The Best Backpacks for Travelers

Editor's note - This post came out many years ago, so many of these specific models are discontinued. See this new post for more updated advice: The Best Backpacks for Travelers. 

It's one of the long-term traveler's most important decisions: which backpack should I buy? After all, it is the item you will learn to know most intimately, the vessel holding all of your worldly possessions for an extended period of time. If it's not comfortable and not rugged enough to last, you'll be cursing that backpack every day for a long time as you travel around the globe.

First, dismiss all the backpacks that are meant for hikers and mountain climbers. You do not want a pack that stuffs from the top and is short on pockets. You want one that is meant for constant packing and unpacking, one that will hold all the odd gadgets and small items you need for life on the road. And it needs to be able to lock securely and be thick enough that it won't rip on any stray sharp surface.

Some have wheels (good for a short trip, but not a long one), some are small enough to be carry-ons (great if you can pack that lightly), and some are high-capacity ones suitable for year-long trips that involve cold places. (Pack too much though and it'll be a bitch to carry.)

If you want to make this a popularity contest, then the tried-and-true winners out on the road are travel backpacks from Eagle Creek, like the Grand Voyage 90, and ones from Osprey, like the Waypoint 80. But if the size is right for you, it's also hard to go wrong with North Face or Jansport either.

The specs usually include either cubic inches or cubic liters and you can find conversion charts on the web to figure out equivalencies. The ones linked above are 80 or 90 liters, which is too much for some backs and there's the temptation to fill them up with more than you need. Go smaller if you are only going to be in hot places. I've found the 52-liter Eagle Creek Meridian one to be sufficient if I pack carefully.

Just don't go for some cheapo knock-off to save yourself 50 bucks unless it's a very short backpacking trip you're going on. You'll end up shopping for a new pack by the time you get to Bangkok or Buenos Aires.

Upek Eikon Fingerprint Reader for Flashpackers

Most of the travel gear reviews on this blog are for devices and gadgets most anyone could have a need for, but this Eikon to Go gadget from Upek is another story. It is a little larger than a regular USB drive, with a sliding cover over a reader for your fingerprint. Consider it a device to keep anyone else from using your laptop, or getting at your data, or logging onto sites where you've stored passwords. It's like a faceplate for your car stereo: after Eikon reader is set up, your laptop needs your fingerprint to do its thing.

After you pop this device out of its clamshell packaging, you hook it up to your PC or Mac and follow the wizard instructions to "enroll" yours---as in getting your fingerprints scanned and having those prints converted to encrypted mathmatical formulas. Then a "biomenu" appears that lets you decide how many of the possible features you want to use.

The features range from a simple lock/unlock function to locking specific folders to loads of password application and storage options. The most useful feature for many people will be the password bank. With this you surf around your usual sites and when you log in, you can register that site with a swipe of the finger. From now on, you swipe your finger each time you visit (or choose the site from the secure menu) instead of remembering all the passwords.

There are plenty more "gee-whiz" features that some may find useful---like the ability to assign different finger swipes to different applications. (I can think of a few that I would like to assign to the middle finger of my right hand...)

If two of you are sharing a laptop on the road, no problem. With a non-corporate version of XP or Vista, a different finger swipe will bring up the account of a different user automatically.

All this may be overkill if your laptop is mostly filled with photos, G-rated video, and some documents. It is aimed more at corporate travelers looking for an alternative to baffling password trees enacted by the IT department. If you're carrying around anything sensitive, however---and you don't often lose things that are the size of a thumb drive---this could provide some peace of mind on the road.

Although the Eikon to Go launched in April, apart from the Apple stores the retail launch of this thing seems to be taking a while. Check the Upek site for updates on where to find it.

Eco-friendly Hotel Keys

If you are heading to the Democratic Convention in Denver this year, you will find a little thing that makes a difference in your hand when you check in: a wooden key card instead of a plastic one.

