Packing your clothes in your backpack may not sound like the most challenging thing in the world to do, but ask anyone who’s done it and undoubtedly they’ll admit it’s one of those things that’s harder than you would think.

For the last couple of years I followed the methods on the OneBag site which worked OK, but not perfectly. The bundle method promoted over there is certainly effective, but I found that in a backpack, your bundle of clothes shifted around and made a mess of things.

I’m getting ready for another trip to Morocco and during a trip to my local REI I came across the Eagle Creek Pack-It Folder.  I had walked by them before and passed them as nothing more than a gimmick, but after one too many trips with my clothes stretching out because I packed them too tight, I decided to give it a shot.  It had great reviews online and was on sale for about $20.

I’m hooked.

The concept is simple.  Pack your clothes neatly inside the folder and fasten the sided down to smash everything together tightly.  The key, of course, is to fold and pack your close neatly which everybody knows is no easy feat.  The Pack-It folder makes it pretty fool proof though.

Fold your pants in half on and lay them on the bottom of the folder.

Use the included folding sheet to fold any shirts or tops you have neatly.  It’s just like the stores do it.  Lay the thin plastic card on the back of your shirt and fold the sleeves over the sides.  Flip up the bottom of the shirt and remove the card.  Lay the shirt on the top of your folder and repeat until you’re done with all of your clothes.  The card even has directions on it in case you can’t figure it out.

Finally, lay the card on the top of your pile and fold the sides of the folder over.  You can cinch them down and fasten the velcro to keep it all tight.  There’s even a handle to carry it easily if it’s not going inside a backpack or luggage.

The benefits

If you’re familiar with the bundle wrapping technique, you’ll notice this isn’t too far off. The main difference is that the folder keeps the clothes together rather than wrapping them around each other.

Your clothes will be neatly packed in a considerably smaller space than you are used to.  The folder isn’t much larger than a laptop (depending on what size you purchase) so you’ll be saving a lot of room in your backpack.

The drawbacks

As with anything that helps you fit more things into smaller spaces, you’ll be tempted to pack more than you need.  Fight the urge and take only what you need.  You’ll have extra room in your backpack if you need it for other things while traveling and you’ll save some strain on your back.

The other minor (and I mean very minor, to me at least) drawback is that your clothes will not stay wrinkle free.  Wrinkles will be minimized but they will get minor creases from the folding but to me that is not a big deal.  They’re much more wrinkle-free than if I were to fold and pack them myself.  So far this doesn’t bother me at all.

Some people may complain about paying for another piece of gear, but at around $25, I think this is well worth it.  I can enough to last me for two weeks in less than 5 minutes and into a convenient size that’s not much larger than a laptop computer.

The Eagle Creek Pack-It Folder comes in three sizes: 15, 18, and 20.  After trying all three, I found the 20 too large and the 15 too small and the 18 just right.  I packed one pair of pants, two pairs of shorts, 2 dress shirts, and 5 t-shirts in the 18 with room to spare.

Where to purchase

You can probably find an Eagle Creek Pack-It Folder at your local outdoor retailer, but you can also order them on Amazon for around $25 depending on the size.

“You’ll get robbed” they said.
“Quito is a hell hole full of mugs, low life’s and degenerates.”
“You’ll be lucky to leave with both kidneys intact, let alone your laptop.”

Everyone seems to have an opinion about Quito, and it’s generally not pleasant. ‘The most dangerous place in South America’ had been bandied about while I was in Ecuador, and based on what I had heard, I was pleasantly surprised to get out alive.

I was working at a hostel in Quito last year, and it seemed that every second day a backpacker would return distressed after being mugged while sightseeing. Laptops, iPhones and Cameras were the most thieved items, but it wasn’t unheard of for someone to be held up for their money or passport.

What did most of those victims have in common? They flouted their (comparative) wealth; Camera’s dangling around their necks; they wore expensive jewellery and designer clothes; they explored unsafe areas by themselves (despite being warned not to). They didn’t use common sense.

There’s a fair chance we’ll all run into a bit of strife on the road. You can be the most cautious traveller, but if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, or just dead out of luck, even the most fastidious of us can get caught out. But it was astounding the amount of backpackers that were bewildered about their mugging after so blatantly advertising their wealth.

Let’s face it – quite a few Ecuadorian’s are considered ‘poor’ by western standards. In fact 35% of the 14,791,000 people in Ecuador live below the poverty line. That’s over 5 million people. So yeah, sometimes people will try to mug you, but that’s going to happen in many developing countries.

