The WT's Top 2(?!) Travel Accessories - 2008 edition

Welcome to the second edition of the WT's Top X Travel Accessories. The inaugral edition can be found here.

Granted, this is only a week in Argentina but some of this gear deserves a mention (and there has been thus far no cluster of the type I experienced with my bag in 2006 - on the contrary..anyway you'll have to read on) - so here we go...


1. My netbook AKA the Samsung NC10 - I didn't realize how handy this thing would be when I got it. It weighs less than 3 pounds, has a usable keyboard, great battery life (I've hit close to 7 hours with the max battery settings), a large hard drive and built in wi-fi. I've got a number of movies on there as well as my music collection (and it also conveniently acts as a charger for my phone). There are a lot of great netbook options out there right now. The MSI Wind can be found for under $400 and the new generation of netbooks look to be somewhat cheaper and probably a lot more powerful (why really though - this thing, outside of hardcore dev and games, does everything one needs). Great value and definitely useful for the traveler on the go - most of the blog posts for this trip were made with this computer.



2.Osprey Meridian Wheeled Backpack - I was somewhat iffy on this when I first played around with it at REI - it seemed stiff to me and I was somewhat befuddled by the design decision to put the zipper to the daypack in the back of the daypack (with only a small access window up front). I ended up ordering it anyway and the more I've used, the more I truly appreciate it. The access from the back of the daypack is perfect for limiting access from pickpockets and the front parts of the daypack have zippers that are hidden and which need to be firmly pulled to open (i.e. you would definitely feel it if someone tried). The other cool thing is that the back of the dayback has a couple of layers, one of them being mesh. It's about as ventilated a day pack as I've comfortably worn. Other cool things include the ability to zip the dayback to the main bag, a perfectly apportioned mainbag with simply a superb back support system (unlike the Swiss Army Gear from my prior review) and tons of well placed nooks and crannies for organizing all your travel gear.