We recently made our first major equipment purchase: our backpacks! While some RTW gurus would tell you we’re doing this a little early in the process, we wanted to take advantage of REI’s sale for members, which offered a 20% discount per bag through last Sunday. Two weeks ago we made our first trip to REI to mull over our various options. We had originally planned on buying a wheeled backpack, which offers both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that it makes navigating cities and airports very swift; if you’re staying put for awhile, it’s ideal. But once you leave the city streets, the design and weight makes strapping on the pack cumbersome. Loading 30 pounds in the wheeled model and walking around the store for 10 minutes persuaded me to go wheel-less. It also convinced me that I need to leave my hairdryer at home.
After an hour my head was swimming: I like three choices of any given item, so the panoply of backpacks at REI is my worst nightmare. We returned the following Friday to finalize our selection and make our purchase. In the interim, I hopped on REI’s website to research travel packs, which are designed for long-haul travel, and can be easily checked on airplanes (we long ago gave up the hope of getting a bag small enough to carry-on, and the travel packs don’t have tons of extra straps that can get snagged in baggage carousels). Maikael selected REI’s Grand Tour model, whereas I went for Osprey’s Waypoint 60, designed especially for women. I had my heart set on the Osprey Porter 65, because it was the only travel pack without a detachable daypack. Just like I’m not an athletic tennis shoe or T-shirt person, so, too, am I not a backpack person. I never knew how strongly I felt about this preference until I began looking at backpacks, one of many such realizations I’ve had about myself during this planning process. But the kindly REI employee convinced me that it’s more important to have the proper fitting bag — I guess I’ll leave the daypack at home. I digress: the point is we have small backpacks that will leave us very little room for packing (or overpacking).
That taken care of, we began investigating laptop computers. Here, again, micro is the way to go. We need something that is compact, lightweight, and can take a beating, all things that typically equal big bucks. Our friend, Tim, mentioned the Eee PC by Asus as a potential option a number of months ago. I was skeptical; in fact, I believe my exact words were, “What the hell is that?” But a number of travel websites have mentioned this model as ideal for extended travel. I am easily swept up by emotion, and after 10 minutes of investigating this little number, I was ready to run out and buy one. Maikael has encouraged me to think twice about what it will really be like to read a 7″ screen (a new model is scheduled for April release with a 8.9″ screen, which may be more practical). But it weighs in at just under two pounds, and after my experience at REI, I’m willing to give up my eyesight for a lighter haul. Sure, its battery life is pretty paltry, and its computing functions are rather basic, but we don’t need it to do much. And, I’ll admit, it’s pretty darned cute; although, Maikael has already put the kibosh on a pink model. At $400, I don’t think this computer can be beat for our purposes.
Just as micro minis are the in fashion for spring, so is diminutive travel equipment.