Hotmail
High-tech travel gear
Top new gadgets for today's global nomads
 www.msimobile.com Made with travelers in mind, the MSI Wind notebook computer has a 10-inch screen, an embedded webcam and more. Price: $549.99 |
It was day 12 during a month-long trek in the mountains of Nepal, and Tim Neville was holding his satellite phone to the sky. "Our group just got down from Shipton Pass," he says. "We knew there were Maoist rebels nearby."
The year was 2003, and political turmoil in the kingdom had filtered through to the tourist trade. Trekking groups were being followed, with gun-toting militants demanding money for passage on trails. Neville, a writer on assignment for the Boston Globe, came equipped to remain in touch with the outside world. In addition to the sat-phone, Neville had packed a foldable solar panel and a battery made by an outdoors gear company. He had a laptop computer, a digital camera, and a watertight hard-shell case. "It all went in a duffel bag on my porter's head," he says.
International travelers have no shortage of products to pick from that aim to make life easier while on the go. In the past few years, a subgenre of gear—from UV-light water purifiers to satellite-connected emergency signalers—have emerged from the outdoors, technology and travel-goods industries to serve globetrotters who go far away and deep into new cultures on their own.
Ed Mapes of McKinney, Texas, owns an offshore sailing school and leads expeditions thousands of miles into waves away from land. His company, Voyager Ocean Passages, has stocked its 46-foot craft with spotlights, a satellite phone, a lightning static dissipater and a sextant. "You must be self-sufficient out there," he says, "as help could be days away."
Mapes spent $795 on the Marine 3000, a first-aid kit made by Adventure Medical Kits. It's designed for trips where adventurers might be several days from medical help, and comes stocked with dozens of tools and components to treat almost any malady—suture syringe and urinary catheter included.
|
 |
www.coghlans.com Coghlan's Survival Kit in a Can includes 38 essential items for warmth, shelter and energy in life-threatening situations. Price: $14.98 |
On a 41-hour trans-Pacific-trans-Atlantic journey, Neville watched movies on his smartphone ("Napoleon Dynamite" and "Good Night, and Good Luck"); listened to old episodes of the radio program "This American Life"; and he snoozed in the deadened silence of a noise-cancelled headset cocoon—light and motion obscured by a simple old-fashioned eye mask.
"I emerged intact in Europe, and I barely felt the jetlag," he says.
Click here for our list of 12 high- and low-tech items that make international endeavors simpler, safer—and, yes, even more comfortable.
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
-
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh - Instant Message
MORE FROM TIPS |
 Tips Section Front |
| Add Tips headlines to your news reader: |
Resource guide