12 Essential Family-Travel Gizmos

A more efficient way of carrying the weight of the world....(Image from La Routard guides)

Back in the day, I once hitch-hiked around Ireland with my buddy, Mike, carrying only an MEC backpack with a tent, a sleeping bag, a thermarest sleeping pad, a stove and fuel, water bottles, two pairs of trousers -- even a pair of jeans! -- some other clothes and raingear, a big old SLR camera with a zoom lens and spare 35 mm film, and a set of bongo drums (long story -- but hey! Mike had a ukelele and I couldn't leave him unaccompanied). 

Travelling as a family is certainly different. Somehow, we have ended up carrying a massive stack of books for road-schooling, two diving masks and snorkels, a pocket Scrabble game, a bag of neglected but somehow still-oh-so-essential-dad! LEGO, and a deck of playing cards for our epic euchre games in bus stations. 

If only someone would have told us what to bring on a year-long trip...

Cue the Inevitable List

Most of the family travel blogs that I looked at before we left Canada started out with The Gear List: a detailed inventory of every item that they were taking along during their trip.

Usually, these were written by the gear-head Dad of the family, who is inevitably an "S" on the Myers-Briggs personality inventory and probably closet software coder. Invariably, the follow-up blog post ends with "and we ended up buying another suitcase to carry it all". 

I, however, resolved not to write such a blog post for two reasons.

1. It seemed like TMI for my long-suffering readers... and
2. In these days of social media and because we tend to stand out wherever we travel, it also seemed a stupid idea to tell any potential, internet-savvy thieves exactly what we're carrying.  

But in the interests of helping others learn from our experience, and as a middle-aging man who is stretching beyond the boundaries of his INTJ-ness, I present the following 12 Essential Family Travel Gizmos -- some high-tech, some no-tech, but all oh-so-essential...

....drum roll please....(Honey!....where are my bongo's?...)

1.   iThings: Always in use, and thus, never fully charged. It's a guidebook, map, email, arcade, camera, cinema, jukebox, videocamera, library, social connection, compass....heck, the smaller one even makes phone calls. That both devices have survived this far is a miracle of LIfeproof cases and duct tape. 

2.  A Spidermonkey Compact Aluminum Four-Way USB Hub: Such a cool name! Spidermonkey! And it's great for hotel rooms where you have only one electrical outlet and you have multiple iThings to charge. This one also has the swappable, international heads that let you plug into the outlets in Africa, Europe and North America. Unfortunately, the charger took a nasty zap somewhere in Tanzania, and much smoke ensued. It was only by the great skills of our friend, Philip, and a local fundi in Mwanza, that it could live to charge again. 

3. A Cocoon GRID-IT Organization System: Really just a mess of bungee cords strapped on to fabric-covered cardboard, but it is really super helpful for organizing the various cords and charger paraphernalia that keep everyone wired and happy (see #1). I also tuck our grids into a small, waterproof-ish-i-hope Coleman envelope that keeps the dust out. 

4. Osprey Ozone Convertible Wheeled Luggage: It converts into a back pack when necessary -- i.e. cobblestone streets in Istanbul -- but its big honking wheels make towing it a pleasure. So much so that the kids often ask to pull my bag instead of theirs. I wish that we had splurged on these for everyone, because I don't think their rolling suitcases will make it through the year. 

5. The Trail Wallet App: A great expenses-vs.-budget tracking iPhone App that lets you record what you're spending in five currencies at a time, and that admonishes you when you go over your daily budget. It also produces full-colour pie charts (pie charts!) and geek-out-worthy-exportable Excel spreadsheet reports to review during quiet nights in rural Tanzania. Actually, this App has probably been a trip-saver, heck a marriage-saver, as it helps balance our different ways of budgeting. (Hint: I'm only half Dutch). Available on OS, Android and smarter phones and traveling husbands near you. 

