Suite Arrival delivers travel size products directly to your hotel

Suite Arrival is a new company in the travel world. The firm operates an online store that specializes in travel size products.

The idea behind Suite Arrival is that you pre-order any travel products you need, and have them delivered directly to your hotel. The assortment of products offered by Suite Arrival includes everything from candy to condoms, shampoo, oral care and more.

Now, the concept seemed rather odd at first, but then I thought back to the times I had to scramble to visit a drugstore just to buy the few products I needed on an upcoming trip. Obviously, paying someone else to pack and ship your toiletries is not going to be an economic option for everyone, but if saving a trip to the drugstore is worth $30, you may appreciate the service.

The process of ordering is very simple – you can completely customize your order, with the brands and products you need, or you can use the Suite Arrivals assistant to pick products, and assemble your own “arrivals kit”. In the “His Arrival” kit, you can select shampoo, shaving products, a toothbrush and toothpaste, snacks, deodorant and more. The Price for a well stocked mens kit is around $25 plus shipping.

Now, this is obviously about $5 more (including shipping) than what you’d pay for the products at your local Walgreens, but with Suite Arrival, you don’t waste time shopping, and you don’t need to worry about packing the products to clear the security checkpoint. Since the TSA only allows a single ziploc bag of toiletries, shipping them to your hotel is a great way to reduce the hassle of the checkpoint. Best of all, the lineup lets you pick from budget products and upscale brands, so if you know in advance that the shampoo at your hotel sucks, you can deliver something much better.

I assembled a kit with a variety of products, and received it two days later, exactly as ordered, with a couple of bonus products – a bottle of 5-hour energy and a Boingo 15 minute WiFi access card.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no way a once-a-year traveler can justify the luxury of ordering travel products online, but if you are the kind of traveler that heads to the airport every Monday morning, and regularly forgets where the flight is heading, you may be able to make life on the road a bit easier with Suite Arrival. Of course, having access to an expense account could make things even easier to justify. Orders can be placed at www.suitearrival.com or through their 24 hour customer service line at (801) 784-8399.

After thinking more about the target audience, I really like the concept, and I love the massive assortment of travel products. Suite Arrival carries so much more than the local drugstore, and may even have products you’d want to have delivered to your home, for an upcoming trip.

Ten creative things to do with hotel bathroom amenities

When your travels regularly take you to hotels, you’ll no doubt have a collection of small amenities. I’m pretty weird, because I’ll take whatever I can get. Of course, with the TSA liquid rules, the amount you can take back home is limited, but if you are traveling by car, or checking bags, there is almost limit to what you can collect.

Here are ten fun things you can do with hotel toiletries – from helping others, to being super cheap…

Donate them
This is my favorite thing to do with hotel toiletries.Check out the Yellow Pages or Google, and find local shelters. From experience, I know that Womens shelters always appreciate good quality amenities. In some cases they’ll ask for them to be dropped off at a public location, but they’ll always go to a good home.

Gifts bags/ Souvenirs

Got someone you’d like to treat to a little something nice? Buy a gift basket or bag at the local craft store and create a fragrant gift set. With the right brands, they’ll think you spent a fortune on them.
Stocking stuffers
Christmas is still 5 months away, but it doesn’t hurt to put some products aside as stocking stuffers. Good brands are perfect gifts for teachers or anyone else that deserves a little holiday cheer.

Sell them
If you snag some really good amenities, or something exotic, check Ebay or Craigslist for prices and list your own stuff for sale. Some hotels provide really upscale brands which can easily sell for $10 each. You’d be amazed how much you can get for a weeks supply of L’occitane products from the Four Seasons.

Use on other trips

At home, I’ve always got a couple of spare TSA approved 3-1-1 baggies filled with basic amenities. This way, if I have a last minute trip, i just grab a baggie and head to the airport. Since all the bottles are already within the TSA approved size, you won’t need to worry about being shot for violating the liquid rules.

Use in guest bathroom at home
Don’t waste money on toiletries for guests, simply give them a couple of good hotel products.

Use in your own bathroom (cheap!)
What’s good enough for your guests should be good enough for you. Pick the best brands, and use them yourself.

Refill larger bottles
This takes being cheap to a whole new level, but you can empty hotel toiletries back home and refill your own larger bottles.

