Last week, while we were visiting, my mom asked “us kids” what we thought about the Kindle
I am more gear obsessed than usual right now. In addition to the holiday frenzy of shopping list and gear guides and must haves for travelers, I’m slowly putting together my kit for Antarctica. This means the slow but steady acquisition of gear in its broader meaning — the stuff that outdoor junkies covet. I’m test driving a pair or Bogs boots
I”m also kind of keen on accessories, I just got a pair of glove liners from Icebreaker which are thin enough to both to wear under my heavier winter gloves. More importantly, I can access my camera controls while I’m wearing them, something I could not do in the big fleecy gloves I packed for our frozen weekend at the coast. I’m checking out socks, too, because my feet are always cold. I have a perfect (and perfectly ridiculous hat), it’s got earflaps and is lined with turquoise polar fleece. I wore it with my penguin jammies last night while I was watching Werner Herzog’s movie about the oddballs in Antarctica, Encounters at the End of the World
The thing that troubles me most about packing for Antarctica is not whether I will have sufficient numbers of socks or compact flash cards. It’s this: I have to check a bag. I could get away with doing my usual carry on only routine, but I’d have to wear my wellies and my big jacket on the plane. This would be okay if I were going from cold place to cold place, or if my flight was not 9 billion hours long. But in addition to the 9 billion hour flight, I have to do some transit magic in the middle of my epic haul to Ushuaia. I have to collect my bags and change airports via a shuttle. In Buenas Aires in the middle of their summer. After the first 7 billion hours of the trip. The idea of stepping out into an Argentinian summer after 7 billion hours in coach hauling a parka and dressed in wellies, yeah, that makes me feel a little queasy. So I have to check a bag.
I’ve been struggling to remember the last time I checked a bag. I didn’t check luggage for Alaska and, if I may say so myself, my packing was masterful. I never check luggage for Hawaii, the hotels are full of perfectly good product and you can get sunscreen and a beach towel for less than 10 dollars once you’re on the islands. We checked a bag full of press kits a few years back, I’ll never do that again, what a rookie mistake — now, I just leave those thing behind and ask for digital assets.
It’s possible that the last time I checked a bag was on a flight to Austria. Before every trip, I would ask all my friends to clean off their shelves and send me away with their disposable reads. J’s hometown doesn’t have a bookstore, and the ones in the nearby market center have pitiful English language sections — it’s almost all Penguin classics, maybe for student of English, certainly not for voracious readers, and seriously, how much Dickens can a person take? I get it. It’s a far better thing. I packed 10 pounds of library books about Hawaii on a press trip to Oahu last spring, my bag would have weighed next to nothing had it not been for Traveler’s Tales and a bunch of other reads. I was glad to have the books, but I did feel kind of stupid about the weight, especially when heaving my tiny bag in and out of rental car trunks.
So, yeah, what do I think of the whole eReader thing? For a person who will insist on hauling great stacks of books with them all over the planet, I have to say, it seems like a pretty good idea.
This post is in response to a prompt: Gear. Other blog-pals who did this?
- The History of Travel Gear at Sharing Travel Experiences
- A Few of my Favorite Things at Traveling with MJ
- Travel Gift Ideas for Kids of All Ages on Ciao Bambino
- Best Holiday Gifts for Travelers on Wanderlust and Lipstick
- Travel Backpack Review on The Vacation Gals
- Best Socks for Travel on Spot Cool Stuff
My mother is trying to convince me to go halves with her to buy a Kindle (for me). I pointed out I have a large stack of ‘real’ books I need to read, and a Kindle will just get in the way of that. But they really do appeal for travel, considering the amount of books I carry around, and then of course it would mean avoiding the dreaded caught-out-without-a-book-oh-noes.
Not sure if you are able to check this out where you live, but Paramo is THE gear for serious outdoors stuff: http://www.paramo.co.uk/en-gb/index.php
I had the exact same issue when we went to Hawaii last spring and my husband insisted I needed an Ereader of some kind. As a former librarian, I was resistant to giving up my books, but I LOVE my iPad. I just took a river cruise in Europe and I didn’t even take my laptop, I really did not need it. I bought a keyboard for all the writing I had to do. My husband had to put our photos on his Mac and email them to me, so as soon as we got home we went to the Apple store and got a card that goes from camera to iPad. Since you are going to Antarctica, this is the perfect time to get an iPad. Oh – and I have hundreds of books on mine, most of them free!
I was a bit leery of the whole e-reader concept initially too — what about the great feel and smell of paper, etc? But after seeing how many airport-bought paperbacks I was trying to donate to our local library, and the sheer mass of the ones I didn’t trade or donate anywhere, I have to say, I’m sold. Our e-reader(s) take up virtually no space. That’s a huge plus, traveling or not.
Ahhhh I’m SO excited for you!!!
i love this – we always check bags, bc we have medical equipment as our carryons. that said, if and when you get your kindle, get a kindle cover from lyn belisle (she’s in our gear post today) and you’ll be rewarded with beautiful art.
safe travels!
You know where I stand on e-readers, the kindle especially: necessary for the reader who likes to travel.
BUT, one piece of advice: if you get an e-reader, get a hard-shell case before you go to Argentina. We started with 3 kindles and we now have 0 functioning kindles and all accidents/problems could have been resolved if the devices had been in hard cases.
And the airport change-over thing in BA? I’m sad you need to do that but the city airport is so much nicer and has a great view of the whole city on take-off as well as a super ocean view.
If you did manage to swing even 24 hrs in BA, I can tell you where there are english books for sale…
I used to be anti-e-reader, but then I traveled to Vietnam this summer. I took two paperbacks with me with the intention of exchanging them at the hostels and hotels I was staying at. What I discovered was that the English-language selection was very, very thin, so I ended up reading junk, just so I’d have something to read. I could have taken more books with me, but I didn’t want to haul around the weight. This holiday season, I was insistent that I really, truly wanted and needed an e-reader (I got a kindle – still to be used), just so I have reading material with me that I know I can tolerate.
Hmm. I’m having a hard time getting past your intro image. 🙂
I’m still anti e-reader, though JoAnna has got me intrigued. But my vote also goes for carry on luggage only whenever possible. If I can travel for 7 weeks with a carryon, people, you can too.
Socks? Go for SmartWool. Trust me on this, I am a certified Cold Expert after all.
(teko is good, too.)
socks you can knit, or if need be, can fashion out of seal pelt, but memory sticks…you can never, ever have too many memory sticks!
I used to be anti e-reader too, but several travelers we met earlier this year convinced me to try. I never would have believed it, but I love reading books on my iPhone (kindle app). First of all, the iPhone is small and I can take it with me everywhere so I can read whether I have 5 minutes to wait for the metro or hours on a bus. The screen and “chunks” of text that the kindle provides is actually easy to read. Also, Ican download whatever book I want instead of being slave to hostel book exchanges (which were horrific in South America). So, I’m a complete e-reader person now.
As for Antarctica, have you thought about renting your gear in Ushuaia? That’s what we did for boots, pants, jackets & heavy gloves. It might cost you about $50-$60/trip but it may also save you the hassle of checking a bag. Let me know if you’re interested in this option and I’ll send you the address of the place we used – bargaining works.
Seirus sock liners. Seriously. I sled (snowmachine) in Cold Lake Alberta wearing only these in my boot. They are great for layering.