Ultralight Backpacking

by Brenda Yun on

Now I don’t claim to be the biggest expert on ultralight backpacking, but I must say I’ve gotten better with backpacking light in the last few years. I’m heading to Nicaragua and Cuba for a month on Tuesday and thought it might be helpful to share a few tips on what to bring if you’re traveling ultralight.

I think ultralight backpacking distinguishes itself from regular backpacking because it means you’re willing to travel for longer than two weeks with a daypack. Mine’s a tried and true, ultra-dirty Kelty Blanca 200. If you intend to go ultralight, all of your belongings should fit in a pack that you can carry on with you whether you’re in a small bus or plane.
The trick to choosing what to bring with you is to bring only the stuff that’s has multiple functions and that you won’t mind losing while you’re on the road. A pair of zip-out pants double as shorts, for instance, is always a good (though kind of unfashionable) bet. Traveling is all about what you see, not what you wear, so bring the multi-purpose stuff, not the stuff that will bog you down or make you fret if you no longer have it.

So, in terms of clothes I’ve settled on this:

  • light raincoat
  • 1 longsleeve
  • 1 t-shirt
  • 2 tank tops
  • zip-out pants/shorts
  • capri pants
  • skirt
  • two sundresses
  • pajamas (that I can wear in public too, if I’m desperate)
  • 4 pairs of undies
  • 1 pair of socks
  • 1 bra
  • 2 bikinis (though you only need one, I plan on being in the water as much as possible)
  • pashmina scarf

Keep in mind I’m packing for tropical weather. If you’re headed for cooler climates, you can get by on three tops, three bottoms, and three pairs of socks. Bring clothes that you can wash by hand and dry quickly. All of my clothes fit inside a plastic vaccum sack, which you can buy at any good drugstore for $5.

As for shoes, I usually bring just two pairs — three if I’m going to a cold climate. For this trip, I’m just going to bring my flip-flops (here in Hawaii we call them slippers) and my awesome ultralight pair of Nike flex sneakers.

Then you have to think about toiletries/accessories. I usually put those in a separate kit that will fit in the front pocket of my backpack. I’m pretty much sold on my hanging L.L. Bean kit with Hawaiian print. It came in handy when I was in Vanuatu, and a lady I met on Erromango asked if she could have it, so I gave it to her. When I got home, I bought another one just like it. Here are my toiletries/accessories:

  • money belt
  • toothbrush & toothpaste
  • shampoo & soap
  • comb
  • earplugs
  • chapstick
  • sunscreen
  • Q-tips
  • sunscreen
  • mini-flashlight
  • earplugs
  • aspirin, dramamine, vitamins
  • powdered laundry detergent
  • nail clippers
  • hairbands & clips
  • tampons

A lighter daypack is a must, and for women, a purse for the evenings is a good idea.

There are also some things you can’t leave home without. For me, it’s a laptop. I hate handwriting things, but having a word processor is essential for me as a writer. I purposely purchased a pink Acer mini-PC (for only $299!) because I don’t want to travel with my precious laptop (which contains all of my important files) and risk losing it. Still, I have a cool laptop lock to keep my Acer safe when I’m not around. Throw in my camera, iPod, and a good travel book, and I’m pretty much good to go.

Traveling light is a really liberating experience. It taught me what I can live with or without, and made me feel so much more grateful for the things I take for granted. Enjoy your trip!

Plane Answers: Step climbs, ferry flights and US Airways milking the publicity

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Sam asks:

I just “discovered” your Q&A’s section and I wanted to thank you for all the useful information. I had a question I wanted to ask you as well.

Often at at the end of a flight I hear the engines surge and feel mildly pressed into my seat, similar to the sensation of the sudden acceleration of takeoff. Why do the planes accelerate at this time and if they can be flying faster safely, why not do so the entire flight?

P.S. How often can I bother you with questions?

Hi Sam,

Fire away with the questions. I’ll try to answer them here if they’re relevant. We can never have too many!

What you may have experienced was a step-climb. As the airplane burns off fuel, it’s more efficient to fly at a higher altitude. So as the flight progresses pilots may elect to climb, often 2,000 feet at a time, to a higher altitude.

These “step climbs” could happen throughout the flight, with the exception of transatlantic flights which have to wait until they’re across the Atlantic before they can request a climb since ATC can’t see these airplanes via radar.

But there is one other possible explanation.
Since the British Airways 777 accident at London last year, 777 operators with the Rolls-Royce engines have to advance the throttles to maximum thrust for ten seconds before initiating the descent if the fuel temperature is below -10C.