6. Stuffed Animals: Vital even for big kids: Instant home. Just unpack and hug. Prone to hiding under beds when leaving a rental apartment, however. Be vigilant. 

7. An AeroPress Coffee Maker: I have owned an embarrassing number of coffee makers in my time on this earth, some of them professing to be portable, and others protesting too much to work well. But I finally took my friends' Shawn and Eric's advice and bought one of these this great plastic syringe-like, reverse-Bodum, java makers. With the optional metal screen, it makes a passable cup of joe out of almost any grounds. It also helps to work your triceps...which brings us to....

8. The TRX Suspension Training System: A very portable gym made up of adjustable webbing straps and handles. You can anchor it to a tree, overhanging beam or over a locked (!) door and then use your body as the weight for resistance training. Even if you don't use it regularly, the extra 3 pounds in your luggage surely contributes to burning more calories. Stand back, I'm going to flex. (It also makes a great clothes-line in a pinch). 

9. Petzel headlamps: Great for hiking out to see sunrises, reading in hotel rooms when you're kids are (supposed to be) falling asleep, and for finding your way during power-black-outs in Tanzania. Very geeky looking, however, if ever worn in visible light. Fortunately, it normally blinds any viewer who might comment. 

10. Leatherman Multi-Tool: For its weight, it is very useful for emergencies like opening wine bottles and unlocking bathroom doors with children behind them. Still needs a Robertson screw-nail-driver head, but this is not so needful outside of Canada. 

11. A Football (a.k.a. Soccer Ball) and pump: Instant sport: inflate and kick. Guaranteed to keep any just-9-year-old boy happy; not so much, his sister. She prefers ultimate frisbee. A football is also a great cross-cultural communication tool that Isaac has used on 4 continents now. 

12. A larger MEC rolling-bag to help carry all of this stuff. Sigh. 
 

Your Turn

What would you add as essential family-travel gizmos? 

Go Play on the Road!

These first two legs of our trip have involved a lot of driving: over 2,000 km so far as we Orbited Ottawa for about four weeks, and now as we sojourn in Southern Ontario. This has given us plenty of time to take in the scenery, play Minecraft and catch up on our Vinyl Cafe stories.

But when that gets a bit repetitive and/or the battery tanks, we usually resort to car games like:

• 20 Questions: Hint, if it is Isaac's turn, always ask, "Is it a soccer player?"
• I'm Thinking of an Animal -- an inversion of 20 questions in which you trickle out clues about the identity of secret animal and the players have to guess each round (e.g. has four legs, is a mammal, is not a soccer player....)
• I Spy With My Little Eye...something that is or sounds like....
• Name 5 Soccer Players: in which we each take turns naming five soccer players until Isaac wins. 

Recently, one of our favourite ways to pass the miles is to play a no-holds-barred, smack-down game of "Cows, Flags and Graveyards". The objective of the game is to tally up a total of 100 points by being the first one to spot and call out either:

• Cows, either solo or in herds, for 2 points;
• Flags of any type -- national, provincial, municipal, used car lot --  for 1 point;
• Graveyards, which means that you add everyone else's points to your score. 

Sometimes we play in teams, but it is usually best to break up Zoe and Trish because they are both extremely competitive and they cream the rest of us. 

As we've played this game on different roadtrips, we've developed our own expansion set by adding in:

• Horses -- 3 points per individual or group;
• Train tracks: we add up everyone's points and share them equally;
• Renewable energy sources -- either windmills or solar panels for 5 points each;
• Regional variations that reflect what might be more common in that area (e.g. a casse croute stand in Quebec, espresso stands in Washington State, gunshops in New York...) for 2 points. 
• Something unusual: you have to call out something that would be widely considered "unusual" in that location, (e.g. a giant fish statue, a parrot looking out of the back of a pick up truck); however, everyone in the car needs to agree that this is in fact "unusual", which often precipitates an impassioned argument and a vote on whether we grant the proponent an additional 5 points. 

