Five-ounce beach towel

Press release:

Announcing a New Unique Pocket Sized Beach Towel

Jamaica, NY (Setptember 27, 2008) Dyna-E International has announced the addition of a unique pocket-sized beach towel to their line of products. Traveling light is a goal for many people, and this new beach towel makes reaching that goal a lot easier. The towels were cited in the San Jose Mercury News on December10, 2006 in “Holiday Gifts to Go” as a great gift for travelers. They make an excellent gift for anyone who is likely to end up at a beach, lake or pool, or anywhere else a beach towel or large towel would come in handy.

The only beach towel that can fit in a pocket, this unique new product is compressed to the size of a hockey puck but opens to a full 3 x 5 feet (90x150cm). Traditional beach towels are often so large and bulky that they edge out other items on a traveler’s packing list. But Lightload Beach Towels can be packed in any small space with ease. Produced by the makers of the original all-purpose lightweight towel for campers, backpackers and other outdoor enthusiasts, Lightload Beach Towels are made of the same 100% viscose biodegradable material. They are as absorbent and versatile as the original Lightload Towels and more absorbent than cotton.

Lightload Beach Towels come in a compact 3-½ inch diameter shape that weighs only five ounces. Lightload Beach Towels are great for people who travel in motor homes, motorcyclists, hikers, and those in the military, as well as anyone just going for a swim. They are great for family vacations and business travelers as well. Like the original Lightload Towels, Lightload Beach Towels have dozens of other uses in addition to drying off on the beach and lying in the sand. They can be used for insulation in cold weather or as a head wrap or even a body wrap while the laundry is being done. In an emergency, Lightload Beach Towels can be used as S.O.S. signal flags, trail markers or first aid supplements. They can even be used as neck scarves to keep winter travelers warm.

Soft on skin and extremely durable, travelers will love the convenience of Lightload Beach Towels. They are machine washable and will last until they don’t. The towels dry easily in the sun after a swim. Each waterproof package of Lightload Beach Towels sells for only $6.50. The price is reduced to $3.50 per towel for orders of twelve towels or more. Further information can be found on the company’s website a twww.ultralighttowels.com. 

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This might be nice for the tropical traveler or hostel dweller. I have a sample coming in the mail. I’ll let you know how quickly it dries. Might also be great for wringing out your travel launcry -  Brad

Google phone - $179

Will it be the light traveler’s best weight-saving multi-purpose tool? 

 

Engadget’s take, with video.

Update on September 23, 2008 by Frank@OBOW

Update on September 25, 2008 by Frank@OBOW

NYT’s Pogue:

But here’s the thing: Android, and the G1, are open. Open, open, open, in ways that would make Steve Jobs cringe. You can unlock this phone after 90 days—that is, use any SIM card from any carrier in it. The operating system is free and open-source, meaning that any company can make changes without consulting or paying Google. The App store is completely open, too; T-Mobile and Google say they won’t censor programs that they don’t approve of, as Apple does with the iPhone store. Yes, even if someone writes a Skype-like program that lets people avoid using up T-Mobile cellular voice minutes.

Android is not as beautiful or engaging as the iPhone’s software, but it’s infinitely superior to Windows Mobile—and it’s open. The G1 is only the first phone to use it, the first of many; it’s going to be an exciting ride.

If the shoe fits

First of all, don’t be offended. Stuff White People Like is a blog (and book) that pokes fun at progressives. The guy who writes it is a lefty white guy. So whether you’re the type of person he pokes or someone who doesn’t like the kind of people he pokes (I’ll never tell), you’re going to enjoy the blog. Be sure to read the post on the #19 thing that White People Like: travel. An excerpt:

Every white person takes at least one trip to Europe between the ages of 17-29. During this time they are likely to wear a back pack, stay at a hostel, meet someone from Ireland/Sweden/Italy with whom they have a memorable experience, get drunk, see some old churches and ride a train.  

What’s amazing is that all white people have pretty much the same experience, but all of them believe theirs to be the first of its kind. So much so that they return to North America with ideas of writing novels and screenplays about their experience.  

Upon returning home, they will also find an affinity for a particular beer or liquor from a country they visited. They use this as an excuse to mention their travels when at a bar. “Oh, I’ll have a Czechznlishiyush Pilsner. You see, that was my favorite beer when I was travelling through Slovenia and the Czech republic.”

