Using what many call travel hacking, we have been able to save over $12,000 in the past three years of travel.  This was money saved on Airfare, Hotels, Rental Cars and more.  If you want to get into using credit cards so that you never have to pay for hotel or airfare again, I recommend the following:

1. Don’t start until you are debt free and know that not paying off your credit card each month would cost you more in the long run than just paying for hotels and flights on your own.  Relatedly, never spend more than you would if using cash/debit.  The point conversion is not worth it.  If you are looking for an awesome budget tracking app for iOS, we highly recommend the Trail Wallet App.
2. Sign up for free at the following websites to receive monthly credit updates (This is a good idea in general even if not interested in the CC):
   1. http://www.creditkarma.com – TransUnion Credit Score Updates
   2. http://www.creditsesame.com – Experian Credit Score Updates
3. Only apply for cards with points you will use within the next 12 months.  The reason for this is that if you do not use the miles in the year after receiving them, some expire and/or may require paying high yearly fees to keep them thereby making them more costly than they are worth in most cases.
4. If you are wanting a few cards and can meet the minimum spends, apply to them all in one day to get only a single Hard Inquiry on your Credit report.
5. Take some time to look at the different grades on your Credit Karma Report Card to understand how different things may affect your credit.
6. Make sure you meet the minimum spend and get the bonus reward point otherwise the annual fee and hassle is not really worth it.

Download Valerie & Griffin’s Credit Card Comparison Chart

[click link or image to download]

PRO TIP:

If you are starting to get overwhelmed with keeping up with Rewards Accounts and Credit Card Payments, we recommend the following free services:

1. Award Wallet – free management of Rewards Accounts
2. Mint – free financial and payment management as well as goal setting and accountability
3. TripIt – free trip organization and travel itinerary service

Taking It Further

If you are looking for further resources, here are many free and a few paid options we use and highly recommend.

Related Posts By Valerie & Griffin on Travel Hacking

How To Save Money On Vacation

Airline Booking Tips

Summer Travel Plans

How To Get Free Air Miles & Save $600

Travel Hacking Related Sites & Blogs

Chris Guillebeau

Travel Hacking

The Points Guide

The Miles Professor

Boarding Area

Art Of Non-Conformity

Air Treks

Boots n All

eBooks

The Art Of World Travel

Frequent Flyer Master

The kit comes with a rugged plastic piece to slide over your iPhone with a maco lens on one side and a wide angle and fish eye lens on the other. To use the wide angle lens it is just a matter of unscrewing the fisheye lens from the top of it. All the lenses come with covers to protect the optics and the kit also includes a nice micro fiber bag to hold everything and provide cleaning when needed.

Wide Angle

The wide angle lens is really helpful when it tight spaces like interiors and wanting to capture more of the room. It can also be really useful in cities when trying to fit a tall building in your photo without having to do a panoramic image.

Fisheye

This lens can make for some very unique and creative shots with the 180 degree view and circle outline around the frame. That being said, the thing I found I loved most to do with this lens on the iPhone 4 was to take 720p video. The same could be done with the 5s at 120 fps/720p and give you slow motion as an additional option. The reason I liked this so much was because it would give you a full 180 perspective, but at 720p, the video does not have any vignetting. One of my favorite uses for this was the clip below of lguazu falls in Brazil. I felt like it did a much better job allowing me to share the scale and magnitude of the water flow, than the normal iPhone lens would have.

Macro

This is another lens that can really reignite your creativity and enjoyment of iphonography as it lets you see the world in a way you may never have known existed. This lens lets you focus incredibly close and pick up tons of detail. It also has a softness around the edges of the frame that can be used to nicely frame your area of central focus.

Issues

The only thing I can think of that I did not like about this iPhone lens system is something that has been fixed with Olloclips latest offerings and that is the need to take your case of to use it. During our travels I was using a life proof case to protect my iPhone from water, drop and sand. If you have ever had this case you will know that it is not made to be easily or quickly taken off so because of this, I would not use the system as much as would have liked.

It seems Olloclip was aware of this possible frustration as in 2013 They released their own iPhone case that allows for decent protection and quick and easy access to the lens area. If you are looking to purchase this kit, which I really think you will enjoy, I would reccomend looking at getting the case as well so you can actually use the system quickly and easily when out and about.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a high quality kit to allow your creativity and iphonography to expand, I would highly reccomend the Olloclip system! I have been very happy with my kit and reccomend it to anyone who asks about expanding the capabilities and creativity if their iPhone photos.

