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