It’s frustrating when a country is written off because of someone’s bad experience being on the ugly side of a mugging. Bad news travels a lot faster than good news, and while you would hope people take many factors into consideration when deciding where to visit, word of mouth can be a massive persuasion. It would be a shame for travellers to miss out Quito due to the bad experiences of others.

I found Ecuador to be once of the most fascinating countries I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. The locals I met where so welcoming and engaging, and it does seem a little bit forgotten when it comes to South America; Peru has Machu Picchu, Bolivia the Salar de Uyuni and death road, Columbia is the new ‘must visit’ destination and I don’t need to go into Brazils draw cards. But Ecuador has the goods; The Andean highlands and the Cotopaxi volcano; the beautiful spa’s of Baños, the vibrant university town of Cuenca and the chilled out Pacific coast beach towns like Montañita are all worthy of a spot on any itinerary, not to mention the Galapagos Islands. Also, don’t forget that you can stand right on the Mitad del Mundo (that’s the middle of the world… also known as the equator) -not an hours drive out of Quito (which itself is a vibrant bustling city full of history and culture). There’s so much going for Ecuador, it would be a shame to miss out, which is why I’ve put together the following tips for a visit to the capital of this underestimated country.

The standard traveller musts apply, but are worth mentioning again;

• Leave the valuables and money you don’t need at your hostel. There’s probably a safe you can use, at the very least padlock your locker.

• Know and avoid the most dangerous areas (In Quito these are; El Panecillo, and for that matter anywhere in the old town after dark, especially near the market).

• Be alert, especially in crowded spaces or when people invade your personal space.

• Dress inconspicuously so as not draw attention to yourself as a ‘gringo con dinero’. Leave the Ed Hardy shirts at home (if only to keep the respect of your fellow travellers).

• Leave whatever money you don’t need back at the hostel, and split up into different pockets whatever you have on you.

What to do if you’ve been robbed in Quito

• Head straight to for the estación de la policía . Explain to someone what happened and they’ll more than likely take you right to the station. You might be hard pressed getting the police to fill out a report but persevere, you’ll need it for your insurance.

• I needn’t go into the necessity of having travel insurance. So assuming you already would have taken this out (which of course you would have) give them a call as soon as possible and let them know what’s happened. World Nomads has an online claim system, which means you don’t have to spend half an hour on Skype trying to get through to someone only to have the call drop out halfway through.

• If you stay at a well-known and recommended hostel, like The Secret Garden in Quito, speak to one of the many Ecuadorian staff and they’ll be more than happy to help you out with getting in touch with your embassy or insurance. Tell you’re sob story to one of the foreign gringo volunteers and they might even poor you a cerveza gratis so you can down your sorrows.

• Once you’ve reporting your loss to the police and contacted your insurance head for the black market (mercado negro) and see if you can spot your stolen goods. A guy from my hostel found his camera there, the thief forgot to take out the memory card so all his photos we’re still in the camera. He just showed the photos to the nearby Police officer, who allowed him to take the camera back and be on his merry way.

Above all, don’t freak out about a trip to Quito. It’s an amazing city full of history, lots to see and do, plenty to great clubs and bars, and full of friendly people. Just take care when out and about, don’t flash your iPhone about, and enjoy what this amazing city has to offer.

Follow Shane on Twitter or read more on his travels at sanchezjalapeno.com

It’s 7:30am and the town of Boquete, Panama is just starting to wake up. But there I am, first up in the hostel, sitting with my MacBook Pro on my lap in the open-air dining area. I’m enjoying the refreshing breeze coming through the walkway, but more importantly I’m writing a client back in the states who has no idea I’m in Central America on a what I call a semi-holiday.

I had been wanting to visit Panama for a while but this trip was designed to be equal parts enjoyment and work. A test, of sorts.

My freelance business is doing very well. Good enough to live off of, but I’m still working for a small company in California. I’ve been blessed to have a great job with some decent travel benefits for the better part of a decade, but I’m trying be proactive.

We are in a recession that isn’t just changing the way people live, it’s changing the way businesses operate. There are cutbacks everywhere and small businesses are realizing they can still manage to operate with fewer employees. Give more work to who is leftover after a round of layoffs and it will certainly get done.

This isn’t just a trend. It’s the new way to do business. Frugal and efficient.

That doesn’t mean I’m worried about being unemployed any time soon, but the writing is on the wall. I’ll be safe for a while, but I don’t have high hopes for my job to take me all the way to retirement.  Not to sound like a pessimist, but this probably holds true for most people.

And let’s admit it: who wants to wait until 65 to retire? I’d rather travel now.

Testing the waters

I had a plan for a while about the type of life I wanted to lead in the near future, but was it realistic?  Could I continue to work while traveling the world for months on end? Was I really cut out to be a digital nomad?

