Top 10 Travel Gadgets 2011

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts, Travel Gear     laptops, travel gadgets, travel gear, travel kit, waterproof

Travelling can be done on a shoestring: you can rough it in Rio or doss on a bench in Buenos Aires; we’ve lost count the number of times we ended up crashed on a beach somewhere – but, given the choice, there’s at least ten gadgets we’d have packed in our travel bag.

Panasonic HX-WA10EB:Waterproof HD pics and clips

Waterproof/shockproof digicam

Camera manufacturers have woken up! We need ruggedized models, and we need ones that take both pictures and HD movies – and can do it anytime, anyplace, and anywhere. This year a raft of new models has landed on the shelves. We’ve tried the Panasonic HX-WA10 and can vouch for its ease of use and reliability.

SunnyCam Video Glasses

Always an odd choice, but for capturing the POV action without spending a small fortune, there’s no other totally hands-free solution. This model SunnyCam glasses served us well on some downhill mountain bike sections. While the quality can’t compare with the HD camcorders, it still uses a 3 MP webcam, running 30 frames per second. There are also interchangeable lenses and a decent 3-hr memory on offer.

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Ski Touring? Why skiing without ski lifts isn’t rubbish.

James    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     off piste, ski holidays, ski resort, ski touring, Skiing, Skiing Holidays

In the first of a new occasional series explaining the basics of less well-known adventure sports, we use the classic journalistic trick of a fake interview to give a basic overview of the activity, starting with SKI TOURING

So, What is Ski touring?

Ski touring is skiing without lifts. Using special bindings you can hike up and then ski down slopes and make cross country routes.

Ski Touring and free from the slopes. Image Flickr/ Stephan Mantler

So it’s like skiing but with no ski lifts? Sounds rubbish.

If you think of it purely as hugely inconvenient regular skiing then you’d be right. The ski touring experience has more in common with hiking but with the added bonus of having a lot more fun on the downward sections.

I’ve tried walking up hills in skis. You just slide backwards!

With ski touring you attach a grippy felt layer called a skin on the bottom of each ski. The skins, which were made from seal skin in the old days, ensure that you can grip the snow with the bottom of the skis and can easily walk up slopes. You then take off the skin when you want to ski down.

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Stars and Stetsons: skiing in the US

Sophie Nicholson    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts, bestskiholidays     ski, Skiing, Skiing Holidays, Snowboarding, united states, US, winter sports

It’s August and I’m thinking about skiing in the US. Strange? Maybe. But you can’t really blame me when there is snow falling in the Alps in the height of summer at 2,000 m. Extreme weather (in so much that it’s extremely weird) has prompted more than a little bit of reflection on the season just gone and how best to approach the winter to come.

Just in case you forgot...

When one thinks of extreme skiing there are generally two places that come to mind – Chamonix and Jackson Hole. I am incredibly fortunate to live just 45 minutes from the former but until recently have never been to the jewel in Wyoming’s Stetson, Jackson Hole.

I’ve always wanted to of course, which real skier wouldn’t? Like Chamonix, JH is synonymous with legends of the white crystals and therefore kind of symbolises a right of passage for any lover of the steep and deep stuff. As a result, when the opportunity to get over there finally came around earlier this year, well let’s just say I was literally linedancing on the spot with excitement.

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The world’s top 10 adventure races No1: Indian Ocean Rowing Race

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Adventure Travel, charity, mauritius, Rowing, Sailing

Not all adventures end well. It’s safe to say that Britons James Adair and Ben Stenning were hoping for a better end to their trip to Mauritius. I say trip, as the pair set off 116 days ago to row across the Indian Ocean in the Woodvale Indian Ocean Rowing Race – something only two pairs of rowers had so far managed.

James and Ben before the Bellamy beards

The BBC has reported that right at the end of their 3,200-mile journey, they were overturned by a wave and faced a survival ordeal, not a welcome reception. Chucked into the sea by a 30-foot wall of water, James and Ben found themselves fighting against waves that were set on dashing them onto the rocks.