We don’t fly at the maximum cruise power for the duration of the flight, since the added fuel burn would far exceed the benefits of arriving at our destination five minutes earlier.

Very perceptive and keep the questions coming, Sam.

James comments:

I was told by a very reliable source (older brother of a United pilot) that United hired a public relations firm to promote “Sully” and crew. They are determined to get as much mileage from this event as possible.

I think you meant to say that US Airways was trying to get the most publicity from this event as possible. And while that may be true, it hasn’t prevented ‘Sully’ from pointing out that US Airways had used bankruptcy as a “fishing expedition to get what they could not get in normal times,” and noted that his pay had been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension had been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar.”

Certainly he’s avoided the influence of company spokespersons and he’s felt free enough to speak his mind.

I’m currently reading the book It’s not news, it’s Fark, which outlines how companies and organizations try to influence the direction of the news. But it seems in this case, the media demand for interviews has been significant enough that a publicity campaign by the airline wouldn’t be necessary.

Thomas asks:

Hi Kent-

I love reading both of your columns! I miss reading Cockpit Chronicles.

I don’t know if you can answer this question for me or not, but how do plane manufacturers transport new smaller planes (ex: A320, B737) overseas to buyers? Are these planes able to fly across the ocean without any passengers on board?

When I was 15, my sister and I overheard my dad turn down an offer to fly a 737 from Seattle to London. We forced him to call back and take the trip which gave us an opportunity to ride in the cockpit with him, since it was considered a ferry flight. Not to mention the fact that it gave us the opportunity to see London.

Up to that point, we had never been able to ride in the cockpit, of course.

We flew from Seattle with our fuel tanks topped off, to Goose Bay, Canada. We then proceeded all the way to South Hampton, England. Had we been limited in range further, we would have stopped in Gander, Newfoundland, and perhaps Reykjavik, Iceland before flying on to our destination.

This is also how smaller, single-engine Cessnas are flown to and from Europe, but they often carry auxiliary fuel tanks inside the cabin.

I’m very sympathetic to these ferry pilots flying the smaller airplanes. It can’t be a relaxing flight to be down low, in an airplane with just one engine, while trying to avoid icing conditions. Those pilots earn every penny they get.

Todays Boeing and Airbus narrow-body airplanes can travel more than 2,500 nautical miles, so there are more options for them.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monday’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Galley Gossip: A question about turbulence and being scared at work

by Heather Poole on

H i Heather,

Are you ever afraid to fly? Or were you in the beginning of your career? I have recently been invited to training for a FA position with a major airline. It has been a dream of mine my whole life! I am so excited….however….sometimes I am nervous to fly! I fly A LOT. Usually a few times a month. Sometimes I am perfectly fine, and other times I am nervous. I’m worried about this and wondering if you ever felt this way?

I was on a flight last month from MCI to SMF with a stop in DEN and within about 3 minutes of take off we hit severe turbulence. I have never felt turbulence that strong before and neither had my husband who also flies at least once a week. We had the whole zero gravity thing going on, the plane was actually rolling from side to side and I’m positive that if someone hadn’t had their seat belt on they would have hit the ceiling. I mean, it was pretty darn scary! After we reached altitude and smoothed out I went to the back and talked to the flight attendants. One of them told me that it was probably one of the roughest take offs she had ever experienced. I know it’s not common but I was terrified!

Well, thanks for any advice. I WANT to do this, I just want to make sure that I’m not going to be scared at work everyday!

Leesa

Leesa,

Congratulations on getting hired with a major airline! Flight attendant training is not easy. A lot of information will be thrown at you all at once. There will be late nights, early mornings, and lots of caffeine, but whatever you do, don’t get tired and quit! It’s going to be the longest seven and a half weeks of your life, but you’ll be glad you did it when those silver wings are pinned to your blue lapel.

As far as turbulence at work goes, the only way you’re going to know if you’ll be scared or not is to go to work and test it out. If you are scared, I’d give it a few months, or as long as I could take it, just to see if flying is something I could get used to. Worst case scenario is you’ll have to quit. So what. At least you gave it a shot, gained an amazing experience, and won’t spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been if you’d given it a shot. Being a flight attendant is a great job, but it’s not for everyone.

Thankfully severe turbulence is rare. I’ve only experienced it three times in my fourteen years of flying. When you go through training, Leesa, you’ll learn all about turbulence, the four different kinds (light, moderate, severe, extreme), and how you should always take care of yourself first, which means sit down, fasten your seat belt, and worry about the beverage service later!

