July 8, 2010 See below for Scott of eVest fame talking at length about the controversial knee-length carry-on coat.
Frank@OBOW
July 8, 2010 
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
July 7, 2010 
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)
July 7, 2010 Frank@OBOW
Our post on the Co-Pilot.
1 Comment | in Gear Reviews, Luggage, OBOW video | Email Article | Share Article | Print Article | Permalink July 7, 2010 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.
Frank@OBOW
July 6, 2010 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)
July 3, 2010 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.
Frank@OBOW
June 29, 2010 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.
June 24, 2010 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
Frank@OBOW
I might add that the most important thing that OBOW is “crammed full of” is reader-generated content and comments - useful, quaint, quirky, and creative.
June 21, 2010 Frank@OBOW
Engadget on the diminutive device. 870 grams = under 2 pounds.
Frank@OBOW
June 17, 2010 
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)
June 17, 2010 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.
June 17, 2010 June 9, 2010 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.
June 4, 2010 June 3, 2010 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.
Frank@OBOW
Covent Garden is served by this chain which is actually quite good. The takeaway prices are much cheaper than dine-in. Less appetizing are the cold pasties you can pick up in some bakeries or butcher shops. Best had hot. And do be sure to drink some porter (if you can find it) at Covent Garden where, as legend has it, the ale was invented. It was said to be a favorite of the many porters who served the market there when fruit and vegetable wholesalers predominated.
June 2, 2010 Here’s an entertaining article from Fodor’s (gleaned from their forums) on unconventional items that seasoned travelers pack. You won’t need them all but a few have merit, even for the ultralight crowd. A sampling:
June 1, 2010 Janet Napolitano will soon be here:
“I want to stress, I am respectful and cognizant of the privacy concerns,” she told participants in the Regional Civil Aviation Security Conference, referring to protests against a US drive to use full body X-ray scans at airports.
“Respect for privacy is a value we share. But all countries have unique legal traditions, cultural differences, and political realities.
“I believe that we should not allow these differences to keep us from working toward a common goal and a deep and stronger partnership with respect to security and privacy,” she said. - Breitbart
What in the wide, wide world of sports does this mean? Only use scanners if your sheepish citizens don’t mind too much?
May 27, 2010 
Story here. I’m passé already. Maybe I’ll glue my Touch to my netbook. Then I’ll have a full-time touch screen.
Frank@OBOW
Netbook fence sitters with good eyes take note - $99 for a 1.6-pound, no-name 7” wonder.
May 26, 2010 
For real? Scam? Better stick with that cool $29 Casio watch, just in case:
Imagine being ordered by airport security workers to put your very expensive watch on a scanning belt, over your objections. Then imagine going to retrieve it and it’s gone.
A Baker County woman says that experience at Norfolk International Airport in Virginia last year cost her a $24,000 Rolex her husband saved up to buy her on her 50th birthday.
Now she’s suing the U.S. Transportation Security Administration after the agency rejected her claim letter and her congressman unsuccessfully attempted to intervene. - Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com
Lesson - bling is not the thing at the checkpoint.
Frank@OBOW
FlyerTalk thread one Watchgate.