1 Ticket, 1 Backpack, Zero Pre-Planning: Adventure Roulette

Joel Runyon at ImpossibleHQ offers this: 

1. Put away $500.
2. Go to the airport.
3. Find an awesome agent. You can tell that some are stressed, and that some are friendly. Talk to the friendly ones if you can – they’re much more fun.
4. Give them your $500, and tell them, “I’d like you to book me a trip somewhere – anywhere -, preferably a cool place, but it can be anywhere you like for under $500. Can you do that for me?”

He calls it "Adventure Roulette" and here are the criteria:

• Any ticket under $500
• Any destination at least 500 miles away
• One backpack
• No input at all from me on the final destination
• No looking at the ticket until I’m through security (and, ideally, as long as possible)
• Departure: any time during the day that I show up
• Return: any time before midnight the following night

GoBag

Here's a good-looking bag. Showed up in my Facebook feed today.  It's the GoBag, can't tell whether it's a crowdfunding project or if it's on sale yet....anyway check it out...it looks a lot like the eBags Weekender that I talk about in my minimal travel book. A cool feature (see the gif below) is the vacuum compression system. Might not be practical for my current travel style, which involves packing/repacking every day, different hotel every day.

Shares a lot of features with the Weekender -- backstraps, heavy duty zipper, looks more like luggage than a student backpack.

Anybody have one of these?

Baubax travel jacket

I just jumped on this Kickstarter campaign for the Baubax jacket....advertised as "the world's best travel jacket." I'm inclined to believe it...there are actually 4 different jackets, all with multiple functional features for air travel.

In my book I describe the Columbia Silver Ridge vest - essentially a cheaper version of the popular Scottevest travel vest.

I still travel with the Columbia vest from Autumn through Spring - lots of pockets and zippered hideaways for everything I want (or might want) on the plane.  But this Baubax jacket looks incredible. Check it out.

Collapsible coat hanger

I'm using this thing way more than I thought I would. I bought these collapsible clothes hangers basically because I thought it was a cool design. Turns out these things are really functional, too.

Pet peeve - hotels with non-standard clothes hangers. The ones that slip in/out of a little circular metal thing and you can't actually use the hangers around the hotel room, over a vent or shower curtain or whatever.

These collapsible hangers aren't super sturdy so I wouldn't hang a wet sweater or anything heavy. But for typical hotel room laundry like I describe in the book, these guys are perfect.

This goes with me everywhere now...

Obviously designed for lovers of gadgets by a true lover of gadgets. Super portable tool for charging almost any device - Android stuff that uses microUSB, iPhone 5 and 6 and the older iPhone 4 type charger. You can be that guy at the airport, when someone says "does anybody have a charger for a..." Yes, I do. I have that.

Portugal and Spain: 10 Days, 1 Bag, and 1 Tip

Just spent 10 days traveling  and hiking in Portugal and Spain. So many times I was glad to have my bag on my back and not rolling a noisy suitcase down cobbled streets and up and down stairs. Dodged lots of slow-as-heck escalators and used stairs....really love my E-bag.

Here's my one tip from this journey..and it's really important if you've got a sensitive nose. If you've read the book, you know I travel with very little extra clothing, so I do frequent in-room laundry using a dry sack and real detergent (not shampoo). I grabbed Gain brand powder on my way out of town, packed it in a zip bag and man that stuff smells strong. Really don't want that smell infiltrating my coffee or dry milk. So my take-away: next time purchase some scent-free detergent.

Pics from my trip!

Airline fee information

Here's a link to a pretty thorough post on the topic of airline fees.


And here's a graphic with similar info, organized by airline.

airport workout

Just saw this at MSP...

Hey kids, the first review for my 1-bag packing e-book has been posted....

Got my first Amazon review and it's not bad.  And also, too, I didn't write it.

Allow me to block quote:

• Well worth the cost. Plenty of great tips and a really great mindset explanation of minimalist travel. Not the longest book, but full of good info and at the right price.

Best external battery pack?

Super helpful review of external battery packs - there's a lot of variability in the price, capacity, and performance of these things.

Here's the link to the article.


And here's the one I've been using:

Ultra-thin travel yoga mat

Here is a photo of the ultralight travel mat that I mention in the book, put to use in a hotel room in Buffalo earlier this week. This thing is awesome. It allows me to get in a yoga workout while I travel.

It's not as though a regular yoga mat is huge,  but when you travel super minimalist you don't even want that much bulk. This guy folds up flat as a pancake. Maybe flatter.

Forbes article on 10 tips to better air travel

Decent ideas here.

New option for 1-bag travel: The Minaal

Ooh, this is nice.  Check out the new Minaal bag, fresh off a Kickstarter campaign. (pic below, and videos here and here).

It's a sweet bag, and if any of you have traveled with one, I'd love to hear your experiences.  It has exactly the combination of features (especially the whole converts-into-a-fairly-believable-suitcase thing) that drew me to the much less costly eBags Weekender Convertible. The Minaal looks really sturdy but seriously I've abused the hell out of my Weekender and no damage whatsoever.

Here's a comparison of the Minaal to the Tortuga bag over at the Tortuga website (ooh, wonder which wins?)  Oddly, the Tortuga was not among my considerations (but should have been) in a previous post about picking the best bag for 1-bag travel.

Check out more hacks and strategies for super easy minimalist travel in my e-book  "A Guy's Guide to 1-Bag Packing: Minimalist Travel Secrets That Save You Time and Money"

Really good looking bag here. I'd not heard of this brand - Cabin Max - prior to stumbling onto this at Amazon this morning....

Any of you used this one?