Hundreds of flight attendants get hurt every year from ignoring turbulence. We get so used to it, I believe, we try to do things we probably shouldn’t be doing when the ride gets a bit too bumpy, like serving those last three rows drinks when we should probably wait and serve them later. When I first started my flying career, it was mandatory to do seat belt checks as soon as the seat belt sign went on. A few times I remember barely being able to walk down the aisle and thinking to myself, how can this be safe? Now flight attendants only check belts if we feel comfortable doing so, meaning we feel safe enough to walk through the cabin. What good is a flight attendant if that flight attendant hits the ceiling during a compliance check and has to be taken off the flight in a wheelchair?

As far as being a nervous flier, I am not afraid to fly and have rarely ever been nervous in flight. Turbulence does not scare me, but it’s what can happen to those who are not seated with their belts fastened during turbulence that I find frightening. I’ve heard horror stories from flight attendants that include all sorts of broken bones and back surgeries, but not one of those stories involved a seat belt. Ninety-nine percent of the time the Captain will give the flight attendants a warning so we have a chance to put things away and take our seats. But turbulence does happen even without warning, which is why it’s so important for passengers to remain in their seats with their seat belts fastened at all times- even when the seat belt sign is not on.

Like I said, I’ve only experienced really bad turbulence three times, and the first time happened on a training flight for Sunjet International Airlines, a low cost carrier I worked for years ago. I still consider that flight the most frightening flight I’ve ever worked in terms of turbulence and scared passengers. We were working a Super80. Except for the side wall lights that had been flickering on and off throughout the flight, it was dark in the cabin. The Captain had told us to take our seats, so we did, and there we sat for quite a long time. Nothing happened. The ride was smooth. Just when I wondered why we were sitting, we suddenly began to violently rock side to side and those flickering lights only made the situation worse. Passengers began to scream, a few prayed, and one even lit up!

“Put that cigarette out!” I yelled from my jumpseat

“This could be my last flight!” The passenger screamed back.

While it was an eerie flight with the flickering lights and the bumpy ride, the turbulence didn’t scare me half as much as the hysterical passengers.

A few months ago on a flight from New York to Los Angeles the flight attendants were told to prepare for landing a little early due to turbulence in the area. I’d been flying the same route for a few days in a row, so I thought I knew what to expect, which is why I had already done my compliance checks, taken my seat, and had my belt strapped across my lap, but nothing prepared me for what happened next!

As soon as the Captain asked the flight attendants to take their seats, the flight attendant in the galley attempted to lock up the inserts of sodas (so they wouldn’t fly out and hit us in the head), but because she took those three extra seconds to secure the galley, she did not make it back to her seat in time. Onto the floor she crashed. When she tried to stand up, holding onto the walls for support, she fell back down. Again she stood, but ended up landing in my lap. I held onto her tightly as we bounced up and down, my fingernails digging into her skin. If not for my tight grip, she would have hit her head on the ceiling. After it was over, I had a difficult time releasing my fingers from her waist. Of course the turbulence was scarey, but it was the flight attendant who fell on the floor and then ended up in my lap that could have been seriously injured that worried me the most.

On my last flight from Dallas to New York , Colleen, my coworker, and I had just pulled the beverage cart to the front of the aircraft. The ride was smooth, so the seat belt sign was off. I had just served a passenger a vodka tonic and had collected $6, when we experienced our first hard jolt. Clear air turbulence, the captain later told us. I grabbed onto the seats and looked at Colleen who was already looking at me, eyes wide. We didn’t say one word to each other as we quickly rolled the cart to the back of the aircraft. Passengers actually tried to stop us for drinks.

“Flight attendants take your seats!” boomed the Captain’s voice over the PA system. We were only halfway to our jumpseats. I didn’t think we were going to make it.

“Should we angle the cart?” asked Colleen, as we continued moving backwards down the aisle at a fast pace.

“I don’t know!” I said, not about to stop for a second. Somehow we kept on moving, holding onto the seats and overhead bins for support, until we were almost at our seats.

Because I was on the far end of the beverage cart and my jumpseat was behind the last row of coach seats, I knew I wasn’t going to make it, so I sat down in the first open passenger seat I could find and buckled up. Thank goodness the flight wasn’t full. The passenger seated at the window looked green, so I handed him the barf bag located in the seatback pocket in front of me. Colleen took a few more steps, angled the cart and locked the break, before strapping into the jumseat located in the galley. I threw her a blanket and she tossed it over the pots full of hot coffee and tea. For ten minutes we rode it out.

At some point a passenger seated in the middle of the cabin got up and ran to the back, stopping at the cart blocking the aisle. “Sir, you need to be in your seat right now!” Colleen barked.

