The idea of packing light is nothing new. Henry David Thoreau famously explored simple living . Rick Steves advocates one 20-pound bag . Many airlines now penalize travelers with even one checked bag by imposing a baggage fee . And in this BootsnAll interview , Rolf suggests that a small pack keeps the traveler from...

Bargaining in Chatuchak Weekend Market in Thailand. Photo: Eugene Tang / BangkokSights.com One of the biggest obstacles to traveling is the language barrier. Simple tasks like asking where the bathroom is, telling a taxi driver to take you to your hotel, and others can seem like impossible missions. Can technology bridge the gap? Some new...

You're about to head off to travel around southeast Asia for six months, and you want to bring along a camera to record the experience. You've been using the same cheap point-and-shoot for years. Is that going to meet your needs? You decide that it might be a great excuse to get a new camera,...

Headphones are often criticized as one of the fastest ways to close yourself off to a culture. The bell of the rickshaw about to run you over is no match for speakers in your ear blasting, well, anything. However, if you're going to trade local sounds for an MP3, why not expand your knowledge of...

Everyone brings something truly useless on their first long trip. For me it was a water filter. Great idea in theory, avoid plastic bottles, save the planet etc, etc. Then reality set in and the water filter stayed at the bottom of my bag for months until I finally sent it home with a friend....

A friend of mine recently told me about Duffel , an online visual trip planner. Since I'll be going on a 2-month trip soon, I thought I'd try Duffel out during the planning stages. About Duffel Duffel allows you to collect and organize information that is relevant to your trip. You can share this information...