to stumble across http://www.onebag.com, which was fascinating (it's all
about, wait for it, travelling with just one bag). Call me a fool but
I've been tempted into ordering an MEI Voyageur backpack on the site's
recommendation. It's not cheap (£90 plus maybe £50 in postage and
customs charges) but it's not like the £210+ I could have easily spent
on something at Rohan, so I can delude myself I'm not being a total sap.
Delivery time is four weeks and maybe longer, but I don't go for nearly
six so it's probably OK.
If I hadn't got sidetracked into that site, I might have bought a
similar-sized £25/30 item from amazon.co.uk. However, the one I actually
bought does have a padded hip belt, which is supposed to make a big
difference if you're carrying anything heavy.
I have to be honest and say I have a horror of people thinking I'm
trying to pass myself off as a proper backpacker, so one of the things
that partly sold me on it was onebag.com's observation at
http://www.onebag.com/leisure-bags.html:
"A variety of factors — both technical (e.g., they generally open only
at the top, which makes packing difficult) and social (e.g., backpackers
are perceived as undesirable in some areas) — tend to preclude the use
of "real" backpacks, so you need something that can be made not to look
like one! This style of bag, in which the shoulder harness and hip belt
can be hidden away (typically behind a zippered panel), has come to be
known as a "travel pack"."
This sounds like the best of both worlds.
On the subject of travelling light, I was half inclined to try it
anyway, but I think having read onebag.com I will definitely have to
have a go at it on this three week trip. I'm not sure I'd have the balls
to risk it if I were taking another extended trip, but this is a good
opportunity to try it out. I dug out my suitcase and a tape measure and
my suitcase has a volume of approximately 60 litres, compared to 44
litres for anything "maximum carry on size". I also had a small "gym kit
and sandwiches" kind of backpack with me on the 2010 trip as well, which
mainly held electronics. So I'm looking at needing to reduce the volume
of stuff I take by at least 25%, maybe more. Of course, it's going to be
a bit easier as I can get away with at most two of my travel guides (the
others don't cover Chile or Argentina) and I will be strong and try to
avoid taking more than one small paperback book as entertainment.
I dug out my old blog entry on the subject yesterday
(http://steve-abroad.blogspot.com/2010/04/colonia-and-buenos-aires.html)
and it was interesting to see that I had managed to come to some of the
same conclusions as onebag.com myself.
On the subject of electronic guidebooks, I am tempted. I will definitely
be taking my netbook with me, and I could also read a PDF on my phone;
this would mean I could actually, to a certain extent, consult the guide
book on the fly instead of just looking at it back at the hotel.
However, since this is a brief-ish trip and I already own two suitable
printed guidebooks, my inclination is not to bother. I haven't checked
prices but I don't think electronic copies are cheap. There is also that
never-going-to-happen-but-still scenario lurking at the back of my mind
where it's 2am and I've been thrown off a bus and all my batteries are
dead. Yes, it shouts "mug me, I am a tourist" to dredge out the guide
book at that point, but probably less so that wandering around the
streets in the vague hope of finding somewhere for an hour.
I am wondering what to do about phone(s). I am now on a contract and I
am deeply dubious about the potential risks of roaming charges
(especially for data), so I may well buy a UK PAYG SIM and take that
with me. (I could buy a SIM over there, but if I want data to work - and
I do at least want e-mail access - it's probably taking a risk. I
managed with a UK PAYG SIM in 2010 after all.)
More to the point, I do plan to be doing a certain amount of a) sitting
around in bars wanting to read a book on my phone and b) blogging about
it in a dull way. The Treo 650 was perfect for both of those, the
battery life was great and it was probably chunky enough to avoid being
a big target for crime.
Both my N900 and Desire Z have half decent keyboards but the battery
life sucks and they might also look just slightly too slick and tempting
to thieves. On the other hand, I don't want to carry multiple phones
around (even if I wasn't going to try to do things a bit more
lightweight than last time) and some of the features on the new phones
like GPS could be big pluses. (I have a standalone GPS receiver, but it
doesn't do maps and it's bulky; maybe not too bulky to take with me, but
too bulky to routinely carry round with me. Plus, battery life
permitting, taking GPS tracks as I walk round places could be an
interesting addition to the blog and help annotate photos with the
location they were taken at, etc.)
Have to think about it I guess.
(Oh, I should say - the Treo 650 I have is kind of on its last legs. The
SD card slot gave up the ghost not long after I came back from the 2010
trip, and as probably blogged about during the trip the keyboard was
getting quite ropy, so I'd have to buy another if I did want to take one
with me. I suspect they're fairly cheap on ebay these days though.)