As I mentioned, this trip to Panama was a test.  I wanted to see if I could enjoy traveling while continuing to focus on my work.  With about two days notice I booked a rewards ticket to Panama City without a plan.  Upon arrival I hired a rental car and drove up the Pan American Highway towards Boquete.  A small town known for its coffee in the northern highlands near the Costa Rican border.

Each morning I hopped on the computer for an hour or two and took care of all immediate business requiring my attention.  After the important tasks were taken care of I made a to-do list for the evening and then headed out to enjoy my day.

Can you really find the time?

I found it easy to find the time to continue working while traveling.  While I sure didn’t want to spend the entire day indoors working, there was usually plenty of time to relax on the computer and get some work done.

For instance, one day after I took care of my morning tasks I went white-water rafting.  It was an exciting and tiring day so when I was done and returned to Boquete, I welcomed a comfy hammock and my laptop and had a few hours before dinner to get things done.

Will you have the discipline?

Assuming you have accommodations that offer internet service there is plenty of time available to focus on work.  That said, you will still have make the time.  That means partying all night and sleeping in is probably out of the cards unless you want to neglect your business.

In my case, I’ve found I can get more work done this way as I am forced to focus on the task at hand.  Also, while there are plenty of things you’ll want to get out and do, when you’re indoors and working there will likely be considerably less distractions than at home.  No TV, no DVDs, no video games, etc.

I’m also amazed at how much writing I can do while on an airplane and cut off from the internet.  It’s a blessing in disguise.

Discipline is definitely the most important factor for success as a digital nomad.

Headline photo courtesy of Rita Willaert

Hopefully you’re familiar with super-traveler & blogger extraordinaire Chris Guillebeau but if not, now’s the time to start.

But this post isn’t just to kiss his butt, it’s to share his great eBook titled Frequent Flyer Master.

I don’t buy many eBooks because I’m one of those stubborn fools who would rather spend 30 hours researching things myself than pay somebody $5 to teach me them in one hour.  Silly, I know but I’m starting to open up to the idea and have purchased a few products like this over the past few months.

Despite thinking I knew all there was to know about mileage programs and reward travel I went ahead and ordered Frequent Flyer Master after reading Chris’ 25,000 mile (one domestic round-trip airline ticket) guarantee.  Earn an extra 25,000 miles after reading it or he’ll gladly refund your money.  That’s a good enough guarantee to me and 25,000 miles is well worth the cost of the program.

Within two months of purchasing it I’m due to receive about 90,000 frequent miles and have only taken one flight (which I ironically didn’t earn any miles on due to my poor attention to booking details).

What can 90,000 frequent flyer miles get you?

• How about more than three round-trip domestic tickets in the USA?
• Or almost two round-trips to Europe.
• And my personal favorite, two round-trips to Central America with enough left over for a domestic trip.

What did three years of constant business-travel get me?

• Around 20,000 miles on Delta
• Around 13,000 miles on American Airlines
• Around 4,000 miles on United
• Around 2,000 miles on US Air
• A sore back

I’ll take the 90,000 frequent flyer miles for almost zero work!

Even a stubborn guy like me still has a lot to learn and Chris is the MAN for teaching me that.

One of the bonuses that isn’t exactly advertised is the Frequent Flyer Master email list.  If you’re on any of Chris’ other email lists you’ll know he loves to send great info out to his readers (he’s about the only one who doesn’t drive me crazy with spam – every email is worth reading).  Well if you purchase, you’ll get an early, or sometimes exclusive, heads up on promotions and info regarding adding up even more miles.

Of course your mileage may vary (no pun intended) but for me, it has already paid for itself tenfold.

How much does it cost?

I guess it’s time to talk dollars and cents (or sense, if you have any).

The Frequent Flyer Master eBook / program costs just $49.  If you read it and earn a quick 25,000 miles, it’ll be the cheapest airline ticket of your life!

You might also consider bundling the Becoming a Travel Ninja guide for a total of $79 which I also found extremely useful.  Some of the knowledge on Round-The-World (RTW) airfare in that guide alone is worth its weight in gold.

Full Disclosure

The links on this page are affiliate links. I’ll earn a few bucks if you decide to purchase any of the Unconventional Guides through my links.  I joined with Chris to promote this after I bought and read both guides on my own dime, without any plans to sell them to anybody.  After spending the time to read them though and earning some serious frequent flyer miles very quickly, I realized this stuff has to be shared!

If you end up purchasing them through this page, please leave a comment below.  I’d like to send you a special thank you in the near future.

