A few months ago I went for a hike with my husband on the Appalachian Trail. We started off the day with what I thought would be a 5 to 6 hour hike, but in the end the hike was more like 7 hours, canvassing 15 miles. It was treacherous, with boulders and climbing up and down rocks on your hands and knees. The worst part of the trip is that I had to pee. Since I was low on water, I waited it out, and eventually the urge went away, but this is no way to do a hike.

Being a woman with needs that require getting your naked butt within inches of the forest floor, I started out my quest to find a better way.

That’s when I came upon the shewee, the Freshette, and finally the Go Girl. These products are all designed to help a woman pee – Standing Up! After a thorough product evaluation online, I made my decision to purchase a Go Girl for only $6 dollars.

Why did I choose the Go Girl?

1. The go girl is made of silicone, making it flexible, easy to roll up for storage
2. The silicone makes the go girl completely reusable
3. The product had some terrific reviews

I just test drove the Go Girl this weekend on a 9 mile hike, and it worked beautifully without error. Of course, I did practice a few runs in the shower before taking this puppy out on the road with me! I highly recommend that you do this first! It was liberating and clean, I was able to roll up the Go girl back into the plastic bag and back into the container without getting a drop on my hands. I’m a believer!

I think that the Go Girl would come very much in handy when traveling abroad. I can’t tell you how many questionable toilets I have come across in my travels. And believe me I have peed in some strange places before

Once in a shack built off the side of a cliff in Bosnia!! Looking down through the hole in the floor I could see down the ravine. It was nerve wracking. I wish I had a photo so that people could get an idea of what it is like to hear your urine hitting the bottom of the cliff seconds after it left your body…

Another time on a moving train in Thailand, I could see the tracks moving under the metal toilet. There was no toilet paper, and the jostling train had me bouncing all over the place. And I can’t forget to mention that the entire room was covered in urine and smelled like it too!

Speaking of squat toilets, across South East Asia…They are scary and smelly. I can’t wait to take this Go Girl with me on my next trip to Asia!

Standing up for a change is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

I just threw out my old travel bag, which was a Le Sport Sac. I liked it because it was compact and rolled up into practically nothing. But after my recent travels to Prague, I almost had my bag slashed and stolen. The Le Sport Sac makes for a nice additional small space bag, but not for a good travel bag.

This week I picked up the PacSafe CitySafe 200. This bag has many fine features that make it a real travel bag of choice.

Features:

• Nylon material, easy to wipe and clean.
• high tensile stainless steel wire in strap, making it not only virtually slash proof, but also into a handy way to attach your bag to a railing to prevent a thief from grabbing and running with the bag!
• eXomesh slashguard. This wire mesh lines the bottom of the bag, so that a knife slash across the bottom is fruitless (thieves like to slash the bottom of your bag so that the contents spill out onto the ground).
• 4 anti-theft features: slashproof shoulder strap; eXomesh slashguard in lower front and bottom section of bag; tamperproof zippers; snatchproof strap
• Secure zippered main compartment, 2 inner zippered pockets, padded phone/camera pocket, credit card holders, pen holder, key clip

I like the pacsafe citysafe bag because it’s just the right size for putting across the body. It’s big enough to store my small macbook pro inside, and small enough to look like a normal purse. It’s very versatile and I have been using it a lot as my purse around town. Action shots to come soon!!

The best travel purse is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

After months of deliberation I have finally pressed “confirm” on the checkout on Amazon.com for the Kindle 2.0.

What drove this decision you might ask? Well, I have done months of research, and playing with various devices to make my mind up. Here are the deciding factors that really swayed me toward the Kindle. Note: I did not consider any of the touch screen counterparts for the e-ink technology. I was immediately not impressed with the glare for any touch screen e-ink readers.

#1. The Amazon Kindle 2.0

The pitch: The Amazon Kindle uses e-ink technology, and has a free 3G service for downloading new content around the world.

Pros: E-Ink Technology for long time reading; 2 week long battery life (!!!); 3G worldwide service; free wikipedia and wikitravel access; no contracts required; lightweight; Price only $189!

Cons: No color content. Poor for comic book reading; no backlight; The Kindle 2 does not have a removable battery. Proprietary reader format. No more USB stick access for quick loading of books.

