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.