This post is supposed to be about doing Melbourne, Australia (my home town) as a backpacker. I wanted to write something on how those of us with itchy feet who want to be travelling but can’t (work commitments, saving money etc) can still do the little things to get that ‘on the road’ feeling back, by seeing our cities through new eyes. I wanted to do all the things I would do as a backpacker, but never do as a resident. So I did the research, got the maps, charged the camera and was ready to hit the town when I realised that Melbourne, while a spectacular city to live in, just isn’t that great as a backpacker.

Melbourne has really funky bars, good museums and due to our large multicultural population there is a diverse rang of authentic cheap eats, everything from Ethiopian to Nepalese. Melbourne also has the highest amount of Italian’s per capita living outside of Italy, so you’d be hard pressed to walk  2 blocks without finding a good Italian place.  All great things to do when living here (and having a disposable income to spend on booze and food), but finding stuff to do as a backpacker was proving difficult. Still, I thought I’d give it a go.

The first thing to do was find a place to stay. The cheapest dorm bed I could find last minute was 35 dollars. I had the intention of doing the entire weekend as a backpacker – bed bugs and all – but when I was quoted this price at check in , I quickly changed my mind. For a grand total of 0 dollars I could sleep in my own apartment in the city. Sans bed bugs and dubious looking stains on the sheets. So that idea was scratched.

I realised though that if I were to do any of this properly, I’d need to hang out with other backpackers that were in town. So I hit the bars and common areas of a few hostels to get an idea on what there was to do in Melbourne.

First thing on the agenda for most British Backpackers was to pick up. The second thing was a trip to the Neighbours TV Set. (American readers probably don’t know what I’m on about, so in brief – Neighbours is an Australian Teen soapie that is arguably much bigger in the UK than Australia and unarguably makes for very awful TV). After that the next most common thing to do was head to St Kilda. Now that’s something I could do.

St Kilda is only 7 kilometres from the city but it’s world apart. Palm trees line the esplanade, beautiful people swim at the beach, and there are plenty of cafes to sit at and read the paper. So I hopped on the 96 tram and headed down there.  Thing is St Kilda is a great place to live, and a great place to be on holiday if you’re from out of town, but as a backpacker it gets a bit boring once you’ve done the beach thing.

Melbournians, like many backpackers, are sports-mad. You can’t walk down the street on the weekend without having to push and shove your way through oncoming masses en route to an AFL (Australian Football League) game or the tennis. Problem is, for me the only thing worse than watching sports is having to participate in sports (I still have nightmares of the mandatory yearly athletics carnival at school) so when I’m travelling I tend to bypass all the sporting events (except Lucha Libre… we all have our vices)

I decided to take a somewhat more cultured approach to my weekend as a backpacker. I headed to the National Gallery of Victoria to see an exhibition of the work of an Australian who lived in Paris at the turn of the 20^th century, as well as another exhibition called ‘Love, Loss and Intimacy’ which was good too. Both were free which is exactly the sort of exhibitions I’d be looking for as a backpacker. I congratulated myself on a job well done by heading into the labyrinth that is Melbourne City’s laneway’s where most of the eclectic and funky shops can be found.

While I found plenty of things that I wanted to get, none of which fell into my backpacker budget, a somewhat reoccurring theme this weekend. I did a spot of people watching and had some gelati before heading back to the backpacker bars for a drink.

On Sunday I spoke to a few people who had recently arrived in Melbourne on the massive Greyhound trip from northern Queensland. Some had come from Fraser Island (the worlds largest sand island, about 2000km’s north) others had come from the Whitsundays – a week of diving at the Great Barrier Reef (2,500km’s away) while some had just arrived from a week in Sydney (900km’s north) Everyone had agreed that Melbourne doesn’t really have many ‘must see’ destinations but was a great place to while away a few days eating out and seeing some live bands (Melbourne, unlike Sydney has a thriving live music scene). A Scottish guy referred to it as the Glasgow of the southern hemisphere.  Someone else said it was like just like Seattle. Having never been to Glasgow or Seattle I’m not sure how to take that.

I spoke to a group of guys who were loading up their VW van ready for the 3,500 kilometre trek west to Perth.  They said they liked Melbourne but it was too expensive so they were leaving a week earlier than planned. By this stage I was starting to wish I were writing a post on pretty much any other city in Australia.

I gave up seeing Melbourne with fresh eyes. It’s a great city, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in Australia, but it’s not all that great for backpackers. To perk myself up after this failed experiment I went to my favourite dumpling place in Chinatown for some comfort food. In the booth next to me I overhead a bunch of backpackers talking about how much they loved Melbourne. A Chinese backpacker in the group was raving about the dumplings he was eating. Someone else got to see their favourite band that was touring last night, the band apparently never tours in their home town so they were feeling pretty lucky about that. Another person in the group was from Argentina and was saying how good it was to be able to go out to Spanish bars and South American Delicatessens, right here in the city.

