Posts Tagged travel clothing
ExOfficio Quick-dry Neptune Long-sleeve Tee
As this dreadful winter comes to a close, I can finally turn my attention to the pile of spring clothing I’ve been itching to get to for weeks now, starting with this great long-sleeve Neptune Crew t-shirt from ExOfficio. I’ve been wearing this biking, hiking, and walking around town and have found a new clothing item to put at the top of my packing list.
For me, a long-sleeve t-shirt is ideal to pack for a variety of trips in any season. Unless it’s blazing hot in the tropics, you can use one on a regular basis—even then if you’re trying to cut down on the amount of sunscreen you’re using. Apart from a whole host of other attributes, this lightweight shirt also manages a 30 SPF in sun protection. You can wear it under another shirt for days thanks to its Nanoplex od0r-fighting properties. And of course it’s a great shirt for active adventures since it wicks sweat easily, is lightweight, and dries quickly after a hand washing.
This Neptune tee has been performing really well in my tests and I can’t wait to take in on a long multi-day biking trip I’m taking next week. It’s going to be one of the wondergear items that allows me to ride for days with all my clothing in a small backpack. I like the way it feels on my body and it’s flattering—as in accenting the form, but not so snug it shows every bulge. There’s no tag behind the neck and flatlock stitching keeps it all smooth. It breathes well and the people can still breathe around me after a workout: as with the Spyder baselayer I reviewed earlier, I put this Neptune to the test by wearing for days on end before throwing it in the hamper for a wash. 
When I took it out of the washing machine, I put it in the sun and it was dry in less than an hour. A few hours should do it in a hotel room, so you can wash it before going to bed and have it ready to go in the morning.
My version is the darkest color available, yet it doesn’t turn many shades darker when it gets sweaty—my only beef with the short-sleeve ExO Dri Tee I reviewed last year. This shirt is wispy, but based on all the other ExOfficio warm-weather gear I’ve tried out it should be pretty indestructible: you can machine wash and dry it with no harm.
The Neptune Crew comes in three colors in addition to the two pictured here and lists for $54. (Sometimes you can find certain colors or sizes that aren’t selling well marked down on the ExOfficio site or at REI.com.)
Browse more items from ExOfficio or see more of our ExOfficio travel clothing reviews.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on March 10th, 2010
Get a Free No-stink Wicking Shirt
There’s a company called Agion that supplies antimicrobial treatment to a lot of brands (Adidas, Columbia, Motorola, Logitech) and they want to give you a free t-shirt. No contest, just sign up and they’ll send it to you.
Go to the site StinkAtNothing.com and click on “get a shirt” at the top or “start sweating” partway down the left column. Or just click here. Fill in your info and they’ll send you a split shirt like the one pictured above: half of it is untreated, the other half is treated with Agion’s silver ions odor-elimination technology. The company thinks this treatment is better than anything currently on the market out there and they want to prove it. So sweat in this shirt for a while and see how it goes. If you submit a good enough story afterwards you can also win more prizes. Get the full scoop at the website.
You should be seeing branded wicking shirts using this technology starting this summer, but you’ll have one first. Well, half of one anyway…
(While you’re in the mood to score some free stuff, put a comment on this reading and task light post from a few days ago. Then sign up for Perceptive Travel’s monthly newsletter, where a new gear item ships out to a lucky winning subscriber every month.)
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on January 31st, 2010
Columbia Sportswear’s Fashion and Function for the “It Girl”
Columbia Sportswear didn’t get so popular without some clever marketing and equally clever design to back it up. After spending 16 hours surfing the manufacturer’s booths at the winter Outdoor Retailers show, it was easy for me to get a little cynical. Are there really major noticeable differences between 500 fleece jackets or 200 different pairs of hiking socks?
I capped the show off though with something that reminded me why there’s a lot to celebrate about the current crop of wonder apparel: a fashion show from Columbia. The company slid me into a VIP seat next to the runway where I could be dazzled by their form-meets-function collection for women that will be hitting the stores this coming fall.
I gotta say I like their attitude. They say this collection is for the “it girl” out there, who may be in her 20s but may be a 40-something mother. She bikes, she snowboards, she hikes, but she works, she pounds the city pavement, and she runs errands. What she wears needs to be comfortable and warm but look good. Her clothes need to do more than one thing. They need to do what they promise without a lot of fuss.
That’s my paraphrasing of a more finely-tuned marketing message, one you’ll surely have seen a lot of by this time next year. Based on what I saw, touched, and tried on, however, they back up the hype with great technology and design.
Enjoy the fashion show video above, especially if you thought that being warm in the outdoors and looking great had to be mutually exclusive.
For more on what’s out there now, visit Columbia.com or search for Columbia at your local retailer, REI.com or Backcountry.com.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Travel Light on January 24th, 2010
Live From the Outdoor Retailers Show
Recently John brought you the latest in electronics and gadgets from CES. Now I’m wallowing in a sea of fleece and waterproofing to bring you the latest in travel gear from the Outdoor Retailers Winter Show. Here the gear manufacturers strut their stuff and the retail buyers decide what’s worth stocking. Fortunately, they also allow a few of us writers and bloggers in the doors to report on what’s new and notable.
Hats from Mountain Hardware
My first impression was, “What recession?” While this industry has felt some pain, overall the likes of Keen, Patagonia, Columbia, Teva, Kelty, and Mountain Hardware are looking amazingly healthy. It makes sense when you think about it: camping and hiking are still pretty cheap recreation options compared to a lot of other things a couple or family could spend their money on.