Sustainable Cards and CPI Card Group have teamed up to donate 70,000 biodegradable wooden key cards to 90 Denver area hotels. Unlike the plastic ones, which just add to the mounting landfill waste and are petroleum based, these are completely biodegradable. Heck, if you tossed yours into the woods on the drive home, your card would just break down and return to the land.

So, what will be the counter move from the Republican convention? I'm putting my money on plastic cards made from extra virgin Saudi crude, covered by a thin layer of Arctic caribou skin.

Timex Rugged Field Expedition Watch

Looking for a rugged watch that can take most of what you throw at it, but one that still looks nice enough to wear with a dress shirt? This
Timex Expedition Rugged Field Watch nicely straddles the line between an adventure travel timepiece and something you could wear out at night.

I always seem to have a half-dozen watches on my dresser (half of them needing new batteries usually), but I don't really wear them all that much. With a cell phone always in the pocket and a clock in the car, a watch doesn't seem as necessary as it used to be.

When I travel, however, I always wear a watch. First of all, time requirements are more rigid. Your significant other may not mind too much if you're twenty minutes late for happy hour. The plane or train schedule is not so forgiving though. Second, traveling with a cell phone abroad is annoying and expensive, so most of the time I don't have the phone on me if I'm out of the country.

The Expedition line from Timex is a great place to start when looking for a travel watch that won't break the bank. This one is at the higher range of the scale ($120 list) but it feels hefty and well-made and has some nice features. It's shock resistant, has a leather strap that is treated to be water resistant, and the watch itself is water resistant to 100 meters. I haven't gone to 100 meters, but I did get it soaking wet and submerged a few times on a canoe trip and it came out fine.

If you're an exercise freak or need to time things for other reasons, there are three chronographs inside the watch face: one for minutes, one for seconds, and one for 1/20 of a second. There's also a large second hand on the main face that only comes on when you want it to and a calendar date window---handy when you've been on vacation and have lost track of the days.

As with most Expedition watches, this one has the cool Indiglo feature that allows you to check the time in the dark at the push of a button.

I've been trying this out for weeks now and have taken it on two trips. It feels great and though the Timex warranty is a skimpy one year, I get the sense that I'll still be using this Rugged Field watch a decade from now whenever I'm going hiking or biking.

Related posts:
Timex Expedition e-Compass Titanium
Tati Yes Watch

Subscribe to the Practical Travel Gear Blog

Dead Simple Data Backup from Rebit

We all know we need to back up our computer regularly. It becomes especially important if traveling with an easily-stolen laptop holding months' worth of precious photo memories, music, and video. But it's a hassle right? So most of us seldom get around to it.

I've been testing a new solution that has finally solved the problem for good. It's a small external hard drive called Rebit and here are the instructions. 1) Plug the USB cord into the Rebit and your computer. 2) Click "OK" when the prompts come up on your screen. 3) Go on with whatever you were doing.

Yes, it really is that easy. You can keep surfing the web or answering e-mail and the device backs up everything on your computer, with no effort on your part. After the first round---which for obvious reasons takes quite a few hours---it will then back up any changes you have made whenever you plug it in. Again, it does its thing in the background and purposely doesn't hog all your resources to slow you down. Then you can pull up Windows Explorer and voila---the hard drive has an exact image of your own computer, with all the data there as well as applications and e-mails.

The only bug I encountered was that my Dell with XP couldn't boot up with this plugged in. Tech support says this seems to be something in my hardware configuration; they hadn't encountered this before. I didn't care anyway since I would rather just let it catch up now and then than leave it plugged in all the time.

For now anyway the Rebit works only with PCs. The small ones appropriate for travel are available in capacities from 80GB ($169 list) to 160GB ($219 list). You can get higher capacity for a home PC, but the units are larger.

I can't remember the last time I was this thrilled with a piece of computer hardware. For once a company's marketing tag line is entirely accurate: "ridiculously simple backup." See more about how Rebit works and buy direct at the Rebit website.

Do You Know Anyone Actually Using a Kindle?

It finally happened last week. I spotted someone using the Sony version of an electronic book reader. I average two or three days a month in airports, but this is the first time I've ever seen an e-book reader in someone's hand instead of a real book or magazine. And I've been looking hard for that every time I travel.

