Posts Tagged hiking
ExOfficio Insect Shield Halo Shirt Keeps the Mozzies Away
Mozzies? Well if you travel internationally in the tropics, you hear that word a lot—a slang term for mosquitoes—often accompanied by some kind of swear word. When you’re in a place with hungry mosquitoes it’s always annoying, but when those bugs carry malaria or dengue fever, you need an arsenal of weapons to stay healthy.
This Halo Check shirt with Insect Shield takes ExOfficio’s usual double-duty usefulness to a higher level, hitting all the right points for active travelers and keeping the bugs away as well. This fabric treatment is a no-brainer really once you get past the cost: there’s no odor, no harm to your skin, and no change to the feel of the fabric. Yet it holds up for 70 washings or so. I don’t know about you, but there are very few items of travel clothing I own that have been washed that many times.
The shirt itself has most of the attributes I love from ExOfficio . It’s lightweight nylon that doesn’t wrinkle, it dries quickly after a sink washing, it’s ventilated, and there’s a 30+ SPF sun protection. Provided you’re not in a place that’s super hot and humid, it’ll wick away the sweat. With the color I tried out—the khaki checked one—it doesn’t show sweaty areas too badly either.
As usual, there are lots of nice thoughtful extra features built in as well. It has snaps instead of buttons, which I really like. A mesh liner extends much of the way down the inside. There’s a 
fabric hook on the back for hanging it up and a flap and snap system to hold the sleeves up when you roll them up. (Rolled up during the day when the mosquitoes aren’t around, down at night to protect the arms.) Each breast pocket has a regular pocket and a handy zippered hidden pocket for stashing some cash or a credit card.
This is a great all-around, double-duty travel shirt that should keep looking good for years and keep the mosquitoes away for however long it takes you to wear it enough to need to wash it 70 times. It lists for $90, but prices will vary depending on who is selling it and what colors aren’t moving. As I wrote this, some colors were selling for around $50, so shop around.
There’s a version for women and a version for men, some in solid colors, others in checked patterns.
See more at the source, ExOfficio.com: Halo Check Shirt for Men and Halo Check Shirt for Women
Get the ExOfficio Halo shirt at Amazon.
ExOfficio Insect Shield Halo Check Shirt – Men’s or Women’s at REI.
Check prices at Magellan’s – Halo ExOfficio shirt
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Travel Light on July 15th, 2010
Adventure Medical Kits for Travelers
So, what happens when you’re traveling around and you get blisters? Or have a bike wreck? Or get bit by some nasty critter while camping?
The Adventure Medical Kit company has your remedy. I’ve been checking out two of their medical kits, one a simple Travel Medic weekender, one a major World Travel kit for a group or family that will have you ready for a hike through the Amazon.
The first picture here is of the latter, a packed 1.8 pound, $70 sack of insurance that is right for someone who wants to be prepared for any situation. I’m not sure I would want to carry this around the world, but I sure hope my guide is carrying something like it when I’m on an adventure tour, a trekking trip, or a river rafting excursion. I also wouldn’t mind having a doctor along to use it all, but in case I don’t there’s a handy little book that tells you how to do a proper bandaging job and which medicines to use in which situations.
So what’s in it? Well here’s a small sampling: bandage scissors, thermometers, wound closure strips, 10 yards of tape, bandages, dressing, rehydration salts, topical antibiotic, moleskin, sterile gloves, tick remover forceps, syringe, painkillers, and “wound closure strips.” Overkill for a trip to Paris, sure, but good to have if you’ll be in the wilderness for a while, hours away from a pharmacy.
The kit is impressively designed and has an amazing amount of stuff packed into its small package. Plus there are a few empty bottles you can fill with whatever else you need, in small enough sizes that the whole thing can go in your carry-on.
If you are just traveling through populated areas and just need a few basics, you can pick up the tiny Travel Medic kit for ten bucks or less. It has enough to get you through minor scrapes and cuts, a bout of the runs, hiking blisters, or a wicked hangover. It folds flat and takes up almost no space in your bag, so this is a good thing to pack for yourself or to give as a gift to an about-to-depart traveler.