I started to think that maybe we don’t need every place we visit to be new and different, maybe when we’re on the road we sometimes want to go to a place that reminds us a little like home. And for that, Melbourne seemed to fit the bill.

Follow Shane on Twitter or read more on his travels here at Havepack or at SanchezJalapeno.com

Headline image courtesy of -=Kuba=-

Last year I was visiting Beijing. For my last dinner before an early train trip to Mongolia in the morning I went out to small restaurant around the corner from my hotel. Chinese food is amazing, in no small part because of the creative titles given to their dishes. There was pimple soup, wonderous pork belly and explosion of tofu & spices to name a few. As a vegetarian, I opted for the later.

“I’ll just have the ‘explosion of tofu & spices’, there’s no meat in that dish is there?”

“No meat. Only tofu. You do not eat meat?”

“No, I don’t. I’m a vegetarian.”

“But you are a man!”

Turns out there was meat in the dish, but perhaps it isn’t counted as meat in China -  it was only some mince in the sauce. Maybe he thought my sick and ghastly appearance was not due to my flue, but lack of iron – so he thought he was doing me a favour. Either way it was a conversation I often have when in Asia, South America or Europe. Especially Europe.

Sometimes it can be hard travelling as a vego. In a lot of countries meat features predominately in most meals, which often leaves you with a very uninspired plate of lentils or salad. There can also be a culturing difference where meat eating is seen as masculine, and when you request a veggie dish you’re met with a quizzical glance or at worse stubborn ingination and a plate of chicken for your troubles. But it’s all part of travelling.

Most tourist hotspots cater to vegetarians now, Thailand is a great place to travel as a herbivore – there’s nothing bland about a veggie green curry. Bigger cities in South America are pretty good too, lots of beautiful salads, and if you’re an aquatarian (or a fishocrite might be more apt) you’ll always find something to eat on the coast. But if you are inland or visiting a less touristed town here’s a few tips.

• Don’t be that guy that refuses to eat anything that might have once shared fridge shelf space with some steak. Your fussiness isn’t going to win anyone over. If your meal comes con carne sure, don’t eat the meat but just pick it out. If I order a meal that comes with a bit of chicken or beef I put it in a napkin and save it for a stray dog – you’re guaranteed a new friend for the day.

• Hot sauce. I love me some hot sauce (as you would expect from someone who writes for sanchezjalapeno.com) – I always carry a bottle with me. Sometimes rice and beans for the 5^th meal straight can be a little uninspired. Add a little hot sauce and you’re set.

• Be careful with the salads and fruit, especially in SE Asia or South America. My girlfriend ended up hospitalised with Salmonella poisoning in a small town in Peru, all from eating a salad that wasn’t washed with purified water. Most tourist restaurants in SE Asia note on the menu that they wash all their veggies with bottled water but still it pays to take notice of the cleanliness of the establishment before chowing down. Rule of thumb with fruit is if you can peel it, you can eat it.

Photo by Renato Pequito

I tend to subscribe to the ‘When in Rome’ Policy. While I don’t eat meat as a rule, I will try anything once. I had a taste of some marvellous pancetta on a farm in Tuscany where the meat was  raised, culled and cured all onsite. It was much tastier than anything pre-packed at the supermarket and I got an understanding of how much love and work goes into farming animals in a small village. I suppose veggie purists would not be happy with me, but I feel we travel to experience the world and a big part of that is participating in experiences that we normally wouldn’t do.

If you’re a vegetarian, how do you get by when you travel? If you have any veggie disaster stories, share them in the comments below

Follow Shane on Twitter, read more of his articles for Have Pack, Will Travel or catch up on his travels at SanchezJalapeno.com

I‘m writing this post in Northern Thailand, the city of Pai to be exact.  I find myself quite inspired by this trip I’m taking along with resident guest poster Shane Brown.  See we showed up to Thailand with only one thing planned, to rent motorbikes and ride through the northern mountains from Chiang Mai to Pai, along the Mae Hong Son loop.  Other than that, we didn’t care much about what we did, where we stayed, what we ate, or how we would manage any of it.

I’m a self-professed guidebook addict.  I proudly display my used and retired guidebooks on a bookshelf in my home and carry at least one with me every time I travel.  It does seem like a bit of overkill as I tend to take things as they are and do what I want when I travel, but I still like the comfort of having a backpacker bible readily available should I need some information.