#2. Sony Digital Reader Pocket Edition

The pitch: e-ink technology, light weight, open format e-reader

Pros: E-Ink Technology for long time reading; 2 week long battery life (!!!); open format for PDFs, free books, etc. Cheapest e-Reader on the market! $150

Cons: The book store for the sony content is more expensive. The price difference is not negligible. Each book on Sony’s store is at least 2-3 dollars more on average than it’s counterpart on Amazon.com. Also, no 3G access for instant downloads. No wifi access. You need a computer connection to get your books onto the reader.

#3. Barnes and Noble Nook

The Pitch: The nook is a 2 screen ereader with the top being e-ink, and the bottom being color. The top part is where you read, and the bottom part is your library. 3G access to download the book content. In store access to read and preview books. The ability to Lend a book.

Pros: Lending of a book (once) to a friend; 3G access (USA ONLY); Open format content; long battery life; a color screen; Android software; Price is only $200

Cons: Touch screen causes a glare; 3G access doesn’t work internationally!!; sluggish performance;

#4: the Apple iPad

The iPad is pretty.

I didn’t consider the iPad past the thought of : “That would be cool”. With only a 10 hour long battery life, and the backlit text, I was not sold on this toy as a viable option for long travel. The iPad is heavy and would hurt my arms to hold up. The system requires a wifi or 3G paid access. For international travel this is already too much of a burden, especially if I am going to carry around a laptop so that I can do some work. The laptop and an ipad in my bag = TOO HEAVY!

Final thoughts:

I believe that I made the right choice. The Kindle vs. the Nook was a close run, because I am a huge fan of the Android software. That being said, Barnes and Noble does not have an international option. This is very limiting for someone who travels every year overseas. 17 hours in the air to get somewhere, I needed a device with long battery life. I also wanted to be able to load PDFs of my travels so that I can access travel information while on the go. This was possible on all three devices, however the Kindle had the ability to download new content via WikiTravel for free. This was a huge plus for me. Overall, I have read countless reviews on all four options above. The Kindle users are die hard dedicated users who keep purchasing the next generation of their devices. That message goes a long way for me. The Kindle is the right device for a one-bag travel girl

*UPDATE*

iPad’s no fun in the sun : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100728/tc_ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc3264

Reading on the road is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

I always travel with an empty water bottle on my travels. Having a water bottle allows you to fill it up with the free water fountains found all over at any airport so that you always have fresh cold water on hand. This is my favorite thing to do so that I can sip on water on the plane any time I want to, and not have to bug the stewardess for small cups of water throughout my flight. On my last trip, I was able to convince the steward to fill my Sigg water bottle up with water for me, so that I didn’t have to keep pressing the call button.

Hydration is very important when you are flying. At high altitudes your cells begin to shrivel up – which in turn causes even worse dehydration! If you ever fly on a 17 hour flight to Asia, believe me you’ll understand when you take a 6 hour nap and wake up choking from a dry throat. As you breathe out you lose moisture.

Combat dry throat with drinking plenty of water. You’ll feel better and less jet lagged when you get off of the plane.

I travel with a Sigg. The Sigg product line I am sure you’ve seen. A lot of people sport these new stainless steel water bottles all over gyms across the nation. They are BPA free, which makes them very enticing.

The biggest drawback of the Sigg is the design. A very hard cylinder, takes up valuable space in your one carry on bag.

Then I found the Vapur collapsible water bottles. I have yet to try one, but I am intrigued with its design. The product collapses into a flat plastic bag pretty much. There is a carabiner clip attached so that the bottle can be affixed to any outside straps on your bag. Also the bottle is machine washable, you can write on them to identify yourself (you can’t do this on a Sigg by the way), and you can freeze it. They come in lots of pretty colors too!

Of any of the travel water bottles out there, the most important thing to keep in mind is that your bottle needs to be empty at the time of putting your bag into the conveyor belt at TSA. Once inside the gate you are faced with purchasing bottled water at a pretty steep price. Plus, these plastic bottles contribute waste to our already growing problem of waste management. Be green, carry a bottle with you!

