Gear Picks - Tilley Travel Socks

Now we finally come to a piece of gear that I've actually tried, tested and found worthy of pack space - Tilley travel socks. Tilley is a Canadian company best know for the Tilley hat, seen on the heads of (usually) senior travelers around the word. While I'm definitely not going to join the ranks of the Tilley Hat Crowd (not that there's anything wrong with that...) I am so far quite impressed with my Unholey Socks. I've got 2 pairs of the women's ankle socks, and one pair of the crew length, which I took with my on my eastern trip this summer.



The socks come in navy blue, white and beige. I bought beige, because it's my firm belief that the best colour for travel clothing is the colour of dirt. (I've also got the Tilley short-sleeved "cool" shirt in "tan stripe", perhaps more on that in another post. ) At $16.00 per pair, they're not cheap, but not outrageous either, especially considering they are guaranteed to remain free of holes for three years.


I tested the claim that they dry overnight several times and so far that's been true. In fact, they probably dry quicker than that. They're fairly thin, which means they don't have any of that thick-sock-coziness that's so comforting, but I figure if I need some extra warmth or coziness, I can just put on two pairs. (Layering! It's the one-bag traveler's friend!) I'm even contemplating using these socks for running, saving me from carrying the extra .0000001 lbs of a pair of running socks.

Or perhaps that's taking things a bit too far...

Edited to add: I had a lot of trouble linking to the different Tilley products in this post, for some reason they all morph into links to the Tilley start page whenever I save the post, so if you they're working right now, great. If they're not, and you want details on the socks or hats or shirts or whatever, you'll just have to click around and find them for yourelf.

Regarding Henry

Some of you may be lucky enough to have met my dog Henry, a purebred basset hound of immense character, advancing years, and lingering pungency. Henry has been with me almost the whole time I've been in Winnipeg, and will turn 10 years old in January. He even comes with me to work most days, and has been a joy, a frustration and a constant companion since I first picked him up from the kennel almost ten years ago.

Obviously Mr. Henry will not fit in my carry on bag, so my original hope was to take him to live with my sister and brother-in-law for the year while I was traveling. Also occupying that household is my 3 year-old niece who is a big fan of Henry Hound. They're definitely dog people, and they seemed amenable to the idea, so it looked like a great solution.

Here's the bad news: Mr Henry was recently diagnosed with an inoperable cancerous prostate tumor. It's an adenocarcinoma, which is apparently the more aggressive type. Palliative treatment is possible with radiation, but that would mean sending the dog the the vet college in Saskatoon for 3 weeks at a time, and would really only prolong the inevitable. I won't be doing that; he'll stay here with me in comfortable, familiar surroundings.

Now for the good news: someone seems to have forgotten to tell Henry that he's got terminal cancer, because he is almost completely his normal self. He's as active as he ever was (not very), he's snoozing 22½ hours a day, he's lapping up the love of his fan club at work, and he's savouring the fancy new canned dog food recommended by the vet, which I could hardly refuse him, could I?

When I pressed the vet for a timeline - "Weeks? Months? Years?" - he suggested that we're likely talking about months, though he also said Henry may surprise us.

And that's the dilemma. If Mr. Henry turns out to be a trooper he could be with us for a while yet, but at the same time I can't send him off to a new home when I know he's sick, and I know the inevitable is coming. It's not fair to the people I send him to ("Here's my dying dog, when the time comes, go ahead and do what needs to be done. Oops, gotta go - they're calling my flight! Bye!"). And of course it's certainly not fair to Henry. It's my responsibility to be there for him until the end, and maybe even for me to decide when that end should be. He may be gone before the snow melts, but if he hangs in there, my plans need to be flexible enough to accommodate that.

So I guess I'm saying that countdown timer over on the right may need to be adjusted. Maybe by a few weeks, or months, maybe more, maybe not at all; I don't really know. I do know that I will take this trip, and I know that I will do right by Henry. But it has to be Henry first, trip second.

