Category Archives: Gadgets

Gadgets, travelbunny

USB AAA Batteries!

Quite excited to try out my latest idea for minimalist travel! I have some old Sony noise cancelling earbuds from ages ago (that are still going strong; I only use them on flights and baby them extensively!) but I despaired of the AAA battery I needed to power them.

I use rechargeable batteries to be more zero waste and I didn’t want to haul along a charger on trips. Happily they last a long time in the earbuds but wondered when my luck would run out and I’d forget to charge the battery or I used them longer than one charge.

Now I can just have one with me and recharge it with a micro USB cable (and this set came with a cable that has 4 ends, 1 for each battery! I think I squeed out loud when I saw that :). )

I’ll be testing it out and let you know how it goes….I also have a longer flight coming up so I’ll be certain to see how well it works!

AAA Batteries,USB Rechargeable AAA Batteries 450mAh with USB Ports – High-Capacity Batteries Long-Lasting Power Recyclable Recharge Battery by USB Cable-（4 Count） https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QWWC78Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bZksDbF262VKG

Gadgets, London, Paris, Travel: Europe, travelbunny

Favorite things on my trip

You try and try to get the perfect travel items; some work well and some you end up, well, handing to random people on the street because you just can’t even…
These are the things I gravitated toward (just about) every day on my trip.

The EYN case for iPhone 6+
EYN.jpgI put my metro tickets in there, my current museum pass/ticket, sometimes a few € and I always had my phone in my hand. I also attached a quick release lanyard for the few times I needed to hang the phone around my neck to do something. I pretty much use this anytime I fly (especially on domestic flights where I keep my passport card in it in combo with my e-boarding pass) and on most trips. | Buy at Amazon

…and I carried the EYN with this Lanyard
This has a round attachment point on the end so I sometimes put my finger through it to keep from dropping my phone during picture taking times. I can’t vouch that it is any sturdier than other lanyards with different release clips, but I prefer this style. | Buy at Amazon

Tom Bihn wallet
Clear-Organizer-Wallet-D01_1024x1024Nicely slim, ID window shows my passport card, second little slot has whatever other card is relevant to my day for easy access (a carnet of metro tickets or my Paris pass card for this last trip) then my credit cards in RFID blocking sleeves at the back. I use a clip to keep it anchored to my coin pouch and then clipped into my day bag so I don’t run the risk of it falling out of my purse inadvertantly. | Buy at TomBihn.com

Tom Bihn pouch(es)
So many sizes available! I use a small one for coins and bills of 1 currency (I had one for € and one for £ – very necessary since they tend to work with many heavy coins that would otherwise overburden most wallets) and finally, one medium sized to keep used metro tickets, museum passes and the inevitable business cards the restaurants hand out now. (Someday I will be minimalist enough to recycle these bits of paper, but I like to paste them into my written journal so, clearly, today is not that day 😉 | Buy at TomBihn.com

4 port USB intl kit
Oh I was so very pleasantly surprised by this! It has the base 4 port USB charger but then it has ends for worldwide use that just slide over the power prongs to make it useful in whatever country you are in. I’m almost to the point where I can get away with USB only charging so this is super handy.  Perfect for phone charging at the end of a full day along with the several phone batteries I kept in my day bag.| Buy at Amazon

Smartwool t’s/Merino t’s
Good thing I love these shirts! I tested the anti-smelly properties by wearing one to Versailles, then letting it air out for a day then bringing it as my only shirt for the quick London overnight (2 days of sightseeing and two Eurostar trips) then another day of airing then the 24 hour travel day back to the states. I sanity checked this by asking my hubby if he could smell me, he said no. Note: I did bathe each day! I promise. Highly recommended for travel. (Invest, and also get a wool wash if you are neurotic and want to keep them forever like I do…) | Buy at Amazon

Leggings

I knew that I had a ton of museum hours in front of me with a new Paris person in tow. I was not wrong.

The only way I survived 9 freaking hours in the Louvre (and that was just 1 day of a 10 day trip) that I needed to be soooooper comfortable. I also was quite certain that I would be kicked out of Paris if I wore yoga pants everyday. So I brought a variety of leggings in addition to my jeans, my favorite pair being from Torrid. Pretty pattern, sturdy fabric (alas, no pocket but it is leggings after all) and made it mostly tolerable. My feet were whining greatly at this point!

What is your go to travel accessory? Let me know in the comments…

Bags & Luggage, Gadgets, London, Paris, TeamUltraviolet, Tom Bihn, Travel: Europe, Travel: Packing List, travelbunny

Paris packing list

We have the luxury of not changing hotels for a reasonable stretch of time, our hotel isn’t too far from a Metro station and there aren’t too many changes between Metro lines to get there.

I’ll be using my Aeronaut 30 and my Travelon daypack to carry me through 10 days of Paris and London.

Bags:

Clothes:

Gadgets, travelbunny

Travel Gear updates

Things change, people change, hairstyles change… here are some of my latest tweaks to my travel gear:

I posted earlier about this but I changed out my compact daypack from the Sea To Summit to the Lewis N Clark. Super comfy and easily gotten back in the stuff sack.

Backing up my iPhone for when I didn’t have a connection always gave me much anxiety, then I found the iFlash Drive. It worked pretty well for several trips worth of photos and files (I tend to put my iPhone pics into an overall trip folder, then in day folders to help the slow transfer). But it was a bit of a flaky app, and it required a WIN machine to do updates to the hardware. If they changed it while I was traveling it was just broken. Sigh.

So I found the Linsam Wireless Flash that sets up a wifi network (securable with password), let’s you put 2 SD (1 regular, 1 micro) cards in it and you can stream video from it. Very fancy. I also got a case for it, but it isn’t as necessary since it is low profile and fairly sturdy.

There are times when I just go super minimal and want the tiniest stuff there is. Philips Ultra Slim Multiple Outlet isn’t the tiniest, but it is super slim and I can tuck it into a side pocket without bulk.

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I still have my Sea to Summit travel wallet in my international set, but I’ve got a smaller coin purse that is still RFID protected for shorter trips. I just put my passport card, my Sapphire Card and some cash in a Travelon Daisy Coin Purse. It has a handy clip on it for attaching it in my purse /daybag or my jacket pocket and it is much smaller profile for just regular noodling about.

Deodorant: I really do like the crystal deodorant, but sometimes I need a bit more. It lasts for about 20 hours on me in light use territory. But I didn’t love most of the form factors of regular deodorant. Even the travel sizes eat up too much space in my dopp kit, so I melted down the last of my deodorant (paper cup with a baggie around the bottom to prevent spills, 11 second blasts until melted) poured into an empty baby lavender lotion stick. Peeled off the labels and then put the deodorant label on the stick.