Without saying a word, he ran back to his seat. I figured he was sick and wanted to use the bathroom. What else could it be? A few minutes later, after the worst of the turbulence was over, he got up again, even though Colleen and I were still strapped into our seats.

“The seat belt sign is still on!” I said as he passed by. Passengers seated nearby just shook their heads.

Before Colleen could tell him to go back to his seat again, he said, “Ummm…are you still selling snacks?”

Now this is what scares me, Leesa, passengers asking for snacks when the captain has ordered the flight attendants to take their seats, not turbulence. Because one big jolt and this guy who wants to purchase a cookie is now on the floor and I’ve got to take care of him. But not until I take care of myself, first.

Hope that helps, Leesa. Good luck at flight attendant training! Make sure to write back and let me know how it’s going.

Heather Poole

To read more about turbulence, check out Kent Wien’s Plane Answers post, when are pilot’s afraid of turbulence.

Photos courtesy of (wings), (flight attendant) Cartel82 – flickr

Product review – Microsoft Zune 80GB (hint: it doesn’t suck)

by Scott Carmichael on

Let me open right away and warn hardcore geeks to stop reading. Yeah – I know the Microsoft Zune has been out for some time, and yes – I know there is another player out there that seems to be getting most of the attention.

But for the benefit of our readers, I decided to take a Microsoft Zune for a spin to see whether I was missing something (yes, I too was guilty of being one of those geeks who ignored the Zune for too long).

A quick intro – Microsoft introduced the Zune in 2006. Interest in the player was initially very intense, but over the years things seem to have died down a little, and Zune customers seem to revolve around people who despise carrying that “other player”, or those that discovered that the Zune can actually do several things not found on most other devices.

For this product review, I decided to use the red 80GB Zune. I picked the 80GB for several reasons – the right price, plenty of storage space and a decent size screen for watching movies. I’m not going to pretend that I’m one of the first to review the Zune, so I’ll make the main focus of this review the features found on the player that can help travelers on the road.

The player looks like most other devices – you get a screen, a couple of buttons and a headphone jack. So far, nothing out of the ordinary. There are however several smart design features hidden away in the hardware. For starters, the control pad combines a 4 way button with a touch sensitive pad. This Zune Pad makes the controls surprisingly efficient.

Inside the Zune is the other innovation – WiFi. In fact, the WiFi interface is not just a second thought, it is an integral part of how you can use the Zune.

The device has a large 3.2″ color display, behind scratch resistant glass.

Included with the Zune 80 are premium noise isolating headphones, which actually sound quite amazing. They certainly are a step above the boring white things sold by that other company.

The headphones even feature small magnets on their rear to keep them together when you are not using them, preventing you from creating a tangled mess in your bag.

The Microsoft Zune does what you’d expect from a portable media player – it plays music stored in the WMA, AAC or MP3 format. Microsoft does make it very clear that “Fairplay” AAC files will not play – these files contain rights management added by the iTunes music store.

The device also supports 4 different video formats – WMV, MPEG-4, H.264 and DVR-MS (a file format used by Windows Media Center to record TV shows). One incredibly handy features is that the Zune software player will convert many video formats to a version compatible with the player.

The Zune desktop player is actually one of the parts that impressed me the most – the player is quite simply stunning. It manages to take a huge number of features and keep them all in a very easy to use and cool looking interface.

If you have ever used iTunes, you’ll know that it can be horribly confusing, and a real resource hog, using up a ton of your system memory. Even with a 17,500 song library, I had no performance issues with the Zune.

So? What makes a Zune so special, and why should you consider buying one if you are in the market for a new portable media player?

After using the Zune for close to a month, I’ve concluded that there are several very cool features that make the device my new personal recommendation for a media player in its category:

  • The Zune desktop experience – As I mentioned, the Zune software is just awesome.
  • The Zune WiFi features -WiFi is great, but if you can’t do anything cool with it, it becomes useless. Thankfully, the Zune designers have managed to implement WiFi in a way that makes it a fantastic feature. You can of course sync the device over WiFi to your desktop computer. But you can also access the Zune online service and purchase more music, or get access to the latest podcasts. Then there are of course the various Zune social features that let you do things like share a song with fellow Zune users or even play online games.
  • Zune Pass – To me, this was the most important feature of the entire Zune package – Zune Pass is a $14.99/month service that comes with all you can eat music. With this monthly subscription, you can download as many songs as you want, from the millions of available titles in the Zune Marketplace. As with most music subscription services, once you let the monthly subscription lapse, you lose the right to all the downloaded music on your player. Music from your own collection is of course not subject to this. In addition to the unlimited downloads, Zune Pass also lets you convert 10 songs a month into a DRM free track, which means they are yours to keep.
  • Video quality – The Zune 80 is the perfect balance between price, storage and screen size. The 3.2″ screen is of course smaller than your home theater, but still large enough to watch a movie on, without having to sit 4 inches away. The screen is bright, crisp and video files play extremely well. I’m also very impressed with the way the Zune desktop software converts videos – other applications (*cough*iTunes*cough) simply say “can’t transfer video” and expect you to find your own solution to converting the files.

