Posts Tagged camping
BPA-free Water Bottles From Innate
In a sea of water bottles it’s hard to stand out, but in my experience the ones from Innate are rugged and work well for travelers.
With a kid and a personal trainer wife in the house, I have tried out more than my fair share of water bottles over the years. The Innate ones haven’t let me down. I always carry a water bottle with me when I travel internationally and use it in conjunction with a Steripen to avoid fouling the Earth and oceans with more single-use plastic. (For more on that nastiness, see the 5 Gyres Project site.)
For any traveler who cares even a little bit about the destruction of the planet, a water bottle is essential gear. It is worthy of a decent investment, especially if you want to avoid the potential effects of BPA, found in many hard plastic bottles. The science is not all that convincing on the dangers of BPA for adults, in my opinion, but better safe than sorry and besides, one of these stainless steel water bottles from Innate could last you for 20 vacations or a trip around the world—not bad for something that lists for $12-$20. When you’re done, you recycle it. 
I especially like this Vite Plus V2 version pictured top left. It holds 22 ounces, has a vented drinking spout, there are indentations on the sides for your fingers, and a loop on the top for holding it or pulling it out of your carrier (like this Cruising Caddy I reviewed before.) Plus it has something you don’t get from some brands like Sigg: a large opening at the top so you can use a Steripen purifier. For me, this is the complete package, leaving me wanting for nothing.
Innate makes a variety of other styles though, like the Mizu one pictured on the right and a few monster bottles like the Mega Fresco that hold 40 ounces. Plus there are some smaller kid-friendly versions. All are made from food-grade stainless steel sourced from Korea for high quality consistency. They also make some double-walled vacuum versions for keeping hot coffee hot or cold wine cold. I wasn’t real thrilled with the placement of the handle and button on the Kaze vacuum mug I reviewed last year, but without the handle it works great and keeps coffee hot for 10 hours.
You can get Innate products at your local gear shop or online at REI and Backcountry.com.
Posted by Tim in General Gear, Kids and Family on March 11th, 2010
Brunton Restore Portable Solar Power Supply
If we’re not all charging up our music players and cell phones with solar power, it’s not for lack of trying on the part of device manufacturers. Some of these solar devices actually work quite well too, like this portable power supply from Brunton.
The first idea here is you can charge it up at home or in a car ahead of time, like the iGo Power Extender and CallPod Fueltank Charger we reviewed before. Then you take it with you on a trip, using it to charge up your devices when you can’t get near an outlet, like on a plane or bus.
This goes a big step further though. The second idea is to use it as a solar charger when you are on a long camping or mountaineering trip off the grid. With the Brunton Restore and ample sunlight, you can restore your devices to full power. If it’s fully charged, it’ll reload your iPod or regular cell phone two or three times. It’ll fully charge a smart phone or gaming device one or two times. It has enough juice to recharge four AA batteries and can recharge your Bluetooth headset seven to eight times. For an iPod, one hour of sun equals six or seven hours of music—that is far superior to what most other competitors promise.
I left the unit in the sun for seven hours and it was all charged up—I could tell from the handy 4-light LED system. I was then able to fully charge my iPod twice and a half-empty phone and still have juice left in it.
This Brunton version is a bit heavier than some others I’ve tried, at 7.2 ounces, but it’s rubberized and really solid. It feels like it could be dropped off a roof and survive. It’s water resistant too. It flips open too and exposes two rather large panels, making it easier to operate (especially with one hand) than the three-panel Solio charger I’ve tried before.
There’s a handy design to this whereby you can plug in a USB cord to charge up anything attached to that, or you can pull out the male USB plug and insert it into the device. Or pull out the other end of the cable instead and it goes into a mini-USB slot like you see on Google phones and the SlotPlayer for example. There’s an adapter for micro USB as well, which other devices use. So basically you’re okay charging up any music player, communication device or camera, provided it uses some version of USB.
“But Tim, my damned Nokia phone and my damned Samsung phone need different adapters than these!” Well, there’s the biggest drawback with this. Eventually we’ll get to a happy place where every device shares the same standard charger setup, but until that time you have to keep fooling with tips and adapters. Brunton doesn’t offer any help in that department, so if your device doesn’t come with some kind of USB charger, you’re SOL unless you can find some adapter on eBay that will do the trick. For Apple devices, you’ll have to bring along the USB cord to connect the device to a USB port on the charger.
The Restore retails for around $90, but the packaging says it’ll give you the output equivalent of 1,372 AA batteries. You can use this charger 500 times before the internal battery will wear out, which is probably plenty for a lifetime unless you’re a hermit moving to Death Valley. If you’ll be in the wilderness or you’re just a backpacker who will be in a place where sunshine is far more prevalent than reliable electricity, this is a solid solar charger that really works.
Get the Brunton Restore Portable Power Device at REI.com
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear on March 4th, 2010
Portable Speaker Kit From Eagle’s Nest Outfitters
We’re suckers for portable travel speakers here at the Practical Travel Gear blog because hey, music is best when it’s shared. If you’re in a nice luxury hotel with an iPod/MP3 dock that’s easy enough, but it’s not so likely when you’re paying $20 a night for your digs or you’re camping somewhere.
Speakers for travelers have to be easy to pack though, which leads to all kinds of variations on size and weight reduction. This version takes the case approach: the speakers are built into a case that also holds your music player and cords. It zips up tight so your player is protected in a semi-hard case. When you’re ready to crank the tunes, you unzip it, turn both the player and the speakers on, and you’re set.
