Unfortunately I’ve become the half of LAC that posts about once a month now. I can’t help it though, I’m busy supporting our family in a foreign country! I’ve been trudging through the jungles of the South Korean public elementary school system for 2 months now. Crazy that it’s already been 2 full months!

My latest post is actually on Jason’s Unanchor blog where I include a comprehensive list of items to pack for a long-term trip. If you or someone you know is preparing to leave for one of those soon, and you or that person happens to be a female who cares about hygiene, point them towards my post at Unanchor!

Random Thought of the Day: Every day I grow increasingly more suspicious of the “Korean Diet Illusion”. I call it the “Korean Diet Illusion” because it is quite mind boggling how much food Koreans can eat and not gain any weight. Please explain to me how the hundreds of fried chicken and beer joints are packed with people stuffing plates of fried chicken into their skinny bodies? How is there a doughnut cafe on every corner with tons of skinny people inside partaking in cream-filled deliciousness? Do Koreans secretly get their own menu with calorie-less items??!! Do I coincidentally happen to catch them eating their one and only meal of the day??!!

Possibly Related posts:

1. What to Pack for a Long-Term or RTW Trip (Male Edition)
2. Top 10 Unexpected Changes Due to Long-Term Travel
3. Five Things You Think You Need For Long-Term Traveling, But You Don’t

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This has been a post I’ve had on my “list of posts” for a long time. Well, I finally got around to doing it. Over on the new Unanchor.com Blog, I’ve put together a list of the over 75 different items I brought on our year-long trip, all with pictures and links. If you’ve ever wondered what we traveled with or are looking for packing advice, check out the new post: http://blog.unanchor.com/2011/03/what-to-pack-for-a-long-term-or-rtw-trip-male-edition/

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1. What to pack for a long-term or RTW Trip (Female Edition)
2. Five Things You Think You Need For Long-Term Traveling, But You Don’t
3. Top 10 Unexpected Changes Due to Long-Term Travel

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1. Nalgene Water Bottle – It seems like a great idea to always have a water bottle on you. However, these water bottles are bulky and can be a real nuisance when packing. Instead, I recommend buying a plastic water bottle while traveling and just refilling it. Water bottles are inexpensive and when you need to save space, simply throw it away. Don’t forget that in many countries that water isn’t potable (in which case I always recommend a Steripen).
2. Voltage Converter – Don’t get this confused with a power plug adapter. Power plug adapters change your plugs to the correct form — they’re absolutely essential and also very cheap. Power voltage converters, however, adapt the voltage of your power cord to prevent it from frying your electronics. While this seems necessary, it’s actually not. In our flat world, nearly all power cords that you use now automatically do this. My laptop power cord is capable of handling between 100 volts and 240 volts. Make sure to read your electronics before plugging them in, but rest assured because nearly all electronics take care of the voltage for you. (Voltage information is typically found on the power plug itself.)
3. Silk Sleeping Bag – Perhaps if I had a bad case of bed bugs on my previous trip, a silk sleeping bag would be on my “must-have” list, but I didn’t, therefore it’s on my “don’t bring” list. The idea behind silk sleeping bags is to use them instead of the hotel/hostel provided sheets. Silk sheets are sewn such that bed bugs can’t penetrate it, thus making them unable to bite you (apparently). I think they’re a waste of space and time. In the age of Internet reviews, your time is better spent looking up reviews about the hotel or hostel you plan on using and making sure previous guests haven’t gotten bed bugs. In fact, at most hostels or hotels, you’re strictly prohibited from using your own sheets, making silk sheets extra worthless.
4. Extra Toiletries (Deodorant, toothpaste, etc) – Sure, you’re traveling to a foreign country, but you’re not going to the moon. Chances are, there are plenty of stores there with everything you need. You don’t need to pack 6-months worth of toiletries. Take what you need to start and then buy as necessary when you arrive.
5. Money Belt – Some people swear by them, I’m not a fan. You should certainly be wary of where you put your wallet and passport, but I don’t think you need to go so far as to wear a money belt. They’re really uncomfortable and you look ridiculous when you need to get something out of them.  Put your wallet and passport in your front pocket or better yet, buy pants with a zippered pocket.

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1. What to Pack for a Long-Term or RTW Trip (Male Edition)
2. What to pack for a long-term or RTW Trip (Female Edition)
3. Top 10 Unexpected Changes Due to Long-Term Travel

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Traveling in different parts of Asia has made us realize that I’m a bit more high maintenance as a traveler than I am back at home.  There are a handful of items that I always had in my backpack that I would never go on a trip without- things that perhaps the rugged, outdoorsy people wouldn’t necessarily even think of.

Here are a list of five travel gifts that you can give to the “high” maintenance female traveler in your life…

1. A miniature straightening iron. Although I probably only used this a handful of times throughout the year, this is a must for the hair-conscious traveler.  The way I see it, if you care about having smooth hair it’s either a hair dryer or a straightener, and in the spirit of saving space in your backpack, a flat iron makes more sense.  They’re inexpensive (this one is about $15) and really small, and this one even comes with its own travel pouch (although you can easily find your own bag to store it in) so you can always look your best when you’re trekking through the jungles.

