Ask Gadling: How do I protect my camera from the elements?

by Karen Walrond on


For many travelers, their camera is one of the most expensive items they’ll be carrying on their trip. Today we’re tackling a question submitted by Larry, from Omaha, Nebraska:

“I’m taking my new camera on a trip to the Serengeti that will involve sand and rain (and possibly mud). I really don’t want it to get damaged, but I plan to use it a lot and don’t really know what I’m supposed to do to keep it clean and safe. Am I supposed to have supplies of some kind? Is there some part of the camera I should check every day to make sure it’s okay?”

View more Ask Gadling: Travel Advice from an Expert or send your question to ask [at] gadling [dot] com.

GADLING: This is an awesome question, and while I’ve not taken my camera to the Serengeti, I have battled against sand, sea and salt on several beach and rainforest trips over the 16 or so years I’ve been a photographer. The following are some of the tricks I’ve picked up along the way that should help minimize any potential damage to your camera from the elements.

Use an all-weather camera bag. You likely won’t have your camera out all the time, and when you’re trudging along your path in a deluge, you’ll want to be sure that your camera isn’t getting wet in the process. Consider buying a water-resistant bag for your camera, lenses and related gear, so you don’t have to worry about whether your expensive camera is getting completely soaked because of an ineffective bag. There are several kinds of bags: backpack-style, satchel, or even fanny-pack style — so visit your favourite camera store, check out their selection, and choose the one that feels most comfortable to you.

Keep a UV filter on your lens. This is a good idea anyway, regardless of whether you’re actually going to be traveling in challenging climates. Keeping the UV filter on your lens protects your lens from wind-blown grit and debris like sand and salt. Sure, if the filter gets scratched you’ll need to buy another filter, but better a $32 dollar filter than a $700 lens.

Purchase an air blower. You should never reach inside your camera when the lens is off, but sometimes the temptation is irresistible, particularly when you know there’s just a little bit of grit sitting on the inside of the your lens, perhaps on the mirror or sensor. The problem is, of course, that the slightest pressure might scratch the mirror. So instead, use an air blower to help whisk that bit of dirt off the mirror.

Keep a pack of baby wipes on hand. When it comes time to handle your camera, you want to make sure your hands are clean. Keeping baby wipes on hand will ensure that you can clean up on a moment’s notice.

All this said, there are a few practices you can be sure to do religiously, in order to help protect your camera and which cost little to nothing:

1. Even if your camera bag is waterproof, consider keeping your camera in a sealable plastic bag. Even the most water-tight bag can get sand and dust blown into it when you’re reaching in to grab your camera. Consider traveling with a few gallon-size plastic bags, and store your camera in one before putting it into your camera bag.

2. Try to minimize changing lenses in situ. If the sand, wind and rain are particularly bad, you really shouldn’t change your lenses — consider traveling with a lens that has a long focal range (a zoom lens), or with multiple camera bodies with different lenses on them. As much as possible, keep your lens attached to the camera body, so nothing can get inside the camera.

3. If you must change lenses, do it inside, as quickly as possible. If necessary, create a shelter using your rain poncho; in any event protect the camera from any wind or dust before you do it.

And, of course, if you can avoid changing lenses at all during your trip, this is ideal — the less you expose the interior workings of your camera body to the elements, the better.

At a minimum, doing all of the above will help protect your camera — and of course, getting your camera serviced by a reputable camera store before and after your trip is always a good idea.

Good luck, Larry, and happy travels!

Ask Gadling: How can I make camping more comfortable?

by Mike Barish on
Today, we’re tackling a question from Penelope Duncan of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
“My boyfriend organized a camping trip with another couple. The problem is, I have never been camping, never had a desire to go camping and dread the very idea of camping. I prefer hotels, nice dinners and bathing. I want to show my boyfriend that I am willing to enjoy his interests, but I also want to be comfortable. How can I make camping more luxurious?”
View more Ask Gadling: Travel Advice from an Expert or send your question to ask [at] gadling [dot] com.

Gadling: First of all, good for you for not declining the invitation. You’re already ahead of the game by simply opening yourself up to a new experience and not turning what should be an awesomely fantastic weekend outdoors into an irrational fight about thread counts. So, now you’re locked into this camping trip and you’re more into massages than mosquito nets. Well, it’s not as hard as you think to add comfort to a camping trip.

First and foremost, outfit yourself with the proper gear. Gadling has covered essential camping gear before. You won’t spend very much time actually inside your tent, but psychologically, it will help you get excited about the trip if you know that you’ll have a spacious place to sleep. Rather than shoehorning yourselves into a tiny tent, you and your boyfriend should share a structure made for up to six people. The added square footage and headroom will stave off any claustrophobia, allow you to stand up fully inside the tent and keep all of your gear inside and nearby. Just as if you had your luggage at the foot of your bed in a hotel!