Inside the Zune are several other features you might appreciate – not only does the device offer a well designed FM radio, but the software actually allows you to tag songs you hear on the radio for purchase in the Zune marketplace. This only works with radio stations that broadcast their track names using RDS, but the few times I found a decent sounding station RDS was enabled, and I could tag the song.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article – I’m almost feeling guilty for ignoring the Zune for so long. For some reason I just never had the urge to take it out for a spin – something I’m now regretting.

Battery life is quite impressive – the 80GB Zune is rated for 24 hours of music playback and 4 hours of video, which of course will be cut short if you use the WiFi intensively.

Final thoughts

The Zune 80 I reviewed retails for $229, and its 120GB big brother costs $249. Each player comes with a Zune USB cable, and the 80GB version comes with a pair of premium headphones.

Yes – these retail prices are virtually the same as those of the Classic iPods, but when you look at the specifications, the Zune really does get you more for your money; a larger screen, WiFi and FM radio. I’ll refrain from comparing the Zune 80 to an iPhone or iPod touch simply because neither of those devices offer a hard drive for media storage.

It isn’t all rosy though – the Zune players suffer from a serious lack of accessories, and anyone who defects from the iTunes world will be pretty disappointed how hard it is to find affordable extras for the player.

That doesn’t mean there are no accessories, it’s just not as easy to find a $2 case or video cable on Ebay for Zune devices. The Zune site lists a decent assortment of extras, including docks, a home AV pack and an FM transmitter.

Other than that minor issue, I’m really digging the player. The features in the Zune Desktop are fantastic, the user interface on the device is cool and being able to just pay $15 a month for all the music I can handle is a much better solution than paying $1 per song (or resorting to P2P networks). The short conclusion is what I said in my title – the Zune does not suck, quite the opposite.

If you travel a lot, you’ll appreciate the good battery life, large screen and the ability to get access to the Zune Marketplace anywhere you can find an open WiFi signal.

You can learn more about the Zune players and the Zune service at Zune.net.

Eddie Aikau and the Hokule’a voyage

by Brenda Yun on

If you’ve heard the term “Eddie Would Go,” then you most certainly know about the Hokule’a voyage — the second of its kind — that ended tragically when Eddie Aikau attempted to seek rescue by paddling to Lanai 33 years ago. If you know this, then you will definitely be excited to know that the upcoming Hokule’a voyage promises to be the biggest and most ambitious sailing trip of its kind.

But let’s first start with Eddie’s story, for those of you who are not familiar with it: Aikau’s story has been popularly retold by two of my teachers at Punahou School (which is Barack Obama’s alma mater too, by the way). Marion Lyman-Mersereau (my 8th grade Ethics teacher) wrote a children’s book called “Eddie Wen’ Go,” and Stuart Coleman (my 10th grade English teacher) wrote his biography titled “Eddie Would Go” with the assistance of several of Aikau’s close friends and family members.

This cool video will help you understand Eddie’s journey on the Hokule’a:

[more on current Hokule’a plans after the break]


Eddie Aikau remains one of Hawaii’s most beloved figures, and his legend lives on in many forms, most notably, the Hokule’a voyage and, more recently, through the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational that is held on the North Shore of Oahu in Waimea Bay if a massive swell hits the bay just right to create enormous 5-story waves for surfers to paddle into.

Following Eddie’s untimely death, locals termed “Eddie Would Go” as a reminder to live life to its fullest. Now, news of the latest Hokule’a voyage is spreading across the islands and the mainland, as preparations for one of the biggest and longest sailing journeys is in its final stages. The voyaging canoe is currently en route to the Palmyra Atoll, where 12 different crews will be trained to later embark on a 37-month, 40-country journey around the world.

The purpose of this ambitious sailing trip, organized by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, is to remind the public of the days when sailors traveled the seas by recognizing wave patterns and guiding themselves by the stars. Come 2012, the Hokule’a intends to invite scientists, educators, and other social leaders on the journey in an effort to teach them about the importance of protecting the ocean and marine-dependent ecosystems as well as to encourage them to consider more carefully marine-related policies, protection, and management.

Locals here on the islands are hoping the “Hokule’a Will Go.” It sounds like quite the adventure and the perfect educational experience.