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19 Road Trip Essentials For The Perfect Trip

January 2, 2020

Road Trip Essentials

When planning for a cross country road trip, you must pack well. Failing to plan is planning to fail. The last thing anyone needs is to be thousands of miles away from home and discover that you are missing something that would make life on the road much more comfortable. Whether a child’s favorite toy, a favorite article of clothing, or something else essential, we are here to help you pack for the ultimate road trip essentials adventure list.

So, what do you need for a successful road trip? Whether you are going fifty miles or fifteen hundred miles, it’s all about the essentials. Let’s answer a few questions first as we assemble the ultimate packing list of road trip essentials for you:

How far are you going?
How do you plan to travel?
Where will you stay?
Who is going with you?
How long will you be on the road?

Knowing a bit more about your trip will help you to plan everything you need for your exciting adventure. Here are our travel tips for your road trip.

Travel bags

It doesn’t make much sense to lug around huge suitcases with you when the goal of a road trip is “out of the vehicle” adventure. If you know that you will be visiting the Grand Canyon on a particular day, for instance, pack a travel bag with things that you might need for exploration–sunscreen, water bottles, camera, hat, sunglasses, etc. When in doubt, bring it with you, or if you think you’ll need it at some point, bring it along, rather than trying to find it en route.

5 Tips For Booking Flights or Vacation Online

May 15, 2019

Mike Patch

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Tips For Booking Flights or Vacation Online

Online Vacation Booking Tips

Nowadays, booking a flight or vacation online couldn’t be easier. There are dozens of apps and websites promising to find you the best deals possible. Google Flights which has become an extremely popular go-to for booking flights has taken out a lot of the guesswork. There is also, of course, friendly tips and family advice on where to go and when to book a vacation or flight online. That being said, there are still some solid booking tips that you may not have heard of that could also help you save big when it comes time to booking a flight or vacation. Check out the following tips, I’m sure you haven’t heard of at least of these tricks.

Use Rate Calendars To Figure Out Pricing Drops

Most travel websites start by asking you to enter the destination and number of people on the trip, followed by the dates you’d like to go. Nearly all websites will also show you a rate calendar for the cost of flights to and from your desired location. If you plan your trip in advance, you may begin to spot pricing drops of flights closer to a specific date. As a good test, watch the prices of the same day of the week you wish to leave but a few weeks earlier. As seats begin to fill there can be a flux in price based on the number of seats filled and days remaining to departure. Read More

7 Heavy Duty Backpacks You Can Trust

April 16, 2019

Charles Balbuena

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Get Out And Explore With These 7 Durable Backpacks

The last time I was in Portugal, the weather couldn’t decide what it wanted to do. One minute the sun was shining, birds singing their songs, and people walking like it was Sunday. Then, in a flash, the rain would come, first dribbles, then soon a free shower for everyone. Minutes later, it would become sunny again. While I was navigating through the cobblestone streets, picking up items from shop to shop, and collecting interesting things as I went along, I stopped and realized just how important a durable, strong, and my solid backpack really is. Through the rain and sunshine, continually putting things away and taking them out again, and making sure my day was taken care of because I could carry what I needed, I found that sometimes you need more than just an average backpack. For the do’ers, the explorer’s, and the ones willing to rough it out, here are seven of the best bags that simply won’t let you down through the thick and the thin.

Durability isn’t as high as it should be when looking for a backpack. While style, comfort and a place to fit your smartphone are heavily requested criteria requests when shopping for a travel backpack, most true travelers what something that can take a beating and withstand the abuse. Heavy Duty backpacks that are suitable for long-distance hiking, military deployment, and other high-activity ventures aren’t available at Wallmart.

Laptop Backpack For Women: 11 Practical and Stylish Options

February 28, 2019

Julie Buckingham

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Best Laptop Backpack For Women

As technology gets smaller and more lightweight so do the cases, bags, and backpacks we use to carry around our trusted devices. In just the last few years, laptops have made a significant change towards being sleeker with less wasted space, and have indeed become as convenient as carrying around a thin book. Of course, all that being said, you still need to keep your laptop safe from theft and getting damaged. While there are a lot of options on the market, a laptop backpack for women with some style to it isn’t as easy to find as you would think. It seems that most companies are still pushing the briefcase concept.

When I think of a briefcase, I think of a hardshell case like the one you would see in a spy movie where someone is transporting millions of dollars. The hero later uses the briefcase as a shield in a gunfight, or at some point throws the briefcase across the room knocking someone unconscious. I’m joking; of course, there are a lot of successful women who still use and carry around a briefcase, I just know that’s not the look I’m after.

Actually, now that I think of it, it wasn’t a look that my mother was after either. When I was a kid, my mom had this well-respected position where she managed and oversaw the success of twenty-plus stores at the airport. You know all those stores you pass on the way to your flight, or shop in while waiting for your trip? They’re usually all owned by one or two companies.

One Christmas, my brother and I went in on a leather briefcase. Laptops weren’t around back then, but I remember thinking I wanted to get something for my mom, who was a strong businesswoman. About a week after the holidays she confessed that she returned it as it just wasn’t her thing. She preferred carrying all her news and notes on her blackberry, or simply remembered info by memory.

What I’m Looking For

Living in the North West, which is typically raining most of the year, requires a different type of criteria when buying day to day travel accessories. I need a backpack that is waterproof and can hold a 15-inch laptop. I’m also tired of lugging around both my purse and a bag to hold my laptop, so I’m looking to merge the two. Ideally, I want something stylish enough that I can take this bag out to lunch and it doesn’t look like it has a laptop in it, yet professional enough for the office.

6 Reliable Electric Cooling Blanket Options To Get A Perfect Night Sleep

February 11, 2019

Julie Buckingham

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Electric Cooling Blanket: Sleep Better

Even in the winter when I have blankets on to stay warm there are times I wake up too hot and need to cool down. I hate sweating when I sleep so I’ve learned over the years to stick my feet out from the covers to get my body temperature just right. Obviously, this doesn’t allow for too many comfortable sleeping positions; that was until I got myself an electronic cooling blanket, and life has been so much better.

I used to travel a lot for business and hated hotel beds. I could never get adjusted to the heat of the room or the thickness of the blankets. My boyfriend would always tell me to just kick the blankets off, but that didn’t work either as I prefer the comfort of having covers on my body as I sleep. I’ll admit, I’m just a picking sleeper that needs the temperature to be just right.

Temperature is easily one of the biggest obstacles to getting quality sleep. Studies have found that the optimal temperature for the best quality sleep is cooler than you may think, around 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit (15-20°C). Temperatures that fall too far below or above this range can lead to restlessness. Temperatures in this ideal sleeping range help facilitate the decrease in core body temperature that in turn initiates sleepiness. Getting into that perfect sleeping temperature zone can be difficult due to warmer climates, the heating of your home or simply laying next to someone who naturally sleeps hot and warms the bed.

There is a wide range of sleeping products that market themselves as solutions for staying cool in bed. I started with a Cooling Pillow, which actually worked pretty good at first, but as I mentioned, do a lot of traveling. Packing a pillow is a waste of space in your luggage.

My goal was to find a quality electric cooling blanket that would keep my whole body at the right temperature. I quickly realized, though, you get what you paid for. I tried a few affordable cooler blanket suggestions before overpaying for a portable air conditioner. The air conditioner wasn’t worth the money and my partner didn’t like freezing every night. He asked me to return it and continue to search for a blanket that would keep me cold, not the entire room.