Throw an air mattress and some camping pillows inside and you’re basically sleeping in a bed. In fact, if you put a fitted sheet on the mattress and use an unzipped two-person sleeping bag as a blanket, you’ll be able to snuggle up with your boyfriend and not have to deal with the difficulties of canoodling while rolled up like a burrito.

What you will spend much of your time doing while camping is cooking and eating. Food is not just fuel when you’re spending the weekend in nature. It is very much a social activity. You’ll spend many hours sitting around the campfire shooting the poop, laughing and just enjoying each other’s company. While hot dogs and beans may be camping traditions, they are not required. Meal time is the perfect opportunity to add luxury to your camping trip. There’s no reason why you can’t pack up your spice rack, store some gorgeous fresh fish in a cooler (perhaps you even caught them yourselves) and add a few bottles of wine in with the cases of beer.

If you happen to enjoy cooking, you could even champion that activity. Store your spices, seasonings, cooking utensils, etc. in a tackle box or toolkit and show everyone how creative and talented you are. Is your boyfriend the cook? Work with him in advance to plan a menu, help him shop for the food and be his sous chef on the campsite. It will be a fantastic shared activity and you can even buy ridiculous aprons for the event.

As for activities, choose a campsite with a lake or some other large body of water. This will allow you to rent a boat. Kayaking and canoeing may be more closely associated with camping, but there’s no rule that states that you can’t have a motor in your vessel. Splurge on a boat large enough for some sunbathing. You might not be on a yacht and you’ll have to cut up your own strawberries, but if you pack a bottle of champagne, you’ll feel like you’re on a cruise regardless of how much your hair smells like smoke.

It’s not that challenging to make camping comfortable. In fact, with a little forethought and some culinary upgrades, you may end up having a more luxurious weekend than you would have had you stayed home.

Whatever you do, resist the urge to rent a cabin. Cabins are for cheaters.

Ask Gadling: How can I make an important trip more romantic?

by Annie Scott on


Today’s question comes from Alvin in Westchester, New York.

“My fiancee and I have taken a number of trips together. Now we are planning our honeymoon, and I am wondering what to do to make it special? I’ve heard of rose petals on the bed, but I don’t really know what else is available.”

Gadling: First of all, congratulations. Secondly, good job for even asking, your fiancee’s a lucky girl. Thirdly, there are a lot of great ways to make an important trip like a honeymoon more romantic and special. Though I don’t know where you’re going, here are some basics you can add to a typical trip.

Ask your hotel.

The first thing you should do is call your hotel and let them know it’s your honeymoon. They may provide welcome champagne and more, free of charge. Beyond that, ask them if they have any “Romance” or “Honeymoon” packages; hotels love to host honeymoons and often cater to them with breakfast in bed, side-by-side spa treatments, dinner on the beach and other add-ons, all for a packaged price. If they don’t have a package like that, here are some things you can ask for:

View more Ask Gadling: Travel Advice from an Expert or send your question to ask [at] gadling [dot] com.
  • couples’ massages
  • in-room dining (find out the hours and menu, and order in advance to impress your fiancee)
  • private dinner on the beach
  • private table in the restaurant
  • rose petals on the bed
  • special baths
  • candles
  • picnics

Find out what’s nearby.

Your hotel concierge should also be able to help with this, if the hotel has one. If not, definitely Google your destination and “romantic” and “couples” to see if there are particularly romantic excursions available for you. There could be private tours of wineries and/or museums, couples’ horseback riding and all sorts of activities designed specifically for two.

Make it memorable.

The important thing to do is make memories together, so inquire about scenic spots you can drive to alone or adventures like zip lining, rock climbing and water sports. Try something together that you’ve both never done, whether it’s a strange, foreign cuisine or a nightclub with a waterslide in it. The nightclub itself may be a disaster, but in five years, you may find yourself cracking up on the couch saying “Remember that awful nightclub with the waterslide?” Bad nightclub, terrific memory.

Take pictures.

Be sure and get some decent photos of the two of you on your honeymoon; you’ll treasure them forever. Furthermore, you’ll want to remember all the crazy things you did, that weird painting in the lobby, that nightclub with the waterslide. Surprise your fiancee after the honeymoon with an album of hard copies of your favorite photos from the trip, and your marriage should be off to a good start.

[Photo credit: nattu]

Ask Gadling: How do I get bumped from a flight?

by Grant Martin on

Today’s question comes from Mary in San Jose, CA:

Hi, I’m flying from San Jose to Appleton, WI. I’d like to know what to do if I get bumped? Will they let me call the person waiting for me to let them know I won’t be on time?

Gadling: What Mary’s referring to is the legendary “bump,” the notion that if a flight is oversold that the airline will offer passengers compensation to skip it and take the next best route. Rarely, they may even involuntarily bump passengers and offer a higher rate of compensation, but this event is pretty uncommon — lots of people usually volunteer for the initial bump call because they want vouchers for future travel.

Should you find yourself on an overbooked flight, Mary, gate agents will first likely make an announcement in the gate area asking if anyone is willing to change flights for a travel voucher. For a domestic flight, this is usually around $300, but this can be slightly more or less.

