Design Awards for Gear that Works

I almost fell off my chair when I looked at Travel + Leisure's 2009 Design Awards in their March issue. They managed to slide in a few expensive items from potential advertisers as "honorable mentions," but amazingly the most expensive gear item winner was a $225 bag and two items were under a hundred bucks.

The bag was in the "best luggage" category and indeed it does look pretty cool. It's the Hydro Sports Water-resistant T-Tech Backpack from Tumi.

Best Travel Accessory was this pair of Melissa Shoes pictured here. They pack easily, look interesting, and are 100% recyclable. At $79 retail, they seem pretty practical to me.

Amazingly, a $30 coat made the cut, and from Wal-mart no less. It's the Norma Kamali Trench Coat and I have to say it looked better in the magazine than many others costing 10 or 20 times as much.

The last two items I have reviewed and used myself. The Flip Video Camera got the nod, though I reviewed the older version, not the Mino. For $180 retail, it's a dead simple way to shoot video and it stores an hour's worth of footage.

The other item I've raved about for years and I would argue it's probably the greatest invention to come along in a decade for travelers: the Steripen water purifier. It's small, it's effective, and it helps save the planet. Obviously, it's well-designed enough to get the notice of these critics as well.

Good stuff! You can see more in a slideshow here.


Get the SteriPEN Adventurer Ultraviolet Water Purifier

Vite Plus Steel BPA-free Steel Water Bottle from Bilt

Ever since word got out that the ingredient BPA in plastic water bottles could possibly be harmful, there's been a spike in demand for alternatives. I reviewed the cool Sigg aluminum metal water bottle a while back and now there's a sleek new line of steel alternatives from Bilt.

The FDA says there's no real risk, but many consumers have obviously gone with the "better safe than sorry" approach. Now even if you think the BPA fears are a bunch of hooey and you come from the "that which does not kill you makes you stronger" camp, these Bilt bottles are attractive and functional enough that you would use them anyway. I've been trying out the Vite Plus one this week and really like it. It feels good in the hand (with finger indentations on the side), it's got good water flow because of a small valve on the top, and no additional tastes come through from the container. I haven't taken it mountain biking, but this model would be good for that since it has a pop-off covering for the spout that goes into your mouth.

If you do worry about the trace elements in a plastic bottle, the Bilt metal ones will ease your mind. Here's the official set of specs: "All Bilt Stainless Steel water bottles are made with a premium food-grade type 304 stainless steel containing 18% chromium and 8% nickel. This material is chosen for its consistent quality and performance characteristics of not leaching chemicals, staining, corroding or rusting. The inside of Bilt bottles are finished using an electrolyte charge and dolomitic sand blasting; unlike aluminum bottles that need an inner coating lacquer containing BPA."

These bottles don't come with the whimsical artistic variety Sigg offers and you can't just toss the whole thing in the recycling bin later like you can with those (part of this bottle is #5 plastic), but at $11 to $17, these less expensive Bilt water bottles are nice worry-free items that will last for years of heavy use and adventures. And they're easier to drink out of when you're in motion. Plus these have a wide mouth, so if you use this in your travels with a water purifier from Steripen, you won't have to fill up landfills with plastic disposable bottles.

Check the Bilt store locater

Find BPA-Free Bilt Water Bottles at REI

SteriPEN is Brilliant!

Sometimes an item comes along that elegantly and completely solves a traveler's problem, rendering everything else a clumsy alternative. The problem? Local water that you can't drink without getting sick, but plastic water bottle alternatives that are expensive, wasteful, and an environmental nightmare.

Enter the Steripen. Yeah, you can buy some kind of pump with filters you need to replace or a water bottle where you suck through a charcoal mechanism, but overall they're a pain and they take up too much room. This travel SteriPEN, in contrast, is compact and is a technological wonder. You just turn it on, stick it in water, and a minute later the possibly scary liquid in front of you is water you can drink without worry.

I just used one for the past two weeks in Guatemala and not only did this keep me from buying and wasting a big pile of plastic that would spoil the countryside, but it kept me and my family healthy too. Not even the slightest case of the runs. The batteries I had in there didn't run out, but if you are on some kind of backwoods expedition or on extended travels, you can buy a cool solar charger accessory that will (slowly) recharge standard re-useable batteries.

The drawbacks? Well, this breakthrough doesn't come cheap. I could easily argue that it will pay for itself financially over a year and the psychic baggage you drop is worth something, but the upfront investment is around $130 without the charger, which is another $50. Plus the travel SteriPEN water purifier won't fit into the nozzle of a regular commercial bottled water container or a the cool Sigg bottles, so if you are carrying one of those you'll have to borrow a pitcher or a Nalgene wide-mouth bottle for the purifying stage.

Small prices to pay for saving the world if you ask me, so follow this link and do a search at REI.com or buy it here directly from Amazon.

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.

Water Bottle That's Also a Water Filter

If you want to carry a water filter around for basic travel, as opposed to days in the wilderness, one of the best bets is a water bottle that has a built-in filter. This way you're just carrying a regular water bottle around--which you probably would anyway in hot countries--but you just fill it up and go. Nothing to pump: your mouth does the work.

I used a version of this on three round-the-world trips and almost never got sick. It keeps you from having to have bottled water on hand just to brush your teeth and you don't add mounds of plastic to the world's landfills every time you need to get hydrated.

The Katadyn Micro Microfilter Water Bottle pictured here is $29.90 at Backcountry.com and that's pretty average. Sometimes you can find them on sale for less or different brands on a closeout.

Water Purification Tablets - No Iodine Taste

Water is the source of life and you need lots of water when you're traveling. Especially if you are hiking, biking---or just walking in a place like Egypt. But the collective plastic water bottles that tourists throw in the garbage each day is an environmental catastrophe, especially in countries with no recycling. If you want to keep hydrated without killing the land we live on, carry a pump or use some purification tablets.

I hate carrying more than I have to, so the purification tablets are the usual solution. The iodine ones are cheap and available anywhere, but pretty nasty tasting. If you pay a bit more and get the Micropur ones, the water tastes good and it doesn't even turn pink. They come in a package of 30, enough for 30 liters. If you buy them from Amazon or Magellan's, you'll pay $10-$15. If you can find them where you're going, however, you'll often pay less. I got my last packet for $7 in Cusco, Peru. Then you can fill up whatever bottle you have on you with whatever water is around, let it sit for a while, and then you're good to go.