That said, over the past few days we have covered a considerable distance using a means of transportation that neither of us have ever done before.  And neither one of us have opened our Lonely Planet once nor have we missed relying on it.

Here’s a few tips on how to do it successfully and probably enjoy your trip more than you would should you be following the backpacker’s bible.

Talk to people

You should always be willing to chat with people and get their opinions and advice on things.  You never know when somebody will refer you to a great guesthouse or hostel, restaurant, or a secret road that leads to natural hot springs (thanks Thai coffee shop guy!)

Walk around

We went ahead and booked our initial guesthouse in Chiang Mai online so we didn’t have to deal with finding one with our packs on our back in 30+ degree heat.  It was a fine place, but while walking around and exploring the city we found plenty of comparable places for about half the price.  Of course these places aren’t online so they don’t get the constant business and price increases that the digitally-inclined places do.

This definitely goes for restaurants as well.  While in many places I have found myself relying on my Lonely Planet to provide me with tasty and safe places to eat, I find that I end up arriving only to overpay for basic food that’s often less than impressive.  All of the best meals I’ve had have come from randomly stumbling upon a place on the street and most are actually just from street vendors or food stalls in markets.  You won’t find anything written about these places in your book.

Be open to ideas

It’s nice not to have a strict agenda and be willing to take things as they come.  On our motorbike journey we went seeking out some hot springs off the main road that a coffee shop owner told us about.  10 minutes down a dusty road through the hills we came across several elephants being walked by some Thai guys in camouflage.  We’re still not sure what they were doing, but it was a startling and awesome sight.

Have a basic understanding of the area

It truly helps to at least glance at a map before arriving or having an idea of what parts of town are where.  You should definitely be aware of any areas that may be unsafe before arriving dead smack in the middle of gang warfare (ask Shane about Casco Viejo in Panama City).

Many places are very simple to get around by foot but of course many can also be riddled with confusing streets and neighborhoods so a map might not be a bad idea.

Often though, you can have an idea and just stroll up and go shopping for rooms.  Currently we are in Pai, Thailand and knew we wanted to stay somewhere near the river.  So we headed that direction and 15 minutes later we had some great little bungalows on the river for about the cost of a fast food meal back home.

I won’t tell people that they shouldn’t have a guidebook.  They can come in handy and for years I’ve carried one with me everywhere I go.  I probably won’t stop any time soon, but the point is that it’s nice to not have to rely on it and doing so can really open doors to a lot of things you might miss should you be following your guidebook to the letter.

What about you? Do you often travel with a guidebook or without one?  What do you like about whichever method you’re used to?

I’m so sick of the travel section of most mainstream newspapers. The Saturday ‘Traveller’ section of my local paper is pretty much pages and pages of advertisements thinly disguised as destination reviews. I’ve noticed that it’s pretty rare to find a less than flattering review written journalists that travel as ‘guests’ of the tour groups, government tourism departments or airlines that they are writing about. They might point out one or two minor niggles but I’d say 95% of the content in those articles are absolutely glowing reviews of the service or company in question.

This has led to a stock standard format of reporting where each beach is pristine, all locals smiling, flight attendants charming and attentive and the nightlife electric and thumping. It’s a shame. Besides the fact that we’re all intelligent enough to know we’re being taken for a ride, it also makes for a very boring read.

Am I asking too much to expect an unbiased and interesting account of someone’s travels in my Saturday paper? We all know that not every trip is amazing, nor is every single holiday devoted to a beach hopping somewhere in Fiji. Airline service is generally not fantastic and some places just don’t have exciting nightlife. So why isn’t that reflected in what we read in the paper?

I’m over reading about the next paradise found. What about Paradise lost? I find travel disaster stories to be some of the most captivating. We can all relate to an awful flight or getting ripped off. So in the interest of balanced and fair reporting, I’d like to present to you my list of the words most over rated tourist destinations. I put the call out on twitter this week and here are some of the responses, as well as a few of my own;

Phnom Penh

I didn’t naively travel into Phnom Penh without some idea of what to expect. Cambodian’s history is riddled with bullets, persecution and heartache. No city could bounce back with ease from what happened there, so I knew to go in with an open mind. Still, that didn’t stop me from wanting to leave from the moment I landed.

I arrived just on nightfall, and after checking into my guesthouse went on the hunt for some bottled water and toothpaste. I managed to walk 5 metres from my hotel before hordes of touts pounced, pulling me this way and that, promising me cocaine, opium, dope and my choice of teenage kids to take home for the night. I’m not unaccustomed to the ways of the tout, but I have never been as aggressively accosted as I was in Phnom Penh. To top it off were gun shots in the distance and I had a very unsettling feeling about being there.