Spirit shakedown

Andrea Sachs at the Washington Post travel blog is seeing red over the airlines quest for green - at the expense of travelers who follow the rules:

During my travels, my bags did not expand; in fact, they shrunk, as I finished one 900-page book and several celebrity mags. (So glad Jen dumped John.) However, when I approached the gate agent, I was told that — not again! — I had to check my bags. I went through the whole mime of how my bag fit in the container adding that I flew down with them as carry-on and I should be allowed to return with them as carry-on. The agent was curt and unforgiving, continuing to push me to check them. Eventually, I was tired of arguing and just walked on, tossing out the same rejoinder: If they don’t fit, I’ll check them.The plane was nearly empty; I could have carried-on an elephant and found bin space for it.

I am only speculating, of course, that the Spirit agents were pressing me to check my bags for monetary reasons. And I know this reads cynically; maybe they were just concerned about my leg space. But I have flown this airline pre-baggage fees and received no comments about my carry-ons.

 All I can hope is that we who travel light don’t get penalized for going carry-on only. - entire post here

Big-screened PC, lighter than Air

It has a 13.3” screen and it’s lighter than the Macbook Air. And since it’s a PC no cool haircut or perpetual smirk is required. No word yet on pricing.

The Samsung X380 features a 13.3 inch WXGA LED screen with a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800, and is powered by and Intel Centrino 2 ULV processor.

Memory comes in the form of DDR3, from 1GB to 4GB, and for storage there is a choice of either a 64GB/128GB SSD or a 120GB 5400rpm S-ATA…also 3 USB ports, 1 HMDI port, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFI a/b/g/n, a 1.3 megapixel web camera and a 7-in1- card reader - GeekyGadgets

Wooly wonder

OBOWer Alana posted this item to the Forum but it’s too good to leave there. Here’s her approach to keeping fresh that most versatile of fabrics - wool:

If you decide to go with the wool pants (I’m presuming washable, here; dry-cleaning on the road is a nightmare), here’s a way to freshen them up without dunking them into a sink and waiting for them to dry.

Go to a store and get one of the dry-cleaner-in-a-bag REFILLS. You don’t want the kit, just the refill. Make sure the ones you get are individually wrapped. Get a box of 2 1/2 gallon Glad or Ziploc bags at the same time. Pack the refill packs at the rate of one every four days, more if you’re going somewhere hot and sweaty, or into a place where people don’t bathe as often as we Americans do. (Stinky buses can and do transfer smell into wool - this will eliminate that smell!)

When your pants are smellier than just plain airing will do, and you can’t/don’t have the time to wash then and let them dry, put your pants into the 2 1/2 gallon bag with one of the opened dryer refills. Don’t let the wet refill touch the fabric! Seal the big bag up and let it fumigate your pants at least four hours, overnight if you have the time. You can open the bag after half the time and turn them inside out/rearrange them for maximum effect. Make sure you have at least an hour in the morning to let them dry after taking them out of the bag.

Depending on how long you had to leave your clothes in the bag, the dryer pad may be usable again. If it’s damp, it’s usable. If it dries out, it’s done for. Keep it in a sealed quart bag whenever you’re not using it.

This also works on blazers worn to very smoky bars, blouses, skirts, you name it. It won’t remove stains, though, so make sure you use spot remover on your clothes before you bag them. For the truly washaphobic, no, this won’t do for your undies or your socks. Sorry.

You’ll eventually have to whip out the sink plug/hand soap and do your wash, but this will delay it a little. Smell sensitive? Try out a brand or two at home before you leave. Some have less scent than others. And yes, they do work in a dryer for dry-cleanable clothes, but you’ll need the full kit. I do NOT recommend using the full dryer kit on the road - if the laundromat dryer is any kind of wonky, you’ll probably ruin your clothes, or at worst, the dryer! Use the full dryer kit at home ONLY. Better yet, don’t get dry-clean-only clothes.

THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO AIR OUT YOUR WOOL! 

Guidebook, schmidebook

Is there a dirty litlle secret behind that heavy, chunky guidebook tucked into your backpack?

An interesting exchange on the forum concerns “desk updates”, which one writer refers to as Lonely Planet’s “dirty secret”. The fact is, “desk updates” are not just Lonely Planet’s “dirty secret” but the industry’s dirty secret. It is little commented on, but the huge proliferation of guidebook titles that now line bookshop shelves coincided with the rise of the internet. In times past, the only way to research a guidebook was to actually go there — the alternative, plagiarising another guidebook, was, and still is, difficult to cover up. Today, you can sit at home and Google the town you might otherwise be exploring on foot, and hopefully some random blogger has done the legwork for you. - age.com.au

Your new best friend, an Android

When Google gets in the mobile game, expect the bar to be raised. You’ll be hearing a lot about their new Android OS and the hardware that will run it.  The Telegraph of London has this about an HTC phone set to run the ‘Droid:

It is thought the phone will go on sale in the UK early next month, and HTC has said that it expects to ship around 600,000 to 700,000 units of the Dream by the end of this year.