Eagle’s Nest Outfitters is a company best known for its great hammocks that pack up small. I’ll be reviewing one of those when this damn snow stops and the flowers start blooming in the south. They put out a line of accessories you would want to take along for your chillin’ time though and this is one of those.
As with most all of these portable speakers, there’s a major trade-off when it comes to sound quality. Labeling this as a “Hi-Fi Speaker Case” doesn’t make it so. On the plus side you get the separate stereo channels you don’t hear with the likes of the one-speakers solutions we have reviewed (see links at the end). On the minus side, the usual lack of bass response is joined by noticeable distortion, especially at a volume level that goes past halfway. On a sliding scale, electronica sounds best, followed by country/Americana, classic rock, and jazz. Anything dominated by a heavy bass and vocals mixed way up front—like rap—ends up sounding pretty lousy, even after tweaking your iPod’s EQ.
The thing is, they’re not alone in these deficiencies. For 25 bucks and eight ounces of weight, what can you reasonably expect? This “hi-fi” speaker case is not going to fill a large room with crystal-clear sound. What it will do is accompany your campfire weenie roasting or provide some musical accompaniment as you play backgammon in a cheap guesthouse room. For most of the time when you’re traveling, that’s good enough. It uses two AA batteries too, which makes things easy. The specs say the batteries will last 7 to 12 hours and I’m already at 11 in my testing, with rechargeable batteries I’ve used at least 20 times already, so this set of speakers is definitely efficient.
Shop for the Eagle’s Nest portable speaker case at Rock/Creek,
Related reviews:
Sony Ericsson MS410
iHome IHM7 mini speaker
X-mini capsule speaker
Posted by Tim in General Gear, Kids and Family, Travel Light on February 17th, 2010
Women’s Edition Travel Medical Kit
About a dozen years ago, when my husband and I were packing for our first-ever camping trip together, I asked him where his first-aid kit was. He looked at me like a deer in headlights. Needless to say, my husband does not live the Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared.”
I bought myself a soft-sized travel first-aid kit soon after that weekend getaway, and have brought it on many of our adventures since then. (I’d check the brand, but it’s buried in the confines of my winterized RV.) Though I’ve (frankly) made little dent in its contents, I know that if I’ve got a burn, blister or bite to deal with on family camping trips, I’ll be the parent to come to the rescue with the proper ointment or bandage.
Now I’ve got first-aid goodies to call my own, with the Women’s Edition Travel Medical Kit from Adventure Medical Kits. This company makes dozens of first-aid kits specifically designed for various types of travelers, adventurers and sports enthusiasts — from mountaineers to paddlers to hunters.
Decidedly non-prissy (and not pink!) the Women’s Edition Travel Medical Kit contains a typical supply list you’d find in any travel first-aid kit — such as bandages, gauze, painkillers, moleskin, antidiarrheal medicine and antibiotic ointment — but also items geared just for the girls, such as tampons and cramp-relief remedies. I’m also partial to its compact-size, 200-page “A Comprehensive Guide to Wilderness & Travel Medicine” as well as the “Visual Communication Tool” chart: if you find yourself in a foreign country and unable to communicate to medical personnel there, you can point to images to explain, say, that you’ve been bitten by a dog or that you’re allergic to bees.
The kit — which measures about 7 x 5 x 3 inches when full — is meant to be used among up to four women on a multi-day trip, but it does contain many small, one-use items, so you’ll need to refill the kit as you go through them. And of course, you could just compile your own travel medical kit from items you already have in your medicine cabinet (it would certainly be cheaper to make your own), but my guess your homemade kit would be much bulkier than this one.
For one-stop-shopping, I give this Women’s Edition Travel Medical Kit a thumb’s up for it’s handy, streamlined case, valuable medical guide, and extra pockets to supply your own items if you like.
Purchase the kit online at Adventure Medical Kits for $60. Better yet, check out Amazon.com: right now it’s selling for only $33.60 — a relative bargain!
Related Posts:
Posted by Kara in Adventure Gear, Kids and Family, Travel Light on February 5th, 2010
Multifunctional Screwpop Can Fly With You
I started Practical Travel Gear at the end of 2005 (see the archives here) to be an antidote to the splashy reviews I was seeing in magazines. I thought there needed to be a place where $5 items got more play than ones that were $5,000.
That hasn’t changed, so I present to you the $4.95 Screwpop. It’s simple, effective, multi-functional, and cheap. That may not get the folks at Outside magazine excited, but I think this is a great item for people who are average travelers and not cliff-scaling superheroes.
This ingenious little gadget gives you four things: a Phillips screwdriver, a regular screwdriver, a lug nut wrench, and then one thing for when you’re done using the others—a bottle opener. I haven’t had a need for the 1/4-inch hex nut part since the Screwpop people sent me this thingy a few weeks ago, but I have successfully used the other three items. I tightened a loose door handle with the Phillips #2 tip, put something together with the #2 screwdriver tip, and successfully opened six beers along the way.
The two screwdriver tips are on the same insert: you pull it out and flip it around to use the other. The part that surrounds it is the wrench. The bottle opener can also double as a keychain, though obviously you need a little more dexterity to open the bottles with a whole ring of keys on there. (If you can no longer get it to open a bottle, that may be a sign you’ve had too many, so think of it as a built-in tester too.)
Since there is no knife on here, even the most dim-witted TSA agent should let it through in your carry-on bag. It’s made of a chrome-plated zinc alloy, but is relatively light at less than an ounce and a half.
You can order these direct at Screwpop.com and they’ll ship five for the same shipping price as one. Or look for them at hardware and camping stores as the company ramps up their distribution.
Posted by Tim in General Gear, Travel Light on January 27th, 2010
