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I was just catching up on my blog reading which has been neglected this past week when I just found out about a great new service called Offbeat Guides. I was surprised by a lot of the negative comments in the TechCrunch post, but I agree with the one commenter who questionned how much travelling those people do.

I don’t consider myself a jet setter world traveler by any stretch, but 2007 saw me on 4 different continents so I’m no homebody either. And I have to say that the traveler in me see this as an exciting product, and more than an exciting product I see a vision of what travel guides should be.

One big problem with travel guides is that they are basically out of date when you buy them, and to really plan a trip you have to spend the time reading the out of date travel guide and then spend the time scouring the internet for some updated current information. And that is basically what I ended up doing a lot during my trip to SE Asia. For a longer trip especially, where you are making up your trip as you go along, having the ability to instantly print off a guide like that would save so much time. I’d rather pay $9 and print out a PDF at a net cafe on an island in Thailand than have to spend a few hours searching wikitravel and other sites to figure out what there is to see and do in the next place I’ve decided to visit. That way I can spend less time on a computer and more time on the beach. And let’s face it, if I just wanted to spend time on a computer I could just stay home.

Another example was when reading another out of date travel guide I found out about some cool art museum in Geneva, Switzerland. Decided to hit it up the next day, only to get there and find it closed for renovations. Wasted the morning and then had to scramble to figure out what else was nearby that I’d like to check out. After that experience I’ve learned to try and google stuff the night before and try and find a website with updated operating hours for a place I want to check out. But internet isn’t always readily available and sometimes it’s really expensive and slow, and most of all sometimes in the evenings I Just want to relax and not be furiously trying to make sure my travel guide information is up to date.

Or there was the time I went to Bali. I had picked out a guesthouse recommended by my Lonely Planet guide in the town of Ubud. The guide said this guesthouse was very busy and full of travellers, which I thought was perfect because I was traveling alone and staying in a busy guesthouse is the best way to meet people. I got off the bus (at the wrong spot no less) and spent a grueling hour walking around the town with my heavy pack and trying to ignore local touts yelling ‘room here! room here!’ and trying to figure out the lay of the city and match it to my map and find the guesthouse. Eventually I walked for the second time by the place where it ought to be and asked someone only to be told the guesthouse had closed. At that point I walked down the street to some random guesthouse to inquire about a room, they showed me a lovely lovely one that was unfortunately out of my budget (awkward and embarrassing). Left and walked in to another random place where I ended up staying but being the only person there for the first night. A crappy experience that could have hopefully been avoided with an updated travel guide.

Another customization option that sounds great to me that was mentioned is special needs, for example if you’re a vegetarian. This is huge for me when I travel, travel guides pretty much never have much in the way of vegetarian restaurant suggestions and every time I travel I spend a good chunk of time on the internet researching restaurants to check out and looking on google maps to figure out how to get there. In fact this is something I’ve often thought there is a total lack of on the web, solid information on restaurants with vegetarian options. I don’t need to eat in strictly vegetarian restaurants when I travel, but I’ll definitely choose one with vegetarian options over one where I’ll be stuck eating a lame salad.

Anyway, it made my day to read about Offbeat Guides and watch the video interview with the founder (which I’d link to but in 5 second attention span couldn’t figure out how to link to on blip.tv). I love that people are coming up with awesome ideas and implementing them despite all the possibilities for failure. And I can’t wait to get my beta invite so I can check out the service myself.

I’ve been looking at buying a suitcase for my trip home. The thing with shopping for luggage is that the price range/quality is so great. I mean, you can buy a $10 suitcase, or a $300. That’s a pretty big spread. So how’s a girl to know how much she should spend? In the past, I’ve usually just bought cheap luggage because I figure I use it a couple of times a year so it doesn’t need to be super sturdy. But now I’m finding that the cheap luggage’s cheapness is showing through the wear. So I’ve been thinking of spending a little more money, and like anything I spend money on, I gotta do some research. I found this helpful article, What sort of bag should you buy?, about carry on luggage because I’m thinking of getting a carry on suitcase. I think it would suit my needs well, I’ve got to take a laptop and DSLR home and obviously that can’t go in a checked suitcase and if I have them in their own respective bags, that eats up all my carry on baggage allowance right there. Plus I’m thinking I’ll spend a week or so in December going around Austria, and maybe Germany, and maybe something small with wheels would be nice.

I went and looked at some luggage this afternoon at Loft. I still find it hard to tell the difference between a $100 suitcase and a $200 one. Will have to keep looking. Google search pointed me to an apparent discount store nearby in Sannomiya that I was not aware of, I’m going to have to check out this DonkiKingdom place.

Considering how much I’ve harped about packing light and only packing necessities, an entry on packing books might seem a little contradictory. So this suggestion might not work for everyone, but it’s what I did and it worked for me when traveling in South East Asia.