Twice some PR person has sent me a pitch e-mail about the Sony Reader then has balked when I asked to see one and use it. Three times different PR people have approached me to write about the Amazon Kindle, then have found some excuse when I said, "Send one and I'll check it out." In both cases I offered to return it in a few weeks after putting it through its paces, but I got the e-mail equivalent of inaudible mumbling.

So I've never used a Kindle or a Sony Reader. But then again, I don't know anyone else who has either.

I find this story from Yahoo News (via Reuters) to be quite odd: a Citigroup investment analyst says he thinks Amazon will sell double the predicted number of expected units this year, as in 380,000 Kindles. Really?

He says the Kindle is turning out to be "the iPod of the book world." Really?! Even in the first few months it was out, when the inferior first generation was thicker and had extra buttons, I randomly saw people using an iPod and personally knew people who owned one. This thing's hype-launch lasted as long as the Democratic primaries yet even avid readers go "huh?" when I ask if they've heard of it. The only people who seem to know what it is are publishers, tech geeks, and authors, but even the people who would benefit are not sold on it. It's way too expensive, the books aren't cheap enough, it's still harder on your eyes than real paper, it's no fun to read in bed, and on and on.

Here's the quote at the top of Amazon's Kindle page: "'This is the future of book reading. It will be everywhere.' Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and Liar's Poker."

Everywhere? I'd just like to see it somewhere. So I ask you dear readers, have you used one? Has anyone you know used one? What did you/they think?

[UPDATE 8/25/08 - Amazon is giving $100 off if you sign up for their Chase credit card. That looks like a sly way to give a rebate without calling it a rebate, but now we're talking! Sign up here.]

Solar and Crank Radio Flashlight

I do more traveling than camping, but this past weekend I got out of the city and went on a fun canoe and camping trip with a bunch of friends. I got to use some of the gear I've reviewed before, including the mini candle lantern (nice), my shake flashlight (awesome), and even a spork.

This combo solar radio and crank flashlight from Gaiam.compictured here has been sitting in my basement in case a tornado hit, but I finally got to toss it into the car and get some use out of it. This item goes beyond "double duty," with a flashlight, flashing signal light, and radio. It can be powered by an A/C adapter, but that seems to defeat the purpose when you've already got a crank and a solar panel. I stuck it out in the sun for a while and then cranked it for half a minute for good measure. We used the flashlight all night without having to recrank it. The claim is that it will run 25 hours on a full charge.

The AM/FM radio sound could have been better in something that lists for $50 it seems: it sounds like your basic cheap transistor radio with a tuner that seems to drift off signal quite easily. Don't try to find a station when your hand is shaking. The whole thing is surprisingly light though, so there's the tradeoff.

The radio is good enough to provide some tunes without being plugged in though and you don't have to worry about the batteries giving out. When you're not using it, this item can also provide some peace of mind. Keep it in the trunk of your car or in your house and you know that no matter what happens to the power supply during a storm or a breakdown, you've got a light, a signal, and a way to hear the news.

By the way, this is post #200 on this travel gear blog. To catch all the new reviews, subscribe here.

Solutions to Airplane Pillow Woes

In the latest sign that nearly every U.S. airline has given up on making its customers remotely happy, JetBlue is now going to charge $7 for a blanket and pillow. I've got a better idea: either fly on Continental (where they're still free) or buy your own much nicer kit and keep it.

In the past I reviewed the great Pacn'Nap flight kit pictured here and it does a great job of solving both issues at once. It contains an inflatable pillow and a fleece blanket and it feels much nicer than what you're going to get on any plane in coach. You can get a very similar double-duty item from eBags from a different manufacturer: Foldable Blanket Pillow/Lumbar Cushion


If you don't care about the blanket and just want a pillow, you sure aren't hurting for choices. At REI.com for example there are 25 to choose from and at Backcountry.com there are even more.

