Consumers are still likely to be misled by the product," says David Schardt, a senior nutritionist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "He and his teams searched for anyone who had studied Airborne's combination of herbs and vitamins. The company had pointed to one research effort, but that was later revealed to be a two-person project paid for by Airborne. 'It was so bad,' Schardt says. 'The company wouldn't let anyone see it.'

"Schardt hopes the lessons of Airborne will discourage companies from making claims 'until they have evidence that the product works.'"

And as World Hum notes, that green scum around the glass was kind of scary anyway. Nice packaging on the box, but snake oil usually had nice drawings on it too...

Cool Travel Gear from Passengers Only

Some travel gear sites try to dazzle you with their selection and end up overwhelming you to the point you forgot what you came to buy. Others try a different approach, with a "less is more" design aesthetic and carefully selected items that are stylish and not on every store shelf.

In the latter camp is Passengers Only, a hip site that has a range of interesting bags, briefcases, gadgets, and even a mobile foodie survival kit.

I've been needing something for stowing that overseas bottle of wine or booze into my checked baggage, so I got my hands on this Built NY Wine Carrier, which comes in four patterns. It retails for $16, or there's a double holder that's $19. I stuffed a bottle of tequila in mine to make sure it'll work for an upcoming Mexico tequila grab, but then I put a bottle of white wine in it to see how well the insulation worked. Two hours later, still cool, so this would work well for a jaunt to a dinner party or picnic. It's made from washable, stretchy neoprene, so it's flexible and durable.

If you want to look like a lush with class though, you can go for fancier models in leather from Piel or Clava. Or just shop around for hip gadgets and gear for yourself or a gift for that jaded someone who is looking for something beyond an overpriced travel alarm clock from Sharper Image.

Franklin Electronic Spanish-English Dictionary

A while back I reviewed a 12-language electronic translator from Franklin that was meant for traveling all around Europe. This more focused Spanish-English one ends up being more robust and in the end, far more useful. The Franklin DBE-1490 goes far beyond being just a dictionary, also functioning as a learning tool, grammar guide, and phrase book.

Although this can seem overwhelming at first--to have four thick books crammed into one calculator-sized device--the controls are intuitive and the instructions are well-written and organized. I found translating words and phrases to be a snap and anticipate a lot of airplane time playing learning games and quizzes in order to improve my command of the language.

The dictionary part is dead simple and accurate. I used it to translate words I didn't know on Click Mexicana's Spanish-only website, to the point I was able to successfully book a flight for within Mexico. I can imagine using this for airport and highways signs also while on the move.

To speak in full sentences, you can choose the phrases function to scroll through in either language, looking up the likes of, "Hay alguien aqui qu hable ingles?" (Does anyone here speak English?) The games and exercises include Hangman, flash cards, a spelling bee, a gender tutor, and others.

As is often the case with a Spanish dictionary or phrase book, this one is geared to Spanish as it is spoken in Spain, not as it is in the far more vast Latin American region, from Mexico down through the bottom of Chile. So when you travel with this through the Americas, it would also be helpful to take along a phrase book for the country (like a Mexican Spanish phrase book) or the region (a Latin America Spanish phrase book). Otherwise, you might miss a lot of idioms and descriptive phrases. This will get you the right word or phrase at least 90 percent of the time though, which is usually good enough.

The Franklin Spanish-English Electronic Dictionary is stuffed with some 274,000 definitions (from Miriam-Webster) and loads of other tools. The thin device is only about 4 by 5 inches, with an ample display screen (monochrome), a hinged cover, and keys that weren't built for a 4-year-old's fingers. It retails for $50-$60.

Buy it at Amazon