2. The best toiletry bag ever made. Not only does this Eagle Creek travel bag have space to hold ALL of your toiletries, it also comes with a mirror that is most helpful when your bag is hanging!  There are zippered compartments and pouches that have easily housed the following: full sized deodorant, all of my makeup items including mascara, eyeliner, shadows, brushes, etc, two large sized shampoo travel bottles, two moisturizer bottles, AND facial sunscreen.  Beat THAT non-travel-company-bag!

3. Bra strap concealer magic! Don’t let the ridiculousness of this item trick you- this was probably the most used item in my bag.  When you’re traveling in areas where ungodly heat is the norm, you’re going to be wearing tank tops.  Those tank tops are likely to be racer-back tops, which means that either you can have your bra straps showing like a teenager, or you can take action and hide them.  Enter bra strap concealer.  The only downside is that you’ll probably always need someone to put the concealer on for you, unless you think of some way to put it on and then turn your bra around…  Good luck.

4. V-neck shelf bra camisole. When you’re traveling, you often experience intense weather changes that leads you to a city with 100 degree weather in the morning and another city with 10 degree weather at night.  I’ve found that easily-layered clothing is a must-have in your backpack in order to easily adjust.  I absolutely love v-neck camisoles like this one that you can wear underneath any shirt.  The extra shelf support also doesn’t hurt.  I personally prefer the v-neck to the scoop neck because it is easier to conceal underneath another shirt when needed.  Plus, for some reason, scoop neck camis just remind me of middle school.  Added bonus: you can usually find these in awesome colors to spice up your plain t-shirt!

5. A pashmina. This is the most versatile travel item ever!  In the heat, you can wear this around your bathing suit as a sarong.  In the snow, you can wear this around your neck as a scarf.  Not only are pashminas always in style (they are definitely a wardrobe must-have) you can buy them in practically any color in the world.  There are expensive ones and cheap ones, so you always have the option of getting something nicer for fancier occasions or something less than $10 that you’re ok with ruining while on a trip.

BONUS item for all travelers: TIGER BALM.  When traveling through places where mosquitoes are plentiful, nothing worked better for us than this.  It gives your skin that almost burning tingling sensation that diverts your attention from the itching to the tingling.

Full Disclosure – All of the above links to Amazon are affiliate links. By using these links you financially support Jason and my travel habit. You’re awesome!

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1. What to pack for a long-term or RTW Trip (Female Edition)
2. The Traveler Dilemma: Seeing Everything Versus Taking It Slow
3. Interview with Traveler Jason Browne — 14 Months, 8,700 Miles, All By Bicycle

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Overland travel has become a staple of our trip. Having a lot of time but not a lot of money lends itself to cheap bus rides and long ferry rides rather than expensive, fast flights. I’m proud to say that Sharon and I have traveled overland from Hong Kong to Thailand and then from southern China to Japan. (We did cheat though and take a plane from Bangkok to Guangzhou, China.) In this post I’ll share why we prefer overland travel versus flying as well as some tips on killing time while on the road.

Why do we prefer traveling overland to flying?

• It’s better for the environment to take a bus or train rather than a plane (I think).
• Driving, rather than flying, allows you to see the countryside that you wouldn’t have otherwise seen
• Traveling like the locals makes you connect a little bit more with your destination.
• Finally, it’s usually cheaper.

The downside of traveling overland, however, is how long it takes. After doing it for a while I’m happy to say that I’ve become a lot better at making the time fly by while being productive (being constantly productive – a rather bittersweet obsession I have). My primary method of killing time is listening to podcasts.

Awesome Podcasts

A podcast is essentially a radio show downloaded from the Internet. Podcasts are great for buses and trains because you avoid the motion sickness often felt from reading and you’re able to enjoy the passing scenery. Here are a few of my favorite podcasts in no particular order:

Note: All links below should automatically subscribe you to the podcast via iTunes.

• The Economist: The Week Ahead – A short, weekly podcast where they discuss the upcoming major events of the world. It’s tough to stay on top of the news while on the road, and I find this to be a pretty good way to do so. I still, however, need to find a podcast that summarizes the previous week’s top newstories.
• TED Talks – TED is an awesome organization that asks extremely bright people to talk about the topics they’re most passionate about. The talks are usually less than 20 minutes.
• Stuff You Should Know – Excellent podcast that discuses very random but interesting subjects; things that you often think about on a whim but never look up. Each podcast is around a half-hour. Recent topics have included how hard is it to steal a work of art, what makes a genius and how hiccups work.
• Mixergy – Five times a week, Andrew Warner interviews successful entrepreneurs. The interviews are outstanding. He asks great questions and really tries to find out how they do what they do so others can learn the tricks of the trade and hopefully replicate their success. Interviews can be long, some going as long as 90 minutes, but are always worth it.
• WNYC’s Radiolab – Similar to “Stuff You Should Know”, in that they cover a wide variety of subjects. However, I find these podcasts to be more polished and much more in-depth. Their recent shows on the physical and mental limits of humans and Lucy the chimp were awesome.