Lazing around on beaches or in hammocks in tropical destinations might sound all well and nice, but the fact is after a day or two, it can get a bit boring. Especially when you’re on some little island with rather little in the way of downtime entertainment (notice the downtime, we all need downtime after a day of swimming/snorkeling/hiking/exploring what have you). No TVs (ok there might be one or two in a restaurant or guest house common area but chances are even so the options of what to watch are pretty limited), and internet is prohibitively expensive and slow because it’s satellite access on old laptops. That’s right about when you may think having a book to read would be nice… So you wander over to the little general store only to find out that the price of that new bestseller book is equivalent to twice what you’re paying for one night’s accommodations. Read the rest of this entry »

Good footwear might even be more important that a good pack. If you can’t walk far, chances are you’re not going to be enjoying your travels.

I’d say for your basic well trod SE Asia backpacker trail trip you basically need a pair of flip flops and a good pair of walking shoes. That’s all I had, plus a pair of foam/plastic slippers bought in Toronto’s Chinatown, just coz I had them before I left and was going to throw them out otherwise.

I lucked out and found what I think were the perfect shoes. I got a pair of Salomon Tech Amphibian women’s shoes and here’s what I loved about them:

• The collapsible heel allowed me to wear them as slip ons when circumstances were such that it was more convenient or comfortable to do so.
• A one pull lacing system meant no laces to tie or get tangled. Great for when having to take the shoes off to go into temples and other shoes-not-allowed places.
• Mesh sides allowed for lots of airflow, kept feet cool and dry.
• Comfortable to wear barefoot or with socks.
• Designed to get wet and drain. Dried quickly when they did get wet.
• Good sole with a good grip.

Between the shoes and the flip flops I felt like I was pretty much covered. Sport sandals like Tevas or Chacos would have provided more support than flip flops but also taken up more space and been heavier. For the sake of traveling light if I wanted more support I just wore my shoes.

The slippers were actually really useful as shower shoes or bathroom shoes and didn’t take up any more space than flip flops. When we did splurge for the luxury of an en suite bathroom, it was usually one tiled room with a sink, toilet, and shower coming out of one wall. As in there was no separate shower stall and the entire bathroom floor would get wet from a shower. That is when the slippers came in handy, keeping my feet dry when I had to go into the bathroom and the whole floor was wet. So while they may seem like an unnecessary extra, I feel they were worth it. And while I’m all about multiple purposes, I wouldn’t use flip flops I wear out on the street as shower shoes coz that’s just dirty. Dust/dirt from the bottom of flip flops worn out on the street mixed with water from a shower = mud.

Before I left for my South East Asia backpacking adventure I carefully researched what kind of camera to get. My number one priority was to travel light, so a digital SLR was out of the question. I decided that what I wanted was a small and light point and shoot that would produce good quality pictures. There are tons of cameras on the market that meet that criteria, so I stepped it up a notch. I also wanted a camera that I could use to take pictures under water without a separate (expensive) waterproof housing.

After researching carefully, I settled on the Pentax Option W10. At the time it was their latest waterproof model. The newest one now is the w30, which of course has many improvements including longer underwater time (up to 2 hours).

Just under 2000 shots later, I have to say that i am very happy with my choice. On land the camera takes good quality pictures, and also takes surprisingly good macro shots. Under water, I’ve used it to take pictures and video while snorkeling in Malaysia and also in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve also taken it snowboarding in the Japanese Alps without having to worry about dropping it in the snow. It’s small, light, waterproof (and sand proof!) and did what it was supposed to do: let me take pictures. It has a large LCD screen, but no viewfinder. However I didn’t find that to be a problem for me at all.

And the best part is that on top of being all the camera it should be, I was also able to use it as a pocket watch and alarm clock. It has a very useful clock function that allows you to check the time, without actually having to power on the camera. And it has an alarm clock function as well, which was super useful for the days when I had to wake up at a certain time to catch a train or bus or whatever. Those additional features were really useful while traveling, and made it unnecessary for me to pack or wear a watch or portable alarm clock.

A couple of weeks into my trip I accidentally dropped my camera down onto some sharp rocks while overlooking a beautiful beach in Thailand. The camera suffered some scratches but seems to be otherwise unaffected.

So all in all, the Pentax Optio W10 (or newer model) is a great point and shoot camera to consider if you’re shopping around for a new camera for an upcoming trip.

In some ways South East Asia is an easy destination as far as packing light because the warm climate makes bulky and heavy warm clothing unnecessary. Clothing really depends on personal preference and personal comfort and so I’m just going to be writing about what worked for me personally based on my own personal preferences, which could be different from what would work best for you. But hopefully some of this information will be helpful for you to make decisions about what to pack. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was preparing for my 3 month backpacking trip through South East Asia last summer I had a hard time finding information on what exactly I should pack. I searched online and read heaps of travel advice books at the library and in bookstores, and while I did find some information a lot of it was very vague.

Now that I’ve been there done that, I figure maybe I should share some of what I’ve learned. So I’m going to write a series of posts on what to pack for a trip to South East Asia.

Read the rest of this entry »