Drawer liners
Peel a corner off the hotel soap bar and use it as a drawer liner. Just be sure to pick good scents, or all your stuff will smell like industrial strength hotel soap.

Corporate bathroom or desk (Toothpaste, mending kit)

Stock up on mending kits, toothpaste and other toiletries at the office, and you’ll be the hero of your cubicle. The Pepcid was indeed an amenity – on a cruise ship of course.

Got any of your own ideas? Leave them in the comments section below!

The Ikea Trollfjorden – the best deal on the perfect travel toiletries bag?

I’ll be honest with you – I love Ikea. I love their $4.99 Swedish meatball platter, I love their kitchen accessories and my daughter loves their toys. Of course, I am still a European at heart, so perhaps there is something genetic about enjoying a trip to the local big blue box.

One of my favorite parts of a trip to Ikea is finding bargains I had not expected to find – like my find of the week – the Ikea toiletries bag. I’ve been on a quest for the ideal toiletries bag for some time, but until now I had never found the perfect solution. That was, until I picked up a Trollfjorden.

Why is the Trollfjorden the ideal travel toiletries bag? Well, for starters there is the name – like most other Ikea products, this thing got a killer name. But the best part is the size – unlike other bags, this one is thin and wide – making it perfect for packing. In addition to this, it isn’t too big – especially since most of us need to pack our wet items in a separate bag anyway (thanks TSA).

The Trollfjorden has five large mesh pockets, a zippered organizer and a hidden hook. Nothing more, and nothing less. It comes in black and red, and at a penny under $5, it is my travel bargain of the month. You’ll need to make a trip to your local Ikea to pick one up, because it is not available for online ordering, but that just gives you an excuse to have meatballs for lunch, doesn’t it?

Luggage liquid limitations to end – but only in Europe, and not till 2013

The European Union has committed to lifting the current restrictions on liquids carried by air passengers no later than April 2013.

It was back in 2006 when security staff at London Heathrow UK police foiled a terror attempt that planned to use liquids stored in hand luggage to blow up a plane – and since then, travelers have been limited in how much they can carry on a plane.

The rules have been a major hassle for everyone (except the makers of travel size toiletries). Thankfully, Europeans only have to deal with the rules for three more years, which is when airports should have the necessary equipment to detect liquid explosives. Once the rules are lifted, all liquids will once again be allowed in carry-on luggage.

Hopefully the next development will be a reliable shoe bomb scanner, because once we can keep our shoes on, and our toiletries in our bags, travel will be one step closer to how it was before the terrorists screwed things up for us.%Gallery-76818%

Gadling gear review – humangear GoToob

Regular readers will know that I’m a sucker for a good gadget. Granted, most of the stuff that grabs my attention is battery operated, and has at least one button.

So, it takes a pretty smart gadget to impress me if it doesn’t beep, buzz or blend.

The humangear GoToob is such a gadget. This little tube is designed to hold your liquids when you are on the road. Sure, the concept may sound really simple, but humangear did an amazing job of such a simple task.

The GoToob bottles are available in 1.08oz and 2oz sizes and are made of silicone rubber. The bottles feature a wide opening, which means you can fill them from a larger bottle, without spilling expensive products all over your sink. Since they use silicone in the bottle, they are BPA free (a big issue nowadays) and they are even FDA approved for food use. When placed in a correct baggie, they are also TSA approved.

The innovation doesn’t end there – each bottle features a special no-drip valve, similar to what you’ll find in some plastic ketchup bottles. The 2oz GoToob even comes with a suction cup integrated in the bottle, which means you can stick it on the shower wall and use it as a shampoo dispenser.

But wait – there is more! The bottles feature a nifty ID window, making it easy to determine whether you picked up the shampoo or the conditioner. The window has markings for shampoo, conditioner, soap, sunscreen, lotion and “…” if you bring something else.

The bottles cost just under $6 for the small and $7 for the medium. As I said – it usually takes a lot to impress me in a gadget, but the GoToob is just too smart to ignore. I used to buy travel size toiletries all the time (Target must love me!) but now I’m going to switch to GoToob’s and simply fill them with “real” products from home.

You’ll find GoToobs at Amazon.com or through one of the retailers listed at humangear.com.