The first series I ever wrote was about you should pack this (formerly Useful Travel Items): all those bits and pieces that make getting around or getting outside easier or more comfortable. This is equipment, this is packing, this is electronics, this is the closest I come to “travel hacks” (get a pouch for all your documents, get a native European multi-USB hub and get a dry bag).
These are all things I’ve bought myself (or been given for my birthday or Christmas, I guess) which I’ve used and decided are good enough to be worth adding to the list of “things other people may find useful” so if it’s here, it’s because I’ve genuinely liked it and think you could benefit from it.
I am not as gentle on my cameras as I could be. In fact, my current one is half-dead because something has gone wrong with the zoom knob – a lot of the time it ignores me, a lot of the time it switches on movie instead and some of the time it zooms in… More Useful Travel Items: Always-On Case
Following on from last month’s Useful Travel Items: Travel Towels, this month I bring their partners-in-crime, drybags. Or possibly dry bags but I’m going for the single-word version. Drybags are an absolute revelation. I was aware of their existence from my previous life as a caver, where we worshipped all things waterproof but I didn’t… More Useful Travel Items: Drybags
I always thought these were such a gimmick. Why would you want a travel towel? And then I bought one and I realised why. I bought one because my trips to Iceland had shown me that there are hot pots and pools a-plenty, several of which required me to take my own towel and several… More Useful Travel Items: Travel Towels
I’m a great believer in travelling with a knife and I have two. Opinel are a French manufacturer of relatively cheap but really good knives. Traditionally they have simple beech wood handles and they come in about a dozen styles. Most of them look pretty similar on the website so I assume the difference is… More Useful Travel Items: Opinel knives
If there’s one travel item that’s genuinely changed my entire life, it’s the discovery of polarised sunglasses – and specifically that you can get them with prescriptions. I’ve worn glasses since I was too young to remember, when I was about two and couldn’t see the boats on the sea from the Square & Compass… More Useful travel items: polarised sunglasses
Meet my GPS tracker. It’s an i-Got-U GPS tracker which I bought from Maplin about five years ago for about £40. There are more complex and more expensive trackers on the market but this one does what I want it to. I clip it onto my bag or my coat or put it in the… More Useful Travel Items: GPS tracker
This is one of those travel things you use at home rather than while travelling. I don’t get through all that many currencies – mostly I have Icelandic and Norwegian kroner which I know I’ll use again in the next year or two, I seem to go back to Switzerland about every five years and… More Useful Travel Items: Multi Currency piggybank
I should start by clarifying that this post is not sponsored in any way. I bought the bags myself because I like them, except the one I requested as a Christmas present. And I should also clarify that their full name is the Mountain Equipment Wet & Dry Kit Bag. I really like these bags.… More Useful Travel Items: Wet & Dry Kit Bags
Gloves kind of feels like both big and too small a topic to go under Useful Travel Items but then, not only are gloves more important to people like me than to people who tend to travel to warmer climates, I also hold slightly controversial opinions. I have so many gloves! If you have a… More Useful Travel Items: gloves
It’s difficult to write much about this particular Useful Travel Item but it is so very useful! For a few years, I owned an A5 plastic ziplock wallet. In that, I kept my important documentation – my passport, my flight confirmation, my accommodation confirmations and the paperwork for any tours I had scheduled, bus tickets I’d… More Useful travel items: the pouch