This industry has some problems though, which were outlined in no uncertain terms in a kick-off breakfast I attended. To paraphrase, the majority of people who frequently enjoy the outdoors are white, male, and relatively well-off. Women are gaining, minorities are going from next to nothing to something, but overall there’s a lot of work to do to make the outdoors look anything like the demographics you find in American cities. The good news is, lots of really dedicated foundations and organizations are doing great work in getting kids off the asphalt and into nature. Let’s hope they keep the momentum going.
In terms of products, I’m super-encouraged by what I am seeing here. There seems to be a serious movement toward the principles we espouse here on a weekly basis. Products are being touted as affordable, multi-functional, and durable. Instead of ever-more-specialized expensive niche items, I’m seeing a shift back to items that really pull their weight and can do more than one thing. In other words, Practical Travel Gear. Everything is getting lighter, more eco-friendly, and more useful to the average traveler, which is a beautiful thing.
Sure, there are still $800 jackets, $500 sunglasses, and skis that cost more than most people make in a month, but those products are increasingly in the minority. It’s all about you getting your money’s worth. That doesn’t mean everything is manufactured in China with crappy materials and shoddy workmanship: a much larger number of products than I expected are being produced in the U.S. or Europe. But everyone is keenly aware that you need to feel good about what you’ve paid for that item for years on end. On that score, things are looking very bright.
New Camelback Water Bottles
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Travel Light on January 22nd, 2010
Travel Underwear by Tilley
The challenge: Pack only two pairs of Tilley “fast drying, sweat defying” underwear on my week-long road trip from Colorado to California. The reasoning: The undies are made with 100% polyester CoolMax Extreme Mesh fabric, so I could wash them by hand in hotel sinks (or my mom’s bathroom), and they’d dry by morning. My goal: Take this test so that PracticalTravelGear.com readers would know if they could do the same when packing light really matters (i.e. when you’re on an extended backpacking trip or you only want to pack a carry-on bag for your next plane flight, not when you’re driving a mini-van that could actually transport two dozen pair of underwear).
I’m not one to typically buy underwear for its quick-dry qualities, but I sure found the Tilley CoolMax Extreme Women’s Briefs ($22) fit the bill here. On our trip, I was able to wash my underwear by hand at night, wring it thoroughly, towel it dry twice (per instructions), hang to dry in a well-ventilated place, and it was dry by morning. I almost made it through the entire nine days of our trip on one pair of black and one pair of white Tilley briefs … if only I hadn’t forgotten to do my hand-washing one night. Since both were dirty the next day (hey, it’s not part of my nightly routine; mea culpa), I had to pull out my back-up pair of Hanes.
I am very impressed with how comfortable and light the underwear are. The weather was cool in California over Christmas, so I couldn’t fully test its moisture-wicking capability on our hikes in Joshua Tree National Park (I just didn’t sweat that much), but I sure intend to wear the underwear this summer when I’m hiking in the mountains here at home.
My husband was given a pair of Tilley CoolMax Travel Boxers ($22) to test on our trip as well. He could not speak more highly of how comfortable they are. To wit: He said he was more comfortable driving our 10-hour day in his Tilley CoolMax boxers than driving for just 4 hours in his Gap cotton ones. He says they are the most comfortable underwear he owns.
Testing Tilley Underwear in Jamaica
I wanted to test the quick-dry theory on our trip to Jamaica last week, so I packed my Tilley briefs again. I figured that doing the overnight-dry routine in arid Palm Springs would be quite different than in the humid tropics. Indeed, the quick-dry feature just didn’t work well in our hotel room in Jamaica. It might be that my husband and I abhor air-conditioning, and I dislike ceiling fans, so we actually slept in a room with no air circulating (really, it was better than it sounds), and whenever we were in the room, we had the sliding doors open, so the humid breeze blew in. All of these factors added up to my underwear not drying overnight, unfortunately.
But, to be fair, neither pair of my Hanes underwear dried overnight either (yes, at one point, I had four pairs of wet underwear hanging in various places in my hotel room … the housekeeping staff must have thought I was nuts). In fact, all of my clothing ended up slightly damp by the time this trip was over, as is typical when I travel to tropical locales; it was downright musty when I unpacked it all in Colorado, and had to rewash everything.
Testing Tilley in Colorado
I wanted my Tilley underwear experience to end on a high note, so just last night, I hand-washed a clean pair and hung them to dry on the doorknob of my bedroom. I went to bed at 11 p.m., and by 7 a.m., they were perfectly dry.
So, what did I learn from this experience?
- I’ll do just about anything in the name of research for this blog.
- I highly recommend Tilley underwear for frequent travelers, with the caveat that it may not wick and dry as well in humid climates as it does in arid ones.
- I know what I’m getting my husband for his birthday.
Tilley manufacturers all sorts of other travel clothing, including its awesome lifetime-guaranteed hats. I wore a pair of “Unholey”quick-drying travel socks ($16) on my two most recent trips; similarly, they dried no problem overnight in desert California, and took longer to dry in Jamaica. They are super comfortable, mid-calf socks with ribbed arch support and a “moisture escape panel for breathability.” They really resist odor, too. The Tilley CoolMax Extreme Women’s Briefs have matching black or white Extreme Tanks ($26), made from the same moisture-wicking fabric. These, too, are very comfy, and great for layering for active outdoor pursuits in cold weather.
Yes, Tilley costs more than the underwear you might find at your local Gap, Jockey or Hanes outlet. But because Tilley underwear is built to last with material that will keep its shape much longer than traditional cotton underwear, I look forward to wearing my Tilley travel undergarments for years to come.
To purchase — and browse more Tilley offerings — visit the Tilley Endurables website.
Related post: Travel underwear by ExOfficio.
Posted by Kara in Travel Light on January 21st, 2010
