Posts Tagged cheap and light
These Chums Will Help You Keep Your Glasses
The main excuse people give for not buying quality sunglasses is usually this: “I always lose them, so I’m afraid to spend a lot.”
Hey, I’ve said the same thing myself in the past. (Ditto for expensive leather gloves and fancy umbrellas.) There’s nothing worse than losing something nice, as opposed to something cheap and crappy you don’t care about.
There’s one way to better the odds of holding onto good sunglasses though, or your real glasses if that’s the case. You can use an eyewear retainer from Chums. You hook something onto the stems that allows the glasses to hang around your neck. So on or off your face, they’re still on your person.
“But those things are so dorky” or “Do I look like a surfer?” I can hear you saying. Well, there are probably a lot more of these eyewear retainer styles than you thought. The past few weeks I’ve been using a new $10 model from Chums, the ultra light Orbiter. You can barely see them in that photo at the top. That’s because they’re made of very thin coiled wire. They weigh in at less than a gram. A gram! Little rubber nubs on the end stretch to go over the tips of any glasses stems. You forget they’re there until you need them and they’re inconspicuous.
There’s what they call a “halo effect” too, which means they extend a bit to the back and stay off your head. That’s good I guess, but maybe not if you’re trying to lean your head back on a beach chair or someone walks up behind you and gets a wire in the face. Being made of metal, the Orbiter can also get a bit chilly in the cold: better for summer than on the slopes.
If you want something more traditional, you can get other eyeglass retainers in cotton, rope, or neoprene. If you’re a surfer or kayaker, you can even get a floating version.
I also hooked up a kids’ version to the first pair of sunglasses my daughter has ever worn that are worth more than $10. So far she’s gone a month without losing them, which is close to a new record. A highly recommended $6 investment for your junior traveler(s). You gotta like their promise on the package too. It says “Proven to withstand 1) white water rafting, 2) 200 mph freefalls, 3) 10-year-old on sugar.
And here’s something you don’t see often on products retailing for a few bucks: “Home grown in the USA.”
See the whole line at Chums.com
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Kids and Family on February 24th, 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
Stuff Sack Eco-friendly Items From ChicoBag
Sometimes we get our hands on something that is downright perfect for our reviews on Practical Travel Gear: lightweight, easy to pack, eco-friendly, useful, and inexpensive. What else can you ask?
So naturally I was all over the items from ChicoBag: various kinds of bags that weigh almost nothing, pack up small, and use recycled materials. The company started out with the ever-more-common (thankfully) reusable shopping bag that packs down into its own pouch, but they have taken it many steps further.
This past week I’ve been trying out a cool messenger bag that slings over my shoulder when I’m riding a bike or walking to the store. It packs into a pouch (with room to spare) that’s a good bit smaller than a mass-market paperback book. It has a carabiner on the side for hanging it. When you unfold it, however, it’s a fully functional messenger bag with a strong and roomy interior, a front zipper pocket, and two stretchy side pockets that will each hold a water bottle. The strap has two adjustment buckles.
It proved itself to be quite strong in my tests and it’s made from durable recycled PET ripstop fabric. Fabric you can wash in a machine I might add. That’s just the start though on an item that is comprised of 80% recycled materials. We’re talking fabric and webbing that are 100% Recycled PET, airmesh and strap liner that are 100% Recycled Polypropylene, a carabiner that’s 97% Recycled Aluminum, and hardware that is 100% recycled nylon. (Apparently the zippers and flap magnets are the weak point making up the lost 20% in the reuse chain.)
I haven’t traveled anywhere with this bag yet, but it’s coming with me for sure on my next trip. For anyone who doesn’t normally take their laptop outside of the hotel room, this would be a great bag to bring along for daily sightseeing. When you’re heading home, just pack it up in its pouch again. It only adds a mere 5.6 ounces to your load and can even fit in a little bike seat pocket.
ChicoBag makes lots of other cool items too in a variety of fun colors. I tried out a water bottle carrier made of the same materials and packing up into a much smaller integrated pouch. Later this year the water carriers will go on sale at some retailers packed together with a Kleen Kanteen water bottle, around $20 combined. The carrier has a pouch for money or ID and another for “pen, chopsticks, and lip balm.” Chopsticks? Well, okay, if you say so.
All of their products come with a one-year warranty and are attractively priced, like only $18 for the messenger bag and $20 for the daypack pictured here. Most of their fun recycled material shopping bags are $5-$10.
Who says you have to be rich or inconvenienced to pack light and lower your impact on the planet? See all the available styles, colors, and prints at ChicoBag.com.
You can also find their products in stock at REI and Amazon.
Related reviews:
UltraSil Daypack
Flip and Tumble Bag
Tom Bihn Packable Daypack
RuMe Reusable Bags
Posted by Tim in General Gear, Kids and Family, Travel Light on February 3rd, 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
International Adventure Maps from National Geographic
Will “corner of the map” become an anachronism in the digital age? I hope not, because no matter how good the online maps get, they’re never going to be as user-friendly as a paper one you spread out on the table when dreaming and planning. This is especially true when you’re off the grid in international destinations. Good luck getting “street view” directions for the countryside around Uxmal or trying to get insight from Google Earth on the screwed-up, no-signs roads of Costa Rica. And at $11.95, this is a whole lot cheaper than daily GPS rental charges from Hertz—if that’s even an option where you’re going.
Unlike with most online maps, these have little icons to tell you where the beaches, surf breaks, fishing spots, snorkeling spots, and best windsurfing areas are—from one side of the Yucatan to the other. Every lighthouse, airport, and gas station too. The back side breaks down the most important archeological sites.
These are not fragile AAA maps, however. They’re waterproof, tear resistant, and “GPS compliant with a full UTM grid.” So there, you can have it both ways.
See more information on any of the adventure maps at www.natgeomaps.com
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear on January 10th, 2010