Travel Medic First-Aid Kit at REI.
Get the full-blown Adventure World Travel First-Aid Kit
See other options at AdventureMedicalKits.com
Related post: Women’s Edition Travel Medical Kit
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Kids and Family on June 30th, 2010
Heavy-duty Travel Watch: Timex Expedition E-Altimeter
After trying a lot of watch brands over the years, I have found that few come anywhere close to matching the value of the Timex Expedition ones. This is especially true if you like analog watches rather than digital ones. Now Timex has come out with one that is an altimeter watch, but still retains the hands instead of a display. This Expedition E-altimeter model feels like a hand-crafted analog watch instead of something cranked out on an Asian production line.
Some altimeter watches, like the Casio PAW-2000 one I reviewed earlier, tell you your altitude, but they also throw in a whole bunch of other features that may or may not be useful. On this E-altimeter one, you don’t have so many buttons to mess with because the functions have been kept in check: time, Indiglo illumination, altimeter, and a second hand. (If you want the full-blown feature set, go for the E-Tide Temp Compass line, which has high and low tide, temperature, and compass readings.)
This is one rugged and hefty-feeling watch—as in 10 ounces on your wrist. This probably makes it better for mountaineering, trekking, or skiing than something like rock climbing. Made in Germany with engineered analog parts, this is no throwaway timepiece. It’s water-resistant to 100 meters and has a stainless steel case with mineral glass crystal.
The altimeter has an operating range of -400 to 25,000 feet (-120 to 7,600 meters). It can record high and low 
altitudes within a specific time period. You need to read the instruction manual to calibrate the altitude and figure out the display mode for the altitude, plus you can set it to read in either feet or meters.
Basically, to read the altitude, you look at where two different hands end up, one for every 1,000, one for the hundreds. This may be a little more cryptic than a simple digital display, but it sure looks less geeky when you’re wearing it around outside of base camp. The one I have been trying has the yellow strap pictured at the top, but there are other choices like the black strap one pictured to the side, as well as ones with a metal or leather strap. All retail for less than $200, with prices dipping down to around $160 for some variations.
This is a large and heavy watch with heft, priced a good hundred bucks above some other Expedition models, but the altimeter performed very accurately in my tests and the E-altimeter watch looks and feels like something costing much more. Consider this a high-end adventure watch at not such a high price.
See more at the Timex E-altimeter site.
Get it at Amazon in a yellow silicone strap style, a black silicone strap style, or a leather strap on a cream and silver version.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear on June 24th, 2010
New SteriPen Adventurer Opti Model Review
In my section of our best and worst travel gear of 2009 post I raved about the SteriPen, classifying it as the product I’d most likely be talked into doing infomercials for—that’s how much I like it. At the Outdoor Retailers show this past January I swung by the parent company’s booth and saw that they had a new model coming out: the SteriPen Adventurer Opti with a built-in L.E.D. light. They sent me one to check out just as it’s hitting the shelves, so here’s my pseudo-infomercial as a demo.
You don’t want to overhaul a product that’s already working well, so thankfully this new version is just an upgrade. The shape, weight, and functionality are the same. What has changed is the addition of a single L.E.D. light. That helps guide you when you’re purifying water in the dark or conversely if you’re having a hard time seeing that it’s working in very bright light. 
It also works as a flashlight in a pinch, if you hold down the single button for three seconds to make it stop flashing, so it now qualifies as double-duty gear.
The SteriPen Adventurer was already a wonder, enabling travelers to avoid chucking hundreds of single-use plastic water bottles into landfills or into the rivers that flow into our oceans. You can’t drink the water in some countries, but that doesn’t mean you can’t carry your own bottle and refill it. Just zap it with this—48 seconds for a half liter, 90 seconds for a liter—and you’re good to go. The ultraviolet light kills any and all microbes.
