Endorsements and Cheap Plugs

Disclaimer: We are not employed by and of the companies listed here, and we have received no money or considerations for listing company names.  These are products and services that have worked well for us, and we can recommend them from personal experiences.  These companies made our trip substantially more pleasant for one reason or another.

Lonely Planet, in general, and their Thorntree discussion group in particular.  A wonderful place to participate in discussions with other world travellers.  Several times, in a pinch, we posted requests for lodging references on thorntree and came up with good choices.  Beware, though, as jokesters, shysters, and crazies post and reply also.

For mail, we used hotmail.com, although there are a number of other places that would have sufficed.

For bill paying, we used paymybills.com.  It worked flawlessly, and enable us to control our finances from internet cafes.

Guidebooks: We never entered a country without buying and reading key parts of the appropriate Lonely Planet guidebook.  They are universal, fairly consistent, and invaluable for getting one's bearings in a new place.  Over time, we found that we never used the lodging or restaurants recommended, as we sought out places frequented more by locals than travellers. We tried other guidebooks, but always ended up tossing them for one reason or another.  Of course we ended up destroying our LP guidebooks along the way also, when we wanted, and not when the book fell apart on its own.  We bought a lot of our research material through Amazon.com.

Country color: While the LP guidebooks are wonderful, they lack somewhat in color and social commentary.  For this, we loved reading the Travellers Tales series of books.  If I had only 2 books to bring into a country, it would be the LP guidebook and the appropriate Travellers Tales book.  They make a wonderful combination.

The one most versatile tool to bring: Victorinox Swiss army knife.  Personally I like the Climber model. Small, versatile, wonderful.  I lost one somewhere in Turkey, and ended up scouring the streets of the Palaka in Athens to (finally) find another to replace it.  Sort of like losing your best friend.

For travel clothing, I highly recommend Ex Officio. Their clothing is designed for travellers.  They are not cheap, but if you can afford it, it is worth it.  We bought several pieces of their clothing (travel pants, shirts, dress) for substantial discounts at their outlet store north of Seattle, Washington.

For all the women dealing with that monthly female stuff, check out www.keeper.com.  They have a product that turned out to be indispensable, greatly reducing the need to pack or buy pads or tampons.

For travel luggage, check out Eagle Creek.  Strong, durable, but expensive stuff.  One solid year on the road they clean up like new.  They are not flashy, and are built for hard core travelling.

For shoes, nothing beats Teva sandals for durability and flexibility.  I travelled only with one pair of (Nike) tennis shoes, and one pair of Tevas. Tevas can be worn in water, on the trail, with socks for warmth.  Once a month I would soak them in a clorox wash to kill the odor.

ATM cards: We brought one, an (I don't remember right now) account from Charles Schwab.  One outstanding characteristic of this Visa debit/ATM card is that Schwab will reimburse for any ATM charges worldwide.  Amazing but true.  Schwab's Visa ATM card is associated with the PLUS network, which worked for us worldwide.  Ironically, the only place we have had (a few) problems with ATMs not hornoring plus cards is in the US, where the cards were issued.

I should mention that we did try to bring a Palm Pilot III on the trip.  Ky has found this device invaluable for contact management prior to the trip. When it functioned on the trip , it was somewhat useful to capture contacts and lodging information. While we expected it to die at some point during the trip (stolen/broken/shorted), the mode of failure was somewhat humorous.  Ky had left it in a rented car (aka rent a wreck) in Brisbane, Australia.  Our son, Nathan, likes to play in the car.  Next day, the palm did not work.  Hmmm.  Open it up to check the batteries.  Still there!  But polarity reversed.  All data was gone.  Without the cradle and a PC loaded with the SW and our data, it was now useless.  Thank goodness we had the forethought to print out our contact list on paper prior to the trip or else all would have been lost.  In retrospect, a heavy duty piece of tape over the battery cover would have prevented Nathan from opening the battery compartment.

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