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What brand of carry-on luggage do you use?

eBags
Samsonite
Tough Traveler
Tom Bihn
Red Oxx
MEI
Victorinox
Briggs & Riley
Travelpro
American Tourister
Rick Steves
Eddie Bauer
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Tumi
Eagle Creek
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What’s the average total weight of your carry-on items?
3 pounds or less
4-7 pounds
8-10 pounds
11-12 pounds
13-15 pounds
16-20 pounds
21-22 pounds (10kg int’l limit)
23-26 pounds
27-35 pounds
36 pounds or more
  
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Thursday
Jul222010

Cabin crew crime

Everyone’s heard of brutish baggage handlers who pilfer checked bags. How about stealthy stewardesses picking pockets and more?

The French police have arrested an Air France flight attendant accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars in cash, traveler’s checks and jewelry from dozing business-class passengers on dozens of international flights, judicial officials said Tuesday. Authorities arrested the flight attendant on the tarmac at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris early Friday, according to a report in the newspaper Le Figaro. An investigation began in January after five passengers aboard an Air France flight to Paris from Tokyo reported the disappearance of a total of $5,000 in cash. - New York Times (thanks to the lovely Maria for the tip)

Monday
Jul192010

Europe sans hotels

I’ll just bet couchsurfing is easier with one bag…

Social networking first significantly influenced the world of travel in 1999 with the start of Couchsurfing, a service in which members offer a spare couch — or bed, or floor space — to fellow Couchsurfers, at no charge. It spawned a social phenomenon, and today counts almost two million people in 238 countries as members. - read more at nytimes.com

And if you want more than a couch, the above story is mostly about renting (cheaply) private accommodations that are quite nice, assuming you can avoid the odd psycopath.

 

Friday
Jul162010

Outlets three plus USB

Here’s a useful device: the Monster Outlets to Go 300 turns one AC plug into three and provides two USB outlets. It would be cool if you could go USB-USB and charge a laptop without the proprietary power block and cord. That would save weight, but I assume that’s impossible (I checked - it is impossible). At least this adapter would let you charge your laptop and USB devices at the same time, without plugging those devices into the charging laptop. (HT: Scott Carmichael at Gadling)

Thursday
Jul152010

Spirit CEO votes for the coat?

Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza must have been reading OBOW. He says (in effect). “Hey, wimps, you don’t need no stinkin’ bags. Get one of those new travel trenchcoats and no-bag it already!” 

‘The head of the nation’s most fee-happy airline told Congress today that bringing luggage on vacation was “not essential” to travel and his airline was actually helping the poor fly by charging up to $45 to place a carry-on bag in the overhead bin.’ - ABC

A reminder, Spirit charges for carry-ons but not for one personal bag which must fit underneath a seat and measure 16 x 14 x 12” (40 x 35 x 30cm) or less. 

 

Thursday
Jul082010

Scott on "the coat"

See below for Scott of eVest fame talking at length about the controversial knee-length carry-on coat.

Thursday
Jul082010

Pants hack

I’m always on the lookout for a better pair of travel pants, so this post by Kevin at Practical Hacks (no slacker) is of interest:

These slacks are lightweight and loaded with comfort; I wore them on several verywarm days during our trip and they remained cool and comfortable.

Normally $89, they’re on sale as of this writing for $79.  See them here at the Orvis website – Orvis microfiber travel pants. — full post here

Wednesday
Jul072010

Have beans, will travel

DRIP, DRIP, DRIPIf you REALLY like good coffee GSI Outdoors offers a number of backpacker-intended items that will allow you to travel with the coffee of your choice without adding too much weight. In my younger days I once plugged in my 4-cup maker and a grinder on a four-hour ferry ride. I’ve moderated since then. It was the best coffee I’ve ever had on a boat though. (HT: CoolTools)

Wednesday
Jul072010

Co-Pilot video look

By Maverick:
Wednesday
Jul072010

Geek list

Are you a geek? If not, you are surely related to one or know one. Gizmodo has compiled the Geek’s Vacation Checklist with some good tips, especially in the technology realm. As you can see from the video below, not all the tips are techish though.

Tuesday
Jul062010

Another no-bag travel trench

The first no-bag travel trench was greeted with some derision and skepticism. The latest from ScotteVest is being taken a good bit more seriously. Read more about it at the SeV blog or discuss in it on the OBOW Forum.