A lot of the residents in Phnom Penh were lovely, genuine people and I had a few interesting conversations but I still couldn’t shake the seedy and unsafe feeling I was getting from being there. Also, there just wasn’t a lot to do except visit the Killing fields and Museum. I still think Phnom Penh is worth visiting as I’m a firm believer that only by being there to talk to people and witness first hand what happened will we ever fully understand magnitude of the atrocities brought against the Cambodians by the Pol Pot regime, however I just don’t think that the city itself makes for a great tourist destination, yet have you noticed that everyone raves about it? Makes me wonder…

Paris

I think this response from alert reader Kassey sums it up;

Stupid bloody Paris. Honestly what’s the deal about a TV antenna that was supposed to come down decades ago? And the price of food. Astronomical! Down with Paris, it’s way overrated and now it’s got a big head. We need to take it down a notch I say. Though I do like the way the people manifest (protest) on an ongoing basis. I respect that about the French (and love their accents).

Succinctly put I say. Paris is very beautiful, but is also very aware of that fact. Everything is expensive. Everything. Even public toilets cost at least a Euro. Still it’s worth visiting at least once. If only so you can have get surly service at restaurants, pay through the nose for a dodgy guesthouse and swoon over the accent (French does sound beautiful, even when being slurred by hobos in the subway). And yeah, take a photo at the base of that antenna.

Florence

I just can’t get on the Florence bandwagon. It’s so noisy, dirty and expensive. The first time I visited Florence 3 years ago I woke bright and early to head to the museum to see Michelangelo’s David but when I got there the queue snaked down the road for at least 200 metres. I gave up, instead walking around the corner to the Piazza della Signoria to see the free replica. No queues and I got an interesting photo of a pigeon sitting on David’s head. Can’t do that in the museum. I thought that perhaps my initial judgement of the city was too harsh so I went back again last year and am sorry to stay that I’m sticking by my first assessment. Nice enough city, but in my opinion just not worthy of all the hoopla. Who’s with me?

Panama (city and country)

If I had to choose between Costa Rica or Panama I’d choose the former, hands down. Panama didn’t do it for me. I was told that the city of David would make for an interesting stop over on the way to Panama City, but I found David to be too hot to do anything except drink gallons of water and wait for the next bus out of town. Casco Viejo (the old town in Panama City) had some interesting ruins that were worth visiting, but the main draw card is the Panama Canal. It’s really not as exciting as it seems. It takes hours for a boat to pass through the locks. That’s a lot of waiting around watching the water levels slowly rise and fall. Unless you’re a hardcore canal or giant boat fan, just find a video of it on YouTube.

Phuket

Phuket is the last place to go in Thailand to get a taste of local culture. Here’s what Twitterer Cally has to say on Phuket;

Besides the drunk western men with young scantily clad ladies being everywhere, there were signs on most hotel doorways saying, if you have ‘guests’ in your room there is an extra charge- gives you some idea of what you might be in for! Although there were some good points, it was kind of in your face, the cynicism of locals toward tourists (which probably has been earned?!) and there was certainly a constant fear of being ripped off and having to check and recheck everything a million times. Also lots and lots of old European ladies on the beach topless (old, really old, and really having spent their lives in the sun, it was quite eye opening to say the least)

So Phuket – great if you want beach, beer and boobs. If you’re after a little more than that, probably best to look elsewhere or maybe have a read of my previous post on untoursited Thailand

A few other notable overrated destinations twittered to me this week include:

Anywhere in Ireland, Ancona – Italy, Zagreb – Croatia, Gold Coast (I concur) as well as Brampton Island – both in Australia and also Fiji.

So there you have it – my attempt at bringing a little balance to the otherwise overwhelmingly positive destination reviews we tend to read in the paper. If you have any further places you’d like to add to the overrated list, leave a comment below!

You can read more of Shane’s posts at havepack.com, on twitter or at sanchezjalapeno.com

A funny thing happened to me the other day.  I was looking at all my lovely tech toys that could accompany me on my trips – and then I started hyperventilating. It was a sensory overload – a freakout over the simple task of surfing the net, but the conundrum of  what do it on? laptop? iPhone? PC? Sometimes there’s such a thing as too much choice. It got me to thinking about technology and travel. I love my electronic gadgets, they’re better than children – they don’t talk back (unless you change the settings to do so) but really when you think about it, most of them are completely unnecessary for the global nomad.

Not including my digital camera (a given), my three most treasured items to take on a trip are my MacBook Pro, iPhone and Amazon Kindle. It would be great to be able to carry a nice HD video recorder, SLR camera and tripod, maybe an Acoustic Guitar (yeah, I’m that guy)  - but it’s just not viable.