Big thanks to the team over at olloclip for providing us with their awesome iPhone three-in-one lens. This thing is so cool. It easily fits in your pocket or laptop bag, etc. and includes a macro, wide angle and fisheye lens. If you are looking for a fun and well built product to add some new excitement and interest to your iPhone photos, be sure to go check out the olloclip iPhone 3-in-1 lens.

As we got ready for the start of our around the world trip, one thing I really wanted to bring on this trip was a good solid, highly adjustable, lightweight tripod that could easily fit into my daypack along with my camera and two lenses while still leaving room for a couple other items like a jacket, sunglasses, some snacks, etc.

I started where most would probably start and that is on the GorillaPod website. I had taken a gorrilapod with me on my last trip and wanted to see what they had to offer that would work with my current DSLR and lenses. They had come out with the GorillaPod SLR since I last checked them out which was a bigger, sturdier, heavier and little more expensive version of what I took with me last time. I decided this would be a good fallback option but felt like there had to be better options available. Don’t get me wrong here, I think the GorillaPod is a great option and invention and can work in about 70% or more of the situations I would need it in, but there are many times that I want my camera higher than the less-that-two-feet the GorillaPod allows.

What I was looking for was something with the portability and size of the gorillapod, but the flexibility to allow for shots of up to, or over, 5 feet high as well as the ability to easily adjust to different terrain and angles. Does such a tripod exist anywhere other than in a travel photographers dreams? Yes it does! Read on.

After lots of searching on google, bandhphoto, adorama, amazon and the like, I finally found a company that makes not one, but more than three different versions of a tripod that is light, flexible, portable and incredibly small. It was a company I had’t heard of before, but that just may be my nievity as they have been around for more than 60+ years and have a good reputation among photographers.

The tripod I found was made by Velbon and the one I entrusted with my camera, photos and memories for this once-in-a-lifetime trip was the the UT43D. This is a 6 section tripod that fully extends to over 5 feet as a tripod and even higher as a semi-monopod and yet is able to fold down to just under 12 inches making it awesome for travel. On top of that, the weight of only 2.6 pounds makes this thing almost unnoticeable especially when compared to my camera and lenses which, combined, weigh almost 4 pounds by themselves.

FEATURES

The UT43D features an amazingly well thought out system for maximizing height and flexibility while minimizing weight and size. It uses a patented 6-Section Trunnion Shaft System which is a fancy way of saying it uses a pull and twist mechanism to allow the legs to fold over the main camera holding shaft. This is something that so many other so-called travel tripods fail to utilize at the expense of 3+ inches of collapsed length, which is huge when trying to fit something into a backpack with the rest of the gear you need for a year long trip around the world. This same ingenious mechanism also has a slider allowing for three different angles for each of the three tripod legs. Add to this the 6 sections of the tripod and you’ve got over fifty possible angles for your camera right there not even counting the infinitely changeable lengths in between via adjusting all the sections!

This flexibility has come in handy many times on this trip. One of my favorite tricks utilizing it is when trying to get a shot over a railing with my wide angle lens. Unless the camera is very close or slightly over the railing, the railing will be in the frame and distract from the image. To overcome this issue, I extend two of the legs to almost parallel to the ground and retract them all the way back. I then rest those two legs on the railing itself and fully extend the third leg to stabilize it all. This allows my lens to be right in line with the ends of the railing giving me the angle I need to capture detail below the rail without including it in the image.

This is just one example of many where having so much flexibility has allowed me to capture shots that other wise would would not have been possible.

This tripod has a lot to offer in terms of it being so small to store, tall when fully-extended and lightweight. To give you a better idea just how portable this thing is, here is a picture I took in India of the tripod next to the GorillaPod mentioned earlier. If you are considering settling for a gorillapod for your next travel and photography trip, please reconsider!

This picture was curtesy of a guy named Michael from San Francisco who happened to be photographing the same Mausoleum I was. When we put our collapsed tripods side by side after he had already seen mine at full height he wrote down the make and model of my tripod to purchase as soon as he returned home;-)

One more advantage of this tripod that could be considered a feature is again how small it packs up. Many of the sites on my travels do not allow tripods for one stupid reason or another and will normally ask those with bigger tripods to check them in at security, put them in a supplied locker or just inform them they cannot use them while visiting the area. With my tripod in my bag I never get told about the tripod rules which can sometimes leave me with about 30 seconds to one minute to get some decent tripod pictures before I get approached and shut down by security.

