Have you flown on a commercial flight recently? Ugh. Airlines are decreasing their level of service. Airports are increasing their level of security. Add to that delayed flights, crowded cabins and lost luggage and you have a recipe for frustration.
Spot Cool Stuff can’t do anything about the workings of the airline business. But we can recommend seven items that can help take some out of the stress out of air travel. Or at least help make the experience of it seem to go by faster.
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Want to reduce the environmental impact of your next trip? Bring your own water bottle. Particularly if you are traveling to a tropical destination where you’d otherwise buy (and then later throw out) plastic water bottles.
Thailand alone is littered with up to a billion (with a B!) plastic water bottles according to some estimates. And water bottles are also an issue in the developed world. In the Washington DC area 1 in 5 single-use plastic water bottles sold end up in a public waterway. In London single-use water bottles became such a problem that their sales were banned.
In the face of that you wouldn’t think that you could make much difference. But let’s say you and a partner go on a two week tropical trip and each drink three bottles of water per day. If you each bring your own reusable water bottles that alone will prevent 84 disposable ones from clogging land fills or being strewn across the landscape. That’s enough water bottles that, were they placed end to end, would be higher than an eight story building!
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Shopping for a traveler you really can’t stand? You should click on over to our collection of the worst travel gear. For everyone else—those of you hoping to, you know, find a present that will make a traveler happy—we offer you these 10 suggestions, a cross section of products that will appeal to a variety of travelers from geeks to frequent fliers to travlelers of the armchair variety.
And remember—there’s no reason you can’t give any of these items to yourself too.
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At Spot Cool Stuff almost all of our reviews are about products and places we love. Sometimes, though, a product can be so mind boggling terrible that, well, there’s something good about the horribleness of it.
With that attempted explanation we take a break from our usual routine of writing about genuinely cool things and present you with a collection of travel gear you would almost certainly never bring on your next trip—unless you lost a bet.
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In the early days of commercial air travel people used those big trunks for their luggage, the ones that it took two people to carry. Then came the one-handle suitcase. Then the suitcase with wheels. And now comes the next step in of the evolutionary process: Live Luggage, a suitcase with power assisted wheels.
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Ruggedness and smart design meet in this passport holder from the Norwegian online store Dansk Design. The sleek stainless steel exterior keeps a passport safe from harm. But what’s really cool is the card slot — it’s located at the top of the passport holder making it easy to slide out your ID or credit card.
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We bring our camera with us almost everywhere when we travel. So, almost everywhere we travel, we need a backpack that is protective to our camera and comfortable to us. And our backpack must to be built to endure the rigors of road. And we’d like it to look cool. And, oh yeah, maybe our backpack should have a paddled sleeve for our laptop?
After testing out most of the leading camera backpacks here are the four we’ve found to be the best:
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In the comments section of our recent overview of cool gifts for travelers, Cate, blogger extraordinaire over at The Caffeinated Traveler, saw our inclusion of the Osprey Meridian Wheeled Backpack and exclaimed “I knew there had to be something out there for my travel needs!”
Cate is not alone in those sentiments.
When headed on a multi-day hike then obviously you bring a backpack. When going on a business trip a wheeled bag is ideal. But what if your trip is something between those? Or a combination of both? Perhaps you are headed on an adventurous trip to Thailand, wanting a backpack to roam across beaches and through mountain jungles but wanting a wheeled bag to navigate the airport and to arrive at Bangkok’s Metropolitan Hotel for a luxury stop at the end of your trip.
For flashpackers, for urban explorers and for anyone who has faced a tough choice between bringing a backpack on a trip and bringing a wheeled bag your luggage of choice is: the Osprey Meridian.
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