Judging by what you see in airports and luggage stores, a lot of people go for the horseshoe-shaped pillows that conform to the neck, but they turn into useless baggage once you deplane. I prefer the idea of a regular-shaped pillow like this Comfort Plus pillow from Magellans because that can also be used in other circumstances, including when you need something under your butt for hard train/bus seats, watching a ball game, a hostel stay, whatever.

Cupcoats for Your Takeout Coffee

I am fortunate enough to have a coffee shop a block from my house that uses real mugs. The one a little further away in my neighborhood does not, however, nor does the landfill nightmare known as Starbucks. Plus if you're grabbing a coffee to go, you're stuck with a throwaway cup unless you've worked out a deal to fill up your own.

I always say that if every person changed a few insignificant regular habits, they could reduce their impact on the planet far more than by doing more hyped actions such as buying carbon offsets for a flight. Here's one that's dead easy: buy one of these cool Cupcoats to put around your take-out coffee instead of slapping on the cardboard sleeve you see everyone using. If you only buy one cup of coffee a week, that's 52 pieces of garbage avoided. If you pick up a cup every day---whoa Nellie! That's a lot of extra trash (and the fuel to manufacture and ship it) avoided.

These things actually feel better in your hand too, whether it's the soft cloth ones in groovy colors and patterns or the burlap ones made from recycled coffee bags. Yes, made from used coffee bean sacks; talk about appropriate recycling!

As best I can tell from the Cupcoat Expressions website, there are about 40 different designs to choose from, ranging from $7 to $9.50. They switch out designs seasonally though and you can order custom prints or logos for company swag or a charity event. Starbucks could do this too, I suppose, but they'd probably charge you $20 for one.

These reusable cup sleeves fit most 12 to 20 ounce cups, they're made in Canada, and are biodegradable. This item is right up there with the reusable grocery bag, compact flourescents, and rechargeable batteries: a no-brainer.

Search for more eco-friendly travel gear and gadgets at Gaiam.com

Sennheiser PXC 300 Noise Canceling Headphones

I have posted reviews of a few different earphone or earbud options on this travel gear blog. For most travelers, earbuds are the best option because they pack up so small and the right ones can passively block out a lot of noise over a wide frequency range. Some people are a lot more comfortable with regular headphones though, so these Sennheiser PXC 300 noise-cancellation ones manage to kick out a fantastic sonic experience but are not as bulky as the more popular Bose models.

These are good for travelers like the person who commented on my Koss earphones review -- people who find that earbuds get uncomfortable after a while. (I'd say though if you can wear squishy earplugs to bed and they don't bother you, you might have better luck with the Comply Noise Reducing Earplugs.)

The Sennheiser PXC300 headphones are wonders of technology, so they'll probably cost you at least $150. These use active noise cancellation, which means when you hit the button to turn on the battery pack, you not only pump up the volume but a lot of the extraneous noise around you gets cancelled out. Long explanation short, there's a little mic on the outside that picks up the noise around you and emits the opposite sound wave in your ear to neutralize it. Thus the "noise cancellation." It works best on long continuous hums though: airplane engine roars and the hiss of cabin ventilation systems---not that crying baby in the seat behind you.

Considering what they deliver, these are super-light and they only require two AAA batteries. They crank out incredible sound whether you've got the very best iPod or the very cheapest MP3 player. A little jamming and cord wrapping is required to get both the headphones and the battery pack into the too-simple soft carrying case, but once that's done it's a little larger than a portable hard drive or a bit smaller than a mass-market paperback. Also included are adapters for a regular stereo jack and the two-pronged audio outlets on many airplanes. Plus they come with a 2-year warranty.

The technical specs on these Sennheiser headphones are comparable to rival models costing far more and unlike models from some competitors, these will still work passively when the batteries run out of power. You just won't get the incredible bass response you do with the juice flowing. If you spend a lot of time shuttling around on airplanes and are willing to make a little extra room in your bag, these headphones will deliver a great listening experience and help shut out some of the ambient noise around you.

Get the Sennheiser PXC 300 headphones from Amazon