Everyone I know that travels with one of these raves about it. They may have been skeptical at first, but when you’ve traveled through nine developing countries like I have without getting one case of the runs, you tend to become convinced. My daughter drank water purified with a SteriPen in Mexico (four times), Guatemala, and Belize and stayed healthy too. So did my wife, so three for three.
This item is no trouble to pack as it only weighs 3.6 ounces including the batteries and it’s compact. It comes with disposable batteries that will last about 100 purification sessions. Once those wear out, you can be more eco-friendly by using rechargeable ones. In the video posted above I show off the solar charger accessory you can buy that also doubles as a padded carrying case. It takes about eight hours for the batteries to fully charge, but you can go for 50-60 sessions before you need to do it again.
This product retails for around $100, which is more than a bulky pump, but not unreasonable considering you never have any filters or parts to replace. Even putting aside the question of you personally wrecking the environment by buying throwaway water bottles your whole vacation, do the math on the ROI. You’ll see it doesn’t take too many trips for the SteriPen Adventurer Opti to pay for itself compared to continually buying liter after liter of water in convenience stores and restaurants. After all, tap water is still free most places.
Stop thinking about it and go buy one. The planet will thank you and eventually so will your wallet.
Get the Adventurer Opti at Backcountry.com
Get it at REI.com
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Kids and Family on May 12th, 2010
Air Strip Lite Shirt – a Travel Clothing Classic
ExOfficio’s Air Strip Lite shirt was a revolution when it first came out and it was embraced by frequent travelers like geeks embraced the iPhone. OK, so maybe nobody lined up at stores to get the 2.0 version, but now it’s hard to go anywhere that attracts adventure travelers and not see at least one person wearing one of these shirts around. Considering how much travel apparel there is for sale in your average outdoor gear and clothing store, that’s an impressive feat.
There are a lot of good reasons for this fandom so devoted that people write whole magazine articles about traveling with this one shirt, write about it in their books, or do blog posts gushing about how much they love it. For one thing, these Air Strip Lite shirts still look great after multiple sink washings, days of hacking through the jungle, and rafting down rivers in the sun. I bought one back in 2008 and reviewed it on the old version of this blog a few months later. About 20 trips later, it still looks as good as the new model ExOfficio sent me lately to check out, the one pictured here.
Lots of cool features make this shirt worth the money, the first one being that it’s super-light and dries quickly. It’s moisture wicking, it protects you from the sun, and the Dryflylite fabric’s claim says, “So light you might forget you’re wearing it!” You also might forget because it’s comfortable. This is not some clingy fabric that sticks to your skin and makes you sweat even harder.
But then you start really looking at this shirt and realizing how many thoughtful designs are built into it. There’s a ventilation system that does a surprisingly good job of letting body heat and moisture out through the hidden mesh along the sides and the back in line with the shoulders. Two gusseted chest pockets have Velcro flaps to keep your sunglasses from falling out and one has a hidden zipper pocket for cash or a credit card. There’s a little loop above one pocket, also with Velcro, for securing a tool, glasses, or a pen. The sleeves can be rolled up and then buttoned above the elbow as the day gets hotter and a loop on the back is handy for hanging it to dry after a washing.
What’s new about this year’s model? Not much, which is a good thing. Don’t tinker with what’s working well. The only noticeable difference is the new one I’ve been wearing is slightly lighter than the one I bought a few years ago. The long-sleeve men’s version weighs all of six ounces. The thinner fabric seems to breathe a bit better too, but that could be my imagination. 
The ExOfficio Air Strip Lite shirt has spawned a hundred imitators, some of them probably now its equal, but if you want to make the no-brainer choice and be sure it’ll work out well, get one or two of these shirts and you’ll find yourself packing them over and over again. They come in 12 different colors and several patterns too, so you don’t have to dress just in “I’m on safari” khaki. The women’s version is naturally trimmer, with smaller pockets.
You can get all varieties of the Air Strip Lite shirt for men and women at the ExOfficio site, where list price is $85 but slow-moving colors are frequently discounted. You’ll get Free Shipping On Orders Over $50.
Or check prices at REI, Backcountry.com and Rock Creek.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on April 15th, 2010