In a strange way, the thought that Henry won't be there when I get home is one more thing pushing me to take this trip. I don't have a spouse or boyfriend or kids to leave behind, and I've prepared myself (I think) for giving up my house and my job. Henry is kind of the last really big thing that ties me to this place and this life.

And to end on an up-note, for those of you who've never seen Mr. Henry's famous helicopter impression, here's a taste:

This time next year - December 9

POP QUIZ: Can you guess today's "This Time Next Year" location from this audio clue?:

If you guessed the Lost City of Petra, you're correct! (And you know me well.) To quote Wikipedia:

Petra is an extraordinary archaeological site in southwestern Jordan, lying on the slope of Mount Hor in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. The site was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 when it was described as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage".

To quote me: "Petra is dead cool!"


The best known site at Petra is the iconic Al Khazneh, or Treasury Building, but the whole site has a lot more to see. I'll admit that when I thought of Petra, I really just thought of that one building, but it turns out that Petra is not just the Treasury, a souvenir stand, and a guy selling falafel from a cart... its a whole CITY, and they think most of it hasn't even been uncovered yet. There's the remains of the fantastic Ad-Deir monastery, along with "rock-cut tombs, obelisks, temples, sacrificial altars and colonnaded streets". One website claims you need 4 or 5 days to really explore the whole city so I'm a little worried that my proposed itinerary will rush me through Petra too quickly. (Of course if I wanted to do it really quickly, I should run the first ever Petra Marathon on September 26th, 2009.)



I'm actually planning on seeing Petra as part of a package tour (more on the whole idea of package tours is probably coming in a later post). The particular tour I've got my eye on is called the "Jordan and Egypt Adventure", and just reading the itinerary makes me positively buzz with excitement:

This tour combines our ‘Petra to the Pyramids’ and ‘Nubian Sailtrek’ tours to give you the highlights of both Jordan and Egypt. We’ll see the hidden city of Petra, take a camel ride amidst the weird rock formations of Wadi Rum, sail along the Nile on a felucca and explore the Pharaonic treasures left by the Ancient Egyptians.

• Camel ride in Wadi Rum
• Overnight in Bedouin camp
• Full day guided exploration of Petra
• Sunrise on Mt Sinai
• Pyramids & Sphinx at Giza
• 1 day felucca cruise
• Horse-drawn carriage ride to Karnak Temple
• Donkey ride to the Valley of the Kings

Seriously? A camel ride? A bedouin camp? A felucca cruise? Pyramids? It's like the Greatest Hits of the Ancient World. How is it that YOU have not already signed on to come with me on this? I mean look at this map:

The Jordan and Egypt Adventure, December 7-22, 2009. You know you want to.

Wonder of Wonders

Here's an exciting discovery: during my trip, I will actually be visiting six out of seven of The New Seven Wonders of the World:

1. Chichen Itza (Mayan archeological site) - Yucatan, Mexico
2. The statue of Christ the Redeemer - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3. The Colosseum - Rome
4. The Great Wall of China
5. Machu Picchu (Incan archeological site) - Peru
6. The Lost City of Petra - Jordan
7. The Taj Mahal - Agra, India

The only one I'll miss on my present itinerary is that Mexico thingy. As compensation though, I will be seeing the Great Pyramid of Giza, the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World.

The declaration of the "New Seven Wonders" was spear-headed by a Swiss company, starting in 2001. They claim more than 100 million votes were cast on the internet and by phone, though duplicate votes were allowed so they admit the results are "decidedly unscientific". Of particular note on the subject of unscientific voting is a story about the voting in Brazil, where cell phone companies not only stopped charging people for voting, they actually solicited votes:

One morning in June, Rio de Janeiro residents awoke to a beeping text message on their cell phones: “Press 4916 and vote for Christ. It’s free!” The same pitch had been popping up all over the city since late January—flashing across an electronic screen every time city-dwellers swiped their transit cards on city buses and echoing on TV infomercials that featured a reality-show celebrity posing next to the city’s trademark Christ the Redeemer statute.

So like they say... the voting was not exactly United Nations sanctioned as "free and fair". Perhaps these Swiss were also the ones behind the voting system in Florida for the 2000 U.S. election.