The easiest way to subscribe to a podcast is via iTunes. Go into the store and subscribe. They’re free and will automatically download and transfer new episodes to your iPod/iPhone/iPad.

Other Offline Time-Killers

In addition to podcasts, there are many things to be accomplished on my laptop, despite being offline.

• Offline Gmail – Google has a great add-on to Gmail that allows you to download all of your email offline and then respond to emails. Everything is automatically synced the next time you connect. Go into “Settings” and then “Offline” to activate it.
• Organizing Photos – I have become a huge fan of Google’s Picasa software on this trip. Pictures are automatically tagged through facial recognition, uploading to any photo sharing site is as easy as pushing one button, and the pictures stay nice and organized.
• Offline Google Reader – Byline is an excellent iPhone/iPod Touch application that downloads all of the latest posts from the blogs you follow, allowing you to read them at your leisure with or without an Internet connection. The app is $3.99 however.
• Finally, I write – A recurring productivity tip is to shut off your email and Internet connection when you’re ready to get seroius about getting work done. I’ve been quite surprised with how much writing and/or studying I can accomplish when I don’t have access to the Internet.

Do you know of any great podcasts? Or do you have any tips for killing time while on the road? Let me know, leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Our Time in Korea Wrap-Up
2. When Travel Loses Its Thrill, Is It Time To Go Home?
3. The Great Adventure of Lunch in Haikou

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Note: This is unfortunately only applicable if you’re a United States resident and of course subject to become out of date as soon as this article is published. Thankfully, the US government keeps an excellent and hard to find website. Here’s an extremely useful link for figuring out Visa information for every country in the world: http://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html (Scroll half-way down and click “A-Z Country Index”)

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From time-to-time, Sharon and I will be sharing some of the travel tips we’ve learned. Our first “tips post” discusses the science of packing our backpack.

A concern we had about traveling for an extended period of time was becoming annoyed with “living out of our backpacks”. I’m happy to report back that with some extensive trial-and-error, this is no longer much of a nuisance.

The key to the way we pack is that everything goes in a bag before going into our backpack. Essentially, nothing in my backpack is just stuffed into the pack by itself. Stuffing individual items leads to disorganization, inefficient use of space, and takes much longer to pack and unpack.

The best packing accessory we purchased were ITW’s Space Compressible Travel Roll Bags. They’re essentially large see-through compression “Ziploc” bags. They’re cheap and awesome! All of my clothes now fit into one large and one small bag – pants, shirts and jacket in the big bag and underwear and socks in the small bag. To use them, you roll-up the bag and while you do so, air is released from the bag out of the bottom, creating an air-tight bundle of clothing – it saves a ton of space. It also makes unpacking all of my clothes easy; I simply pull out two bags.

Another great packing accessory purchase was the Eagle Creek Pack-It Stuffer set. The largest one is a perfect place to store laundry and the other two I use to store some random smaller things – locks for our laptops, my snorkel gear, etc.

Sharon’s favorite purchase was Eagle Creek’s Koala Hanging Toiletry Kit. I bought a small, basic toiletry bag which works just fine, but I must admit, I do get jealous when Sharon just hangs up her toiletry bag in the bathroom.  It’s pretty darn convenient.

Not all of my packing related purchases worked out well.  Here are a couple of items I regretted packing and ended up shipping back to the states:

• Eagle Creek Travel Gear Pack-It Folder – I think this would be a great accessory if you were traveling with a regular suitcase for a week of business meetings where you needed each shirt to be crisp. For backpacking though, it was bulky and frankly a burden to fold my t-shirts and 1 collared shirt each time.
• Eagle Creek 2-Sided Packing Cube – I had the great idea to use this to store my workout clothes, underwear and socks, which it did just fine. But similarly to the Pack-It folder, it’s pretty bulky and didn’t fit nicely into my pack. Space is at a premium and unfortunately I didn’t think the cube saved space. It does make organization easier though.

In all, including my toiletry bag, I have 10 bags which go into my backpack- three of which rarely leave my bag. So, packing and unpacking essentially involves 7 bags. When they’re out of my bag, they feel like drawers–I can open, close and put them away. Most of them are see-through or are a different color so it’s easy to tell what’s inside.

If you have any packing tips you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them. We’re constantly striving to make it an easier process.

Note: All links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you like something we mentioned, we’d appreciate your support of using these links to purchase–we’ll get a small cut. Every little bit helps us keep our travel dreams going! Thanks

Possibly Related posts:

1. What to Pack for a Long-Term or RTW Trip (Male Edition)
2. Can I bring a separate backpack of shoes?
3. Five Things You Think You Need For Long-Term Traveling, But You Don’t

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