SOURCE: SCOTTEVEST (HT - MICHAEL ON THE FORUM AND ENGADGET)

Saturday
Jul032010

Carry on then hold on

We’ve been down this road before but I must take you there again. Ryanair again floats pay-to-pee, no-seat travel. Since Ryanair promotes carry-on/no-checked-bags travel you wonder where the standing passengers’ bags are going to go. You also wonder if this idea will ever fly. Or if it’s just another of O’Leary’s stunts.

Tuesday
Jun292010

STOP me!

Wow, I’m off on car trip to a three-day meeting and Short Trip OverPacking Syndrome (STOPS) is alive and well.  This is also the first time I will have traveled with my new (and hated) CPAP machine. The load is: briefcase with netbook, Western Flyer with CPAP, toiletries, and underclothing, hang-up suit bag with business casual clothes. Foolishly I have two sport coats and will probably need none. At least there’ll be no wrinkles.

Thursday
Jun242010

OBOW in the Post

Palm Beach Post, that is. Your editor and Doug Dyment are quoted in this nice little story about packing light. I said:

“You’ll never pack light if you try to cover every possible situation or crisis you might encounter. Of course it might be colder or hotter than you expect, you might have time to do some hiking, you might need dressier clothing,” he says, “but if you pack to prepare for every last eventuality, you’ll always be overloaded.”

And, many travelers also take too much, says Doug Dyment, author of OneBag.com, because “they make all their packing decisions at the worst possible time: just prior to leaving.”

A better approach, Dyment says, is to learn – well in advance of your trip – how to leave things behind. “It’s difficult to imagine anything that will have a similarly profound effect on one’s travel experiences,” he says.

Both Dyment’s and Isbell’s websites are crammed with helpful advice on lightening your load. But for a crash course – no pun intended – we asked them, and some frequent travelers, for a few road-tested tips. - read more

Monday
Jun212010

Sub-2# Toshiba with Android

Thursday
Jun172010

No-bag travel trench

You can’t order yet but you can sign up to be notified when it becomes available: the Suitcase Coat. (Thanks to Brett for the tip)

Thursday
Jun172010

You and 537 fellow travelers

The Airbus A380 super jumbo is here. And fliers may find it more cramped than expected:

Qantas, which flies A380s from Sydney and Melbourne to Los Angeles, London and Singapore, has four classes of service: first, business, economy and “premium economy,” which gives travelers almost as much space as they get in domestic, first-class seats on U.S. airlines. But the airline has decided to ax first class from future A380 deliveries and add more premium economy and coach seating, a reflection of customer reluctance to spend lavishly for first-class.

In coach, passengers find the same cramped quarters of most other jets on the super-jumbo. Seating is 10 across on the lower deck; eight abreast on the narrower upper deck. Air France, with 538 total seats, opted for a slightly wider coach seat than other A380 operators, but loses some space in the aisles, which are a skinny 17-inches wide in the lower-deck coach cabin. “Seat pitch”—the amount of space allocated to each row of seats, including leg room—is only 31 to 32 inches in the A380 coach cabins, consistent with some of the tightest coach seating at airlines, and less than you get on Southwest Airlines…

…Because so much cargo space is taken up on the A380 by passenger baggage—there are two decks worth of passengers, but only one deck for cargo—the A380’s cargo capacity isn’t as large as the 777-300ER, Mr. Tyler notes. - Scott McCartney, WSJ

No US carriers have plans to fly the bulging behemoth.

Thursday
Jun172010

Home, home on the plane

Wednesday
Jun092010

A quick look from the airport today

I’ve had this bag a couple of weeks but have been too busy to write about or photograph it. The new Tom Bihn Western Flyer sans backpack straps:

It’s riding, quite unnecessarily, on my wife’s roller. The bottom of the back pocket is zippered  — becomes a magazine pocket when zipped. This is better than knotting the strap or clipping a carabiner to the handle, neither of which works well. I paid today - for the first time ever - the cursed checked bag fee. Not fun. Don’t worry, it wasn’t my bag.

More to come on this bag and its upgrades over the original version.

 

Friday
Jun042010

Cube vid

Thursday
Jun032010

(Not so) light food

Yet another article from Fodor’s - this one about eating cheap in Europe. I know, maybe a little late for all the OBOWers that have recently been to the Continent. To this list I would have to add my favorite $5(equivalent) lunch in Britain: the delightful Cornish pasty (rhymes with fastly, not hasty) which are widely available. They are by far the cheapest lunch in Covent Garden. They’re basically a portable pot pie with no utensils required.