Our most recent mod, however, has literally been a game changer: if you spot and call out a convertible automobile, everyone in the car has to flip the two digits of their score around. So for example, if you have 19, your score changes to 91; or if you had 72, you'd then have 27.

This innovation has added a surprisingly fun element of cunning and skulduggery, guaranteeing that we'll probably never run out of miles before we get to 100. We are also looking forward to how we will adapt this game in the various countries we'll be visiting soon. 

What are your favourite road trip games? Please tell us the rules below. We'd love to play them. 

Orbiting Ottawa

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August 1 - 27, 2014

"Haven't you gone yet?" a good friend teased us the other day. "How can we miss you if you won't go away?!"

Well, yes, since vacating our house on August 1, we've spent the first weeks of our sabbatical year off orbiting within 2 hours of Ottawa. So far we've made it:

• as far East as Montreal, where Trish and I pretended we were Plateau hipsters for a few days while the kids went to sleepover camp;
• as far West as the Barron River Canyon in Algonquin Park for a short canoe trip; and
• a bit further North visiting friends' cottages up in the Gatineau Hills. 

While hovering close to home has sometimes made this feel like a long goodbye, it has been a great chance to recover from the big push to move out of the house, and to reconnect with a few more friends...

We also taking some time to get use to being happily homeless, and to pare our travel gear back to "all that we can't leave behind".  We have really appreciated the hospitality of friends who have put us up (and/or put up with us), and we are getting excited about heading off for Turkey in mid-September. 

Having reached escape velocity from the gravitational pull of the nation's capital, we are now on the VIA train en route to Toronto, from where we'll next visit some of our family in Southern Ontario. See you soon!

Operation Mother Hubbard

As we prepare to go #thataway for the year, we've been busy fixing up our house for our tenant, decluttering all the extra "stuff" that accumulates in closets, shelves and basements after 10 years in a house.  It has been an interesting exercise in deciding, detachment, and ditching. 

We've also needing to decide what to do with the remaining food in our pantry and freezer. This includes:

• a surplus of Italian tomato sauce that we've canned over the years;

• a surfeit of tomato soup stock -- a by-product of the aforementioned tomato sauce production process --- that we canned or froze, but somehow never got around to using; 

• several kilograms of various dried beans and sundry lentils at the back of our pantry -- carbon-dating test-results revealed that they may have migrated here from our last apartment, circa 2003...

• umpteen bottles of exotic Chinese, Thai or Mexican sauces that we probably aren't going to finish before we head off on August 1;

• still more lentils, pulses, peas and beans -- what we're we thinking?; 

• remnants of baking ingredients: flour, chocolate chips, shredded coconut, some unidentified seeds that probably boost your something or other;

• 20 kg of Thai rice that we had cached in the basement in anticipation of either Y2K Part 2 or the Harper-Zombie Apocalypse, I forget which...

• spices, spices and more spices!

So as not to waste these still-useful foodstuffs, we've undertaken Operation Mother Hubbard -- a multi-sectoral, all-of-household approach to cooking, using or other-wise disposing of these treasures from our cupboards.  This operation began initially with a festival of pasta and minestrone, until the kids asked us to stop.

It continued with Trish dutifully inventorying all the items in our pantry on a "DO NOT under any circumstances buy more of these items" list. Whenever we finish any item, we gleefully cross it off our list. 

But of course, as this list gets shorter, the menu combinations get weirder: What, pray tell, can we make tonight using oyster sauce, bread crumbs, split peas and dijon mustard?  

Other items have been "re-gifted" to appreciative (or otherwise) neighbours, and the remainder has been consigned to that great-big-compost-pile-in-the-sky -- well, actually just at the back of the garden. With this rich legacy of lentils, we currently are buying only fresh food items -- milk, cheese, yogurt, fruit and vegetables, etc.   

So if you happen to be passing by and would like a bottle of Sriracha sauce, do let us know.....