If you hear this announcement, you want to be the first person up to that counter to volunteer — there will be plenty of other willing people in the same boat as you.

View more Ask Gadling: Travel Advice from an Expert or send your question to ask [at] gadling [dot] com.

Before you run up to the gate all helter-skelter though, make sure you’re well prepared for the consequences. If there are no alternative routes home that day, you may be forced to spend the night in your current city or worse, even in the airport. You also may be forced to endure long layovers either at your current location or somewhere en route on the way home. Is that worth the flight voucher? Only you can tell.

Not sure if your flight is overbooked? You can always go to seatcounter.com to check how full your flights are. It can be difficult to read, but if you look up your flight and see lots of red zeroes next to it then you can bet that it’s overbooked.

Alternatively, you can always call the airline to ask how full the flight is — they’re not legally obligated to tell you if the flight is overbooked, but they’ll give you a good indication. And if you find the right agent, he or she will tell you how overbooked it is.

As a rule of thumb, Mary, assume that your flight isn’t overbooked and that it’s going to operate as normal. If you do get bumped, you should have plenty of time to reorient your return trip, make a few calls and get yourself in order for your next flight(s).

If you want more details on the whole process and how to engineer it to your advantage, check out Gadling’s Guide to Getting Bumped that we published a couple of years back.

[photo credit via the strangely familiar davitydave on flickr]

Ask Gadling – What can I do on a layover for free?

by Annie Scott on


Today’s Ask Gadling question comes from Linda in Indianapolis.

“What can you do in airports for free? I have a five-hour layover in Seattle next month, and a shorter one in Detroit on the way back. It seems like every time I have a layover, especially when I’m by myself, I end up spending about $50 on food and beverages because there’s nothing else to do. Is there anything that’s free?”

Gadling: Linda, I feel your pain. Airports, movie theaters and ballparks all rob you blind because they know they’ve got you captive. Now that few (if any) airlines provide meals on domestic flights, you’re even more likely to be suckered into buying a $10 sandwich that’s worth about 50 cents. You’ve gotta eat, right? And, if you’re anything like me, a bloody mary or beer is a standard way to pass the time, and they’re not cheap, either. There is very little to do for free in the airport, so you have to bring or make your own fun. Here are some ways to do that:

Treat the layover like part of the flight.

No kissing of the ground, no snacks. This really only works if you have a short layover, or you could get really hungry, but when you’ve got under two hours to kill, just park yourself in a chair and pretend you’re still on the plane. Read your book or Kindle, chill out with your iPod and enjoy the lack of turbulence.

Shop for future reference.

Do you keep a wishlist of any kind? Creating one or adding to it is a great way to kill time at most airports. Go try on clothes, look at new gadgets and browse the book selection. Keep a record of what you like (and your size in the clothes), then find it all cheaper on the internet when you get home — or just add it to your What I Want For My Birthday list. See? Layovers can be productive.

View more Ask Gadling: Travel Advice from an Expert or send your question to ask [at] gadling [dot] com.

Play games with the travelers.

There’s nothing like playing games with people who don’t realize it. Make up a game for yourself like counting mullets or bright orange accessories, or try to guess who in the waiting area is flying first class (and see who jumps up when pre-boarding is announced). If a whole slew of travelers walks by, try to guess where their plane came from, and then go look. These games are better with friends, but if you keep track of your “scores,” you can play against yourself at various airports.

Treat it like an afternoon at home.

Imagine you were just going to sit at home for five hours. What would you do? Watch TV? Well, you may not get channel control in the airport, but there are TVs with news and weather running, and you can always download some TV shows to your computer, phone or iPod. Would you work? Draw a picture? Would you feast on carrot sticks? Preparation is key; bring yourself a snack, a magazine and anything else you’d pay double for at the airport.

Brush your teeth.

Five minutes down.

Remember that layovers are a normal thing and everyone else is waiting, too.

I know part of the reason I end up at the bar is that I feel sorry for myself. “Poor me. I have to sit in the airport and wait again. I deserve a chardonnay and a cheeseburger.” If I think about it, that’s pretty lame. Everyone has layovers sometimes, it’s just how it goes. If I think: “I am not a special snowflake, I am one of a bazillion travelers waiting in the airport.” — the notion helps me resist the urge to pamper myself with impromptu manicures, massages and $12 margaritas. Strike up a conversation with someone else who looked bored (but do remember that reading does not equal bored, nor does sleeping, eating or working).

Got more than four hours? Get out of the airport.

Awhile back, we did a series of Layover articles on Gadling. You can search Gadling for “Layover” and the name of the city you’ll be stranded in, and if we covered it, there will be an article about how to best spend some time there, both in and out of the airport. Not all the activities are free, but if you’re spending money to see the city, doesn’t that feel better? Here are Detroit and Seattle.

[Photo credit: Annie Scott]