Five good travel tips

In our June issue we asked for suggestions on tips for traveling light. Lisa sent two and Syd sent one very helpful one, and there have been a couple of recent articles that address 2 vexing problems facing international travelers.

1. "I now carry bar shampoo after having my little bottles of shampoo crushed and spilling out in my suitcase or backpack - even through zip lock bags. The other good thing about bar shampoo (I use Lush shampoo) is that it doesn't have to go into that little baggie you have to put all your liquids in at the airport." You can carry it in a plastic or tin container.

2. "Inside my carry on, I have what I call my "emergency bag" (fanny pack style) that holds all the things I can not be separated from (passport, meds etc...) in case my carry on bag has to be checked. Twice I was told as I was boarding the plane (Mexico and Africa) I could not take my carry on bag, which is a medium size backpack. I can quickly remove the fanny pack, clip it on, and let my carry on bag go. I've been on many flights in other countries where the rules for carry on luggage vary from day to day."

3. Syd says "I take a $1 sink stopper that I like for washing clothes in the hotel sink"

4. Finally, a great article in the New York Times that sorts through the best (i.e. least expensive) ways to stay in touch when traveling internationally.

5. And finally, if you have ever had your ATM card declined when you are traveling internationally, you know what a bummer it is. This excellent article by Pauline Frommer will help make sure it doesn't happen to you.

Does this canoe make me look fat?

My friend Beth Mairs of Wild Women Expeditions recently sent me this note:
"I wanted to send you a link to a video I am working on which you might be interested in. I think I may have mentioned to you I'm working on an adventure documentary film which will try to capture the magic of all-women wilderness trips. We are shooting next month.
But as research LAST SUMMER, I carried a video camera across the country on several of our trips and interviewed women, looking for themes. The result of 10 hours of tape is now 7 minutes of video... I posted it last night on YouTube."
How can you not like a video titled "Does this canoe make me look fat?". She did a great job! Click here to watch it.

Our New Blog

We have moved our blog to our main website. You can now easily find it by clicking on the button that says Blog on the right side of the navigation bar or you can click here.

In addition to tips, we'll write about new trips, thought pieces on various things to do with travel, information about destinations, and occasionally while we're out guiding trips. We now have both categories and tags, which should make it easier to find something you read. We also have our tweets posted - I often tweet about good resources I've found so if you hate Twitter, this is an easy way to keep up on what I find useful and interesting. And we also have an RSS feed so if you want to know when we post something new but don't want to have to check it, this is the way to go.

We will continue to post shorter pieces, links, announcements of new trips and photo albums on Facebook. We also respond to any questions you post there. And speaking of Facebook, if you haven't joined us, won't you think about it? We have been hovering on breaking the 1000 mark for about a month and I'm just sure that if we got over 1000, all those feelings of rejection from not being in popular in high school would finally go away...Seriously, I think our Facebook page is fun and interesting and I love reading what other people write.

2010 trips

Still looking for a last minute vacation this year? For a quick overview, check out our Trip Calendar. If it doesn't say full, chances are 99% sure it isn't (although some are close so if there is more than one of you, do check with us first). If you can't afford the time or money for a longer vacation, we have two great 4-day trips still available: Harpers Ferry Holiday and Hiking Bryce and Zion.

Next webinar: Trekking in Nepal

The webinar on Kilimanjaro was great fun and people who were actively thinking about going or just daydreaming about it found it useful. Our next webinar is on Trekking to Everest Basecamp" on Tuesday Sept 14 at 7pm EST. This time we have VOIP which means you don't even need to call in, you can listen to it over the internet. Its no cost, no obligation, and we won't even endlessly bug you afterwards. All you have to do is send us an email telling us you're interested and we'll send you an official invitation. We'll show pictures, answer questions, and generally try to give you a good idea of what the trip is really like.

Websites of interest

Paddling.net- this is the website with a good newsletter for folks who are interested in canoeing and kayaking. They have tons of useful information, provide resources to help you buy or sell gear, and also have a directory of companies offering trips. They recently published a great article on Essential Paddle Strokes for Women.

For those of you who prefer to keep both feet on dry land, Backpacker.com has tons of videos, information, resources etc. An outgrowth of Backpacker Magazine, it also has a good enewsletter.

Save money on trips!

I know this is repetitious for regular readers but we have alot of new subscribers lately and we want to make sure you know too!

There are 3 surefire ways to save money on trips and one iffy way.

1.The iffy way- wait for us to send out notice of a last minute (usually 4 weeks or less) discount when someone cancels shortly before a trip. If you're not already getting them, sign up here.

2. For the surefire ways, look at our discount policies. The most important one? Be one of the first 5 to sign up for a trip in 2011 and get a 5% discount. Those discounted spaces are already gone on Paddling with Manatees, Climbing Kilimanjaro and Grand Alaska Road Trip but we still have 1 on Panama: the new Costa Rica, and Exploring Hawaii; and 2 on Paddling the Okefenokee.

If you want to find out when a trip is posted, just email us and ask us to notify you as soon as we have it up. If it is a new trip, we will also post a notice on our Facebook page and on our blog.

Deb and I have been working hard to get all our trips posted through June next year and are now working hard on the rest of the summer. We are prioritizing international trips since they take more advance planning and trips we've done before because they don't take as much work.

Deb is taking vacation after the Maine trip is over and I had a 5 day vacation last week - it was great! I highly recommend it! Whether its with us, another company, or family and friends, we all really need a break from work to relax and get perspective. Have a good rest of your summer.-- Marian, for all the guides at Adventures in Good Company