BUILD

The Velbon UT43D is constructed of tough, solid and light aluminum with a few rubber and plastic pieces for the extension connectors and feet. Velbon even went as far as to make the removable camera mount solid aluminum with a metal connector screw and rubber inset for keeping the camera in place without scratching it.

I have been impressed with how solid this thing is – even allowing me to get this razor sharp shot below with the tripod legs in a moving stream and the shutter open for more than a minute. With a less sturdy tripod, there could have easily been some movement making this image blurred and unusable.

I have been using this tripod for about 2 years now and is has held up very well. Everything on it is still functional and seems to be well built, save a few semi-cosmetic issues I will talk about later.

NEGATIVES

There are really very few negatives I have found about this tripod, but here they are for those interested

The first negative I saw came into existence about three months into the trip and that is that the rubber pieces that allow for easier twisting of the bottom leg piece came loose from the metal thereby making it a little annoying to tighten and loosen. Even still, a year and a half later they are still there and serve their purpose with a little pressure, so not a total waste by any means, but not ideal with them being loose.

The other negatives, and I am searching here a bit, are that sometimes the adjustable leg locks don’t always lock in place and also sometimes when they are locked in place, they can move during set up. Once in place these are non issues, but during set up these can slide. They also do show a little ware and tear and the paint has been chipped off where the metal hits each other to stop the legs from angling out to far. Lastly, if I have been carrying the tripod fully extended for a bit and then go to set it up, the legs will sometimes be loosened from the walk and will start to slid in. I don’t see this as anything really wrong with the tripod or design, but something to be aware of and I recommend you tighten the legs after walking with it for a bit.

DETAILS

Images made possible by this tripod

[click to view larger]

Big thanks to One Source Network for providing us with the Velbon UT 43D tripod as the shots in the post would not have been possible without it.

We just finished booking our summer travel. Read on to find out how you can travel for pennies on the dollar next summer or even for this winter…

Here is what we booked and what it cost us

So, how did we save over two thousand dollars on hotels and airfare? Well we didn’t do it by racking up miles flying all over the USA doing life/soul sucking consulting work with little to no personal life. Nope. Griffin works from anywhere with and internet connection doing work he loves and Valerie works around town doing social work that she loves.

What we did was strategically sign up for and receive credit card rewards from different credit card companies without changing our spending habits or overspending. Here are the cards we used for this trip:

American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card

Rewards Bonus Details

Bonus Amount: 30,000 SkyMiles
Minimum Spend: $500
Time Limit: 3 Months
Annual Fee: $0 for first year and then $95/year
Re-Apply Rules: Every 2 years
Bonus Perk(s): $50 Statement credit after you make a delta purchase on your card within time limit.

Chase IHG Rewards Club Select Visa

Rewards Bonus Details

Bonus Amount: 60,000 IHG Points
Minimum Spend: $1,000
Time Limit: 3 Months
Annual Fee: $0 for first year and then $49/year
Re-Apply Rules: Unknown
Bonus Perk(s):

• One free night per year after 1 year of having the card
• Upgrade to Platinum Elite Status as long as you are a cardmember. Benefit details here.

Chase Ink Bold Business Charge Card

Rewards Bonus Details

Bonus Amount: 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
Minimum Spend: $5,000
Time Limit: 3 Months
Annual Fee: $0 for first year and then $95/year
Re-Apply Rules:  Unknown
Bonus Perk(s):

•  20% Off travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards
• 1:1 point transfer with no transfer fees

List Transfer Partners as of this writing

I hope the information above makes sense. Basically, each card has a minimum spend usually within three months. If you meet the minimum spend requirement within the time limit you should receive the award points shortly.

So, how do we recommend getting all these points? Here is our method.

STEP 1 – Credit Monitoring

Sign up for a free credit monitoring account at one or both of the following sites:

• Credit Karma – Free monthly TransUnion score
• Credit Sesame – Free monthly Experian score

These will allow you to get your current credit score as well as Monitor your credit for any issues from here forward. If you are in credit card debt or have a bad credit score, this may be a good step to take to monitor your credit, but please note, these companies are making money from commissions by recommending credit cards to you.  We recommend not going with their recommended credit cards as they are not always the best available.

STEP 2 – Pick Your Card

Once you have confirmed that you have a good credit score then you are ready to apply for your first card. We highly recommend only applying to cards for which you are sure you will be using the resulting rewards within 12 months. The reason for this is that many of the rewards points have expiration dates and/or other stipulations that affect the points after one year.