Android, the Google-backed operating system that will run on the device, is designed to bring the desktop computing experience to mobile devices, by allowing people to surf the internet and carry out everyday tasks on the go.

It will provide easy access to Google’s web-based email service, Gmail, as well as a host of other Google products, including Docs, its productivity suite, and Google Maps.

The Dream is expected to contain a GPS chip, allowing it to double as a mobile sat-nav, and Google may also provide additional tools for the device to help push location-specific information to the phone’s owner, such as weather forecasts, travel updates and restaurant recommendations. - telegraph.co.uk

      

Update on September 18, 2008 by Frank@OBOW

Cllick on the photo for news about the US release on September 23…

 

And more about the Google phone from Engadget.

Minimize

From Tim Ferriss’s interview with super traveler Rolf Potts, author of the new book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There:

“Be a minimalist. Reduce clutter. Obviously travel by its very nature is going to do this, since you can’t pack everything you’d keep in your home office. But this should apply to your travel office as well. For example, get a cheap laptop, and use it only for your work. Save your important information into Google documents (or something similar) in case the laptop gets lost or stolen or your pack falls in a river. Don’t use the laptop to surf news online; go to the local newsstand instead.

Don’t use the laptop to watch DVDs or listen to music; go to a local cinema or nightclub instead.This is not just a matter of travel aesthetics or cultural appreciation — it’s a matter of breaking bad habits. Back home we use our work technology to fart around and pass the day. Nobody should travel around the world just to sit in front of a laptop and fart around.”

Stuffing? No thank you.

USA Today says air travelers can expect a regular diet of that most unpleasant of airline treats - stuffing, possibly followed by the carry-on traveler’s old favorite, Gate Check Surprise:

Checked-bag fees recently imposed by airlines to increase revenue are squeezing business travelers out of their most precious real estate: the overhead bins.

Frequent business traveler Jeff Brown was boarding his US Airways flight at Hartford, Conn., when he was told that the overhead bins were full, just after passing the first-class cabin.

About 20% of the passengers were still in line to get on board, says Brown, a machinery manufacturing company executive from Kansas City, Mo. “Around 20 bags had to be gate-checked. It was so packed, there were people sitting in their seats holding small to medium-sized bags because they couldn’t go either way in the aisles.”- USA Today

New order for forum posts

Thanks to Jeff for requesting that OBOW’s forum posts be ordered by most recently commented on. This change has been made. We’re considering paying for an advanced forum hosted off-site (as we mentioned last week). 

Toiletries visualized

by EASTERCATOBOW reader Esther left a comment on our forum’s travel-sized toiletries thread wtih a link to an excellent photo on Flickr of an excellent assortment of flight-ready personal items. Check it out - your sure to find something helpful. 

Short hops in Europe (cheap)

Venere.com offers a helpful post on budget European airlines that can save you money and time after you get to the continent:

Many travellers end up settling for the well known names because the price seems low and it then saves them the hassle of searching the market for other options. The first problem with this is that you may end up paying more than you have to, although in the cut-throat market conditions of today any price differences are likely to be slight. The real problem is that by narrowing the choice of airlines passengers are also limiting the options of airport they can fly to and from. This often means people travelling many miles out of their way on the ground to get to an airport from which their chosen airline flies when they could have travelled from an airport closer to home. - click here to read the breakdown from venere.com

Liquid turnabout in the UK?

The word just days ago - in the aftermath of a UK terror trial -  was that the liquid carry-on restrictions would be around for years to come. Yesterday the The Independent  suggested something completely different: 

The government is in discussions with security companies and Britain’s airports to lift the ban on liquids being carried in hand luggage as early as next year, The Independent has learnt. 

Technology already deployed at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 can automatically detect the presence of liquids in carry-on bags. Now, government scientists are running tests to see if the scanners can be adapted to pick out those that are harmful. 

“The technology is there, which will allow these scanners not only to test for liquids but also to determine if those liquids are dangerous or not,” said a security industry source. “At the moment, that technology is being tested by the security services and when they are happy that it works, the ban will be lifted.” 