Considerations When Buying a Portable Battery Charger

My Galaxy Note 4 has a big enough battery that I don't need a portable charger for most trips - even cross country flights. But I always pack one, just in case. I'm still using the several-year-old Anker model  I mention in my book about 1-bag packing, but I notice that the device drains quickly (3-4 days) even without use.

Stumbled across this post today about portable chargers and learned that "charge retention" is actually a thing. Blockquote:

"Bateries will start to lose their charge over a period of time.  The ...metric you should look for is how much of its charge is still held over a 1-year period....A low retention charge rate means your battery will begin to hold less and less energy over time, eventually reducing the amount of power it can give to your phone"

Check out the full (and short) article here.

Speed record?

Just 1 bag packed in under twenty minutes. Off to North Carolina for a few days of workshops, then hiking and exploring around Asheville.

That may be my fastest packup yet.

Wonder what I forgot? Stay tuned......

No way I could have done this trip with checked luggage

Long story short:  I had a flight to Boise booked out of Logan airport in Boston last Tuesday, the day of a big snowstorm. Nothing was leaving after Monday around 7pm, so I moved my flight up. Chicago by way of Atlanta, overnight in Chicago, then on to Boise the next day.

Missed my connection in  Atlanta, spent the night there, then on to Salt Lake City the next day. And then Boise.  Through all these changes I must have been asked a dozen times "did you check any luggage sir?"

No ma'am, I did not. Do you not read my blog?  Did you not read my e-book?

Seriously there is no way I could have made that many changes with checked luggage.  A couple of flights were puddle jumpers with limited overhead storage.  No prob, with my e-bag Tech 2 I just squished it under the seat in front of me.  I'll say it again:  get it in black so it's not so visibly obvious when it sticks out a bit from under the seat.

Hey, I just got an email from the good folks at CampMor with this coupon link.  They have everything you need (plus all the stuff you didn't know you needed) for camping and minimalist travel.  Here's the link.

Also, after I did workshops in Boise and Salt Lake City and Idaho Falls, I tacked on a couple extra days to my trip and made it out to Grand Teton Park for some snowshoeing.  Check it out:

Bought this for vacation, but ended up using it year round

I bought this slim metal wallet for days on Cape Cod when I needed a credit card and identification and some folded bills, but didn't want to have a thick wallet in my shorts.

Turns out, you never need a thick wallet.  A chiropractor warned me years ago about the dangers of sitting with a big wallet in your back pocket, and it turns out that chucking the wallet is an easy bit of health advice to follow.

I don't really need to have my library card with me all time, or the 5-6 supermarket loyalty cards I typically carried in the fat leather wallet. And the two business cards I'd been hanging onto just because I liked the design?  Why had I been walking around with those for 18 months?

Of all the minimalist travel tips and hacks I describe in the book, this slim wallet is the one I use the most - at home as well as on the road.







Old School New Body

Here's the low-down on rolling bags

If you've read this blog before, or my e-book on the topic, you know I'm a resolute ex-rolling bag traveler.

From the super-useful site OneBag.com comes this - 10 reasons to avoid wheeled bags.  Read on...

Bags with built-in wheels are:

• much heavier than the alternatives
• considerably less roomy than the alternatives (due to both the bulk and the configuration of the frame)
• poorly shaped (inside surfaces often not flat, nor corners square — again, because of the extra hardware), making packing less efficient
• less collapsible for storing away when not in use
• rigidly constructed (less able to fit in available storage spaces, such as lockers and overhead bins, where half an inch can often make the difference)
• uncomfortable to drag over long distances (poor wrist position)
• less suitable for efficient packing techniques (due to constraints imposed by the frame on bag access and compartmentalization options)
• awkward (listing, tipping, falling, running over toes, navigating turns with minds of their own, and keeping their attendants tethered in place — and often blocking others' passage — on escalators)
• prohibited on buses, trams, and other public transportation in many parts of the world
• less reliable (many more parts to break, snag on things, and otherwise malfunction)

And look at all the space-hogging crap that makes up the wheely mechanism!

There are some great alternatives to the rolling bag.  Read more here.

The Travel Trainer

Must-have travel apps for iOS and Android

If you've followed my posts here, or picked up a copy of my book on the topic of 1-bag traveling for guys, you know I'm a sucker for apps that promise to make some aspect of travel easier or more fun.

And some apps do just that - promise - then fall short in actual practice. But a handful of apps are on my super short list.  Desert island, must-have, don't-leave-home-without-'em.

A recent blog post at Mashable sketched out 14 iOS, Android, and Windows which are contenders. Some of these were new to me, and a few (Gogobot, Roadtripper, and RadarCast) are downloading right now, ready for a trial run.

Share your favorite travel apps with me, I'd love to know what works for other minimalist travelers.

Here's my short-listed absolute favorite travel apps

• TripIt (integrates so sweetly with email and calendar functions)
• Spotify (paid version, so I can have offline access to tunes)
• New York Times and Boston Globe phone apps (the luxury of slowly making my way through every section of a good Sunday paper is a favorite on-flight treat)
• Pocket (for offline reading of longer blog posts)
• Kindle (obviously)
• Umano (offline quick listening to blogs -- yep, I said "listening." Professional readers zip through blog articles which I select and cue up for commuting or other travel)
• Google Maps (duh)
• Airbnb
• KayakPro
• TripAdvisor
• Viator
• Orbitz (hands down the quickest way to secure a car rental - literally from the time the plane touches down until they let you unbuckle, that's how quick I can knock out this last minute travel task)
• Yelp (for hiking trails - yes it's good for businesses but my favorite use of this app is to find local tips for great outdoor adventures)
• CamScanner (turns all my paper receipts on business travel into pdfs, with easy cloud access for later)

Check out other great hacks and tips for 1-bag travel in my  e-book right here.





Venus Factor or Xtreme FatLoss Diet?