Carry-on water bottles are green and save money is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

When I go to sites like Magellan’s, I love to page through the clothing and laugh at how bulky, poorly styled and very aged all of the items are. I would never buy a dress that equates to me: a bag with a belt tied around it. Nothing else screams out the message “TOURIST” than one of these outfits. Especially if it’s made of khaki.

Here is an example. Okay, I admit it’s not the worst possible thing to wear. It is very modest, but honestly I would never wear this dress. It’s called the “crinkle dress”. Just imagining this on me makes me shudder…

The Crinkle bag dress

It has become my life mission to find better clothing for the well informed traveling fashionista. Stick with me and I will lead you down the path of better traveling for us girls.

For instance try the site Athleta, known for its very trendy yoga and work out clothes, also offers some handy travel clothing items. Right now I ADORE this dress referred to as the LTD (Little Travel Dress):

The Little Travel Dress

This dress is cute, makes you look YOUNGER than you actually may be, and fits your form a little more than the travel dresses that I see on all of the travel sites.

Traveling with dresses tips:

Travel dresses and bad design is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

I know that a lot of people are very excited to have iphones. iPhone users are very dedicated, fanatical people who will defend their phones to the death. Each and every person who I talk to has the same complaints though:

1. The iPhone power is not sufficient for travel use.

2. The touch screen keyboard takes some getting used to, as well as becomes a pain when you have long nails.

These two above issues became blockers for me in purchasing an iPhone. Instead, I chose to become a Blackberry user.

Why is the blackberry better?

The blackberry is different in that it does not poll the server looking for new mail. Rather, the RIM technology “pushes” out the email to your phone. This means that your phone uses a lot less power, and thus your battery will last a lot longer.

The keyboard is a physical thing that you can type faster on, type with nails, and type when not looking at the keyboard all of the time. These are huge wins for me!

Now, those of you who need your itunes, by all means, keep your ipod/phone… but the blackberry can play pandora as well as preloaded mp3s too! With a SD micro Memory card slot, I can store GIGS of songs. This is a huge plus.

Overall, I must say I have never had a better phone in my life. This phone blows away the competition on every front.

Blackberry Bold 2 is a great phone is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

The latest in great footwear and onebag travel gives us the Nike Free 7 Degree athletic shoe.

I have created my first of many series of video posts, where I will give you a live action review of a product. This is my first, and I’m very open to any suggestions.

The Nike Free 7 Degree sneaker is a beautifully designed shoe, specifically created for fitness. I would use this shoe for doing exercise machine cardio, and weight lifting. Due to the very minimalistic heel and cushioning, I would not use this shoe for long running.

The heel of this shoe is the main feature, as you can see in the action video, the back of the shoe is soft, and can fold flat. This feature allows you to wear the shoe like a clog, and slip your foot in and out easily from the shoe without even touching the shoelaces! This is a great way to wear only one pair of shoes onto the plane for one bag travel. If you aren’t wearing this shoe onto the plane, the entire shoe’s thickness is a mere 2″!! This is less than half of a traditional running sneaker (as shown in the video too).

Overall I give this product a 4.5 out of 5 stars! Plus it’s super cute in a hot pink color!

Nike Free 7 Degree Product Review is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

Clinique’s Moisturizing Gel is by far my favorite moisturizing product.

Plane dehydration, travel weariness, stress, etc. can be very detrimental to the health of your skin. This gel works wonders!

You can buy it in a travel sized tube – which lasts!

http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P204206&categoryId=B70

The reviews don’t lie. 213 reviews (as of 12/20/09) that rate this product at 4 1/2 stars!

I always carry this with me in my 3-1-1 baggy. It’s an absolute must!

best skin lotion for travel is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

My smart phone (an HTC touch Pro: aka the ATT Fuze) has Apps. Okay so it’s no iphone, but I can still download and install applications on it that the iphone can too! For instance, there is a smartphone version of skype that you can install: http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windowsmobile/

communicating with the world is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women

When traveling abroad with only one bag to fit an entire wardrobe, toiletries and basics, you need something versatile enough that can carry it all – AND – be able to physically lug the thing around the airport. I own and can speak to two of the top rated bags in the one bag enthusiast camp.

Red Oxx Airboss VS. MEI Voyageur Backpack is a post from: One Bag Girl - Traveling Light for Women