James was bleeding heavily from lacerations to his legs, and Ben was keeping shark watch until they decided it was time to move from the stricken craft and make a go for shore.

“We had to get away from those rocks or it would be game over,” Ben told the BBC.

But instead of reaching the shore, the pair were washed onto a coral reef, before locals eventually found them and got them back onto dry land.

Oh, and we forgot to mention: these guys are amateurs, and they completed the journey unassisted and for charity rowing in support of the ‘Tumaini- Homes for Hope’ charity, which provides homes and care for children affected or suffering from HIV/AIDS.

It goes to show that there are plenty of adventures out there, more than we ever get to hear about.

So, if you know of an adventure race, no matter what sort, let us know; we’ll happily RT messages of support and maybe even write a piece on it.

Here’s a link to Ben and James’ JustGiving page and more about the race.

Visiting China: even if Marco Polo never did…

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     adventure holidays, Biking, china, cycling, mountainbiking, Tibet, trekking

Yes, it’s been reported that Marco Polo made it all up, drawing on tales from merchants rather than visiting China himself. Archaeological information appears to back up these claims, as his descriptions don’t match with physical evidence.

China: much more than first meets the western eye

To have visited 20 years ago may have been a conversation-stopper, today it’s a regular trip on the tourist trail.

Still, one of China’s most remarkable features is its outright geographical size, and then there’s its cultural diversity and its unclimbed peaks and much, much more…

As one of the emerging adventure holiday destinations on the planet, the country has a huge amount to offer. And it’s particularly interesting if you are looking at exploring, not just touring default sites.

Here are a few places and possibilities to whet your appetite:

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The 10 worst things about travelling (we love)

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Adventure Travel, airlines, airports, flights, hotels, Travel

If, like us, you love travelling, then you’ve probably grown used to many of its quirks and discomforts. In fact, it’s some of these very same moments that have now come to define our experience – so as much as we might hate everything on the list that follows, in some way they are all moments that signify the very things we love most about travelling.

Rolley cases, love 'em.

Early Starts

Essential if you are to get to the cheaper flight and avoid the rush. No one likes getting up at dawn o’crikey, but there’s something special about being up before the world, as black skies turn inky-blue.

Odd Coffee

We’ve all got used to good coffee. Still, there’s something about the cheap, instant, sachet stuff – especially when it comes topped with UHT milk.

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Scuba diving or skydiving: can you take the pressure?

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     diving, freefall, mountain climbing, mountaineering, parachuting, Scuba, Scuba Diving, trekking

Other than both featuring the word diving, these two sports seem largely unrelated. After all, throwing yourself out of an aircraft and swimming underwater couldn’t be more different.  However, scuba diving and skydiving share one significant challenge: pressure.

Yes, height above or below sea level affects the body – something any mountaineer or climber will tell you. When climbing to elevation the air thins, making it harder to breathe.

Trekking in Nepal, or sat in a plane climbing into the clouds, you may begin to notice altitude sickness when you pass 8,000 ft – as your elevation increases, the air pressure decreases, reducing the amount of available oxygen. Deep sea diving or scuba diving also stresses the human body: the deeper you go, the greater the pressure on your lungs.

Oxygen breathed from a scuba tank is at a higher pressure, and when you return from a very deep dive you need to spend a little time at set depths adjusting to the changes. That’s why returning from the deep, divers need to ‘decompress’ as their bodies move up into the ‘lighter’ water above them.

Briefly, the human body can be pushed to extremes, but when it comes to elevation above ground and depth below sea level, it really has its limits.

If you know about how the human body reacts to these challenges, drop us a comment – we’re always keen to hear from experts who can add their knowledge.

We’ve also got a new skydiving blog starting: 1,000… 2,000…3,000 Check Canopy!