Update on September 12, 2008 by Frank@OBOW

Don’t expect the US to follow suit even if the UK ever drops the ban. The UK has a small number of airports and might be able to deploy the liquid-capable scanners at all of them. It woud take years and many millions of dollars to put these scanners in all the US airports.

Someone likes Kip

TSA director Kip Hawley doesn’t get a lot of pats on the back in the blogosphere, but here’s one on the seventh anniversary of 9/11::

But the fact remains that much progress has been made.  Kip Hawley, the Assistant Secretary of DHS in charge of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), has done a remarkable job in helping move us in the right direction.  One of the most important has been to realize that what works at one airport may not necessarily work at another, and that a truly secure system has to include input from the airport staff involved.  In an important way, this also adds to the element of uncertainty that underlies the system, for if it is too predictable the terrorists have a better chance to figure out how to beat it.

Security is always a top priority with airport directors.  I’d say that in my time here at least 75 percent of all the conversations I’ve had with directors have included some mention of security.  There are a lot of good ideas in the airport community and today’s TSA has been much more open to them.  In a few months there will be a new administration and new leadership at TSA.  I hope that those new leaders will be able to build on what has been accomplished over these past seven years:  work closely with the airport community, move forward with new technologies (these new laptop bags, for example, as well as inline baggage systems), and commit to a risk management approach that keeps us safe and allows the aviation system to perform its basic function. -  Airport Check-In 

Not buying the friendly part

Phil Baker doesn’t think the “checkpoint friendly” laptop bag concept is as affable as advertised:

Unfortunately, this has not turned out to be as friendly as intended. There’s already confusion as some of the bags referred to as checkpoint friendly are simply slim sleeves or thin cases designed to hold just the notebook — nothing more — and are carried inside your regular bag. And while it’s true you don’t need to remove your notebook, you need to remove this sleeve with the notebook in it! I haven’t quite figured how this saves time. But I suppose it adds a little protection to the computer, keeping it apart from your liquids and shoes on the conveyer belt. 

There’s a second class of cases that does allow a notebook to remain in the case. They’re designed so that a portion of the bag unzips and folds off to the side, so the computer can be viewed without anything obstructing it. 

This meets the TSA requirement to allow an unblocked view of the computer; with no adapters, cords, or even a metal buckle alongside the notebook. These stay in a separate part of the bag. But you do need to unzip the bag to pass through X-ray and, whether you need to remove the notebook or not is subject to the whim of the TSA screeners, which we know varies widely. - entire post here

On the friendly front - Skooba has a CF laptop bag now as well.

"Evidence of airline bomb plot too slim to convict, but liquid restrictions to remain in place"

 …that headline from the Times of London probably won’t make you feel any better about the 3-1-1 rule.

Airline passengers will still face stringent security curbs on what they can carry in hand baggage despite yesterday’s terror-trial verdicts.

The Department for Transport made clear last night that there would be no relaxation of measures that banned most fluids and have forced passengers to remove shoes, jackets and belts before passing through security arches at airports.

Although there is widespread scepticism that “liquid bombs” could bring down a transatlantic airliner, the FBI has provided the British Government and airline industry with evidence of the carnage that would be caused by such devices.

 Read the  entire story here. 

Weigh in with new poll

A new poll resides in our sidebar: What’s the average total weight of your carry-on items? 

Really mobile, but not in the USA

Vodafone in Europe will offer a version nof the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 two-poundish netbook with 3G capability, which means internet pretty much anywhere with or without WiFi. No such luck in the States - Engadget says the US model of the 9-inch featherweight will lack the antenna system for 3G.

Update on September 9, 2008 by Frank@OBOW

 And more on the mini front from Engadget:

“Think $500 is a good deal for the 8.9-inch Eee PC 901? Good, then you’ll love $449 for the 10-inch Eee PC 1000H. That’s already $200 below the original $650 launch price. That sum takes home 1GB RAM, a 6-cell battery, and XP loaded onto an 80GB hard disk.”

(It’s worth noting that the bigger screen and bigger battery makes the 1000H weight 3.2 pounds instead of the 2.2-pound mark that most of the netbooks are hittting - review of the Linux version here)

And the HP 2133 Mini-Note (similar size & weight) reviewed here.

New style - bear with us

Feedback on the new look will be appreciated. Please bear with us as we tweak the bugs out over the next several days! The new style works with Squarespace’s latest features so look for slow, gradual site improvement.