Besides weight restrictions, the biggest problem I have with my chosen three is that none of these gadgets have a specific function that can’t be utilized from one of the others. I can Skype, surf the net or listen to podcasts from my MacBook or my iPhone. I can read books from all three.  The main difference being that they do one or more particular functions better than the other two. I love them all for their differences (much like you would children. Except red headed kids).

The Laptop is an absolute luxury item when on the road. It’s great for watching movies and updating my travel blog but keeping a journal and writing up the blog posts later easily negates the latter.  The iPhone is handy – if I’m going to be backpacking around a country for a while I usually get a prepaid SIM, and of course there’s the bonus of having all your music with you, and you can watch video’s, albeit on a much smaller screen. And the kindle is great, 1500 books in my pocket weighing about the same as a magazine. However, I am starting to miss the romanticized notion of being on the road with nothing but a camera and a journal full of notes. Always surfing the net or listening to your iPod can really decrease the possibilities of chance encounters with some really interesting people.

Having said that, I do think the positives outweigh the negatives as far as taking some tech stuff with you. The iPhone and iPod Touch have over 100,000 applications available on iTunes. Most of them you’ll never use but there are some great travel related apps such as TravelFish’s new range of travel guides in Asia, TripAdvisor’s Top Picks app is good for restaurant reviews, and Lonely Planet’s new program which allows you to download their city guides and Phrase books. There are currency converters, weather apps and some really cool translator programs too. Of course it goes without saying that the iPod’s primary function of playing music and podcasts is invaluable during long distance transit.  If I had to choose just one thing to take with me, it would be my iPhone.

Big laptops are great but oh so bulky.  In a previous post on Have Pack, Will Travel, Jeff writes about the value in taking a notebook like the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE, instead. They’re so much smaller than the average laptop but still retaining some necessary features like USB and webcams.  They’re generally pretty robust meaning you can just chuck them in a daypack and pull it out when you need it.

The Kindle. I was sceptical at first because I like the feel of holding a book in my hands. But like an Oreo cookie, I can never stop at just one and before I know it most of my baggage allowance is taken up with some travelogues to get me in the mood, like Thomas Kohnstamm’s Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?, or Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. I don’t think I’ll ever replace guidebooks with their electronic counterparts, but for normal novels the Kindle has proven invaluable.  I don’t know if I’ll need the ever need a capacity for 1500 books, but hey, it can’t hurt.

Technophilia needn’t be a dirty word. It’s just about not going overboard with the technology you take with you, and trying to find that balance between using your gadgets to enhance, not hamper your travels.

You can follow Shane on Twitter, or read about his travels at sanchezjalapeno.com

Headline iomage courtesy of jeroen020

If you fly routinely you’ll begin to pick up on a few things that the people who breeze through the airports do.  Most importantly, they probably ignore most of the people surrounding them which would make life easier, but is difficult to do.  It seems when people fly, they lose half of their IQ points.

Here’s a few tips that will help make your life easier and also make you a better passenger to the other people flying with you.

• Be ready when you are going through security.  If you have a laptop, pull it out while you are in line. Take off your jacket and put your cell phone, change, and belt in a pocket in your backpack or carry-on so you don’t set off the alarm. Be careful with packs of gum as well.  Some use foil in their packaging and this can set off the metal detector. Remember, if you can do it while in line it will save time when you approach the belt.
• Go to the bathroom before boarding the plane. If your flight is only a couple of hours you probably won’t have to get up and use the tiny lavatory.
• When boarding begins wait for your boarding group to be called. Don’t be the person who stands in the way while several boarding groups in front of you are trying to board. Inevitably every time I fly there are 20+ people blocking the way and they’re the ones who are usually boarding last.

• Have small items like headphones or a book that you want during the flight ready before you get on the plane. If you travel with a carry-on, put it up above your seat. Not in the front of the plane. You’re just wasting room that other people need.
• Keep your jacket, purse, or small bag with you. If there is room when everybody has boarded the plane, go ahead and load it up top.
• When you recline your seat, do so slowly and be careful of laptops behind you. I try to turn around and see if the person behind me is working on a laptop.  Some airplane seats have very small tray tables and I have seem computer screens get smashed by reclining seats on more than one occasion.
• Don’t fall asleep on the person next to you. Especially if you drool.
• Close the windows, especially if you’re going to sleep. The sunlight can be blinding at certain angles and it usually causes glare on the TV monitors or laptops that people may be using.
• If you are listening to music, playing a game, or watching a movie, wear your headphones. People really don’t like hearing Super Mario Bro’s when they’re trying to sleep on a plane.

Have any other tips for flying like a pro?