And as an aside, I will also see several of the other 13 finalists in the voting, including the Acropolis, Angkor Wat, the Hagia Sophia, and the Eiffel Tour (seen it already, though).

And to gild the lily, I may also check out several of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, as decided by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Stuff like the Channel Tunnel, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Delta Works in the Netherlands (dams, sluices, locks, dikes, and storm surge barriers).

It's all going to be pretty wonderful.

Gear Picks - One Bag to Rule Them All

In case you haven't realized it yet, my plan isn't just to spend a year traveling. It's to spend a year traveling with just a single carry-on sized bag. Therefore the choice of bag is, to put it mildly, somewhat important. The best website out there for packing light is that of the one-bag guru Doug Dyment. If you're looking for great information on what to pack, how to pack, and what to pack it all in, you can't go wrong at that site.

Here are my basic criteria for an RTW bag (RTW is short for 'Round The World, and is what all the Cool Kids say). My bag must be:

• Soft-sided - No wheels! They add weight and take away interior space. Also, they're Hell on cobblestones, dirt, grass, gravel... really anything that isn't a smooth airport concourse or featureless sidewalk. I know there will be times I wish I could roll along, but I think overall the extra weight and bulk would be too much.
  
• Convertible - meaning it can be carried with a handle like a suitcase, or with a shoulder strap, or with stow-away backpack straps. Note that the backpack straps on convertibles aren't nearly as ergonomically designed as those on REAL trekking backpacks, but I'm not climbing Everest here.
• Carry-on sized - Every airline has slightly different rules which makes this is a slippery concept, but most people seem to agree that about 9" x 14" x 22" is a reasonable size (about 45 litres). A bag this size will end up being too big to carry on with a few airlines, but anything small enough for all contingencies might be, well, too small. (For a look at a bag that would probably pass anywhere, check out the Tom Bihn Westen Flyer and imagine living out of 26 litres for a year.)
  
• Tough - This bag has to last me through a year of packing and unpacking almost every day. While my eBags Weekender Convertible was a steal at $69.99, I really don't think it would last.

My current favourite pick for an RTW bag is the Tom Bihn Aeronaut. It's been very well reviewed here, here and here (and in a zillion other places too). There's even a video here of a guy taking a ten-minute shower with a packed Aeronaut showing Tom Bihn's claim that the zippers are "splash-proof" is a bit of an understatement. I think I've read every word the internet has to offer on this bag, and most people agree that Tom Bihn makes really high end stuff of exceptional quality - tough enough to live out of for a year. In fact, people tend to rave.

Here's what the Aeronaut looks like:It's pricey, especially when you add in things like the Absolute Shoulder Strap, and the Convertible Packing Cube, but I have a feeling this is an area where I really shouldn't cheap out.

Here's what I like about the bag:

• It's got a few compartments which will help with organization, but it doesn't have so many pockets that I'll forget where I put things.
• I think the end pockets will be big enough to hold two pairs of shoes in one end and a day pack with Eee PC, guidebook, MP3 player, and snack in the other end. This would make for easy extraction of the day pack before stowing the main bag and sitting down in a plane, train, bus, rickshaw, donkey cart etc...
• I like that it's got lots of places to grab - both ends and the top, plus the straps.
• Most reviewers say that they were able to fit lots more into the bag than they expected, and found it more comfortable to carry than they thought they would, despite the weight.
  

Here's what I don't like:

• It's expensive, and there's really no way I can get a look at one without shelling out the money up front.
• It only comes in red, black and grey. Though the red is flashy, I'm leaning towards grey.
• There's no obvious place for a water bottle, unlike the Rick Steves bag, which is also a contender (though the decided underdog) in my One Bag Smackdown.
  
• The square-shaped centre compartment looks like it might be kind of awkward to pack.

Despite these minor drawback I think that once I actually commit fully to this crazy plan one of my first purchases will be a shiny new Aeronaut, with all the accessories. I even have a short trip to Montreal in January which would let me test it out a bit. When I actually take the plunge, you'll hear about it here first.