Example
We signed up for an Alaskan Airlines card to get 40,000 Alaskan Airlines Miles, but it turns out if you cancel the card you lose all your points. So we have paid two $95 fees so far in hopes to be able to use the card on a future flight. If this continues for much longer, we will not be saving any money.

We can personally recommend the cards above, but there are plenty of other cards for most of the major rewards programs you may be interested in. For example, if you are wanting Amtrak points, you could sign up for the Chase Ink Bold card above which can transfer points 1:1 to Amtrack, but you may also be able to find another option via a quick Google search for Amtrak Credit Card. If you are looking for another reward program, just sub out Amtrak for the rewards you are looking for and google that.

This gets a little complicated, but we recommend only applying to one Airline rewards card per Ailine alliance. The three major alliances are

One World | Sky Team | Star Alliance

The reason for this is so that your miles are in one main account instead of spread across a lot of accounts where you can’t leverage them as well. As long as you have miles in one of the alliances airline accounts, you can usually book flights with any airline on that alliance and sometimes even get better mileage value as well.

OK. Now, after you have thoroughly read and understood all there terms and conditions of the card you have selected, go ahead and apply for your desired credit card and best of luck! If approved, move on to Step 3.

STEP 3 – Use The Card

Be sure to spend the minimum required amount within the time limit on the card. We highly recommend not changing your spending habits as this is another way to get in debt, so make sure before that you can spend the required amounts, usually of $500 – $5,000 on the credit card in the time limit required. If you are unable to meet the minimum spend or do it in the time limit, you will not receive the major point bonus and all your effort will not be worth it. What we do is focus on one card every three months or until paid off. This way we can spend only on the desired card for the three months period and make sure we have spent the minimum before the time limit.

NEXT STEP – Collect & Track Your Points

So, you have been collecting points and Airline miles for a while and now you are having a bit of a hard time keeping up with it all? No problem. There is free service that can help with that. We use and highly recommend Award Wallet. It allows you to track most rewards programs balances for free. You can pay to view expiration dates and other features, but we have been more than happy with the free version.

FINAL STEP

Go travel! Enjoy your strategic work and book flights, trains and/or hotels and enjoy the time with your friends and loved ones!

TAKING IT FURTHER

If you are looking to take this all to the next level, below are a few resources that we have found well worth the investment.

1. Frequent Flyer Master

If you want to learn more about travel hacking and even get a guaranteed free domestic flight in the States, check out this great resource by someone who has traveled to every country in the world!

Frequent Flyer Master is a full e-book, a 20-minute audio, and a 4-page Priceline specific guide on the art of hacking airline miles. Click for a full description.

2. Travel Hacking Cartel

If you want to join a group of people passionate about finding the best deals, racking up points and traveling in style using points instead of cash, this is the place to be.  There is a monthly charge for this group, but we have found it more than worth the cost and have made back 10x our investment and more through the rewards travel from it.

3. Flyer Talk Forums

This is another great group to join if you are looking to really stay up to date and on top of all the different rewards travel options, hacks and strategies.  It takes a bit more time and energy than the above two resources, but it has the added benefit of being free!

We hope this has been encouraging and helpful. We have shared these strategies with many of our family and friends and have always enjoyed hearing about their travels using points for first class flights, resort hotels and more. Have you used miles and points to book an amazing trip? Share about it in the comments and let us know if we missed anything.

I got 3 vaccines: Typhoid, Yellow Fever and a Tetnus Booster. Total price, more than $400. That pricetag hurt more than any of the shots!

When we got to Korea, we priced some vaccines and found them about half the price of the same ones in the U.S.

Better still, we waited until we got to the Kingdom of Low Prices – India. While waiting for our flight out of Delhi, we stopped by a clinic and priced vaccines again… and found a winner. I got 7 vaccines, (Lifetime Hep. A, Hep B, Meningitis, Rabies, Typhoid, Polio and TB) all for a total of $115. Griffin had several shots as well and we both drank lots of fluids and rested for a few days.

We had to get second and third doses of Hep. B and Rabies, for which we had to do some searching in other parts of the world. We found Hep. B for $15 in Indonesia (As long as you’re away from the touristy areas in or around Bali) and the 3rd dose of Hep B. in Spain for 5 Euros.

Unfortunately, we never priced a 2nd dose of Rabies for less than $100, which didn’t seem worth it after the $7 initial dose, so we just called that one off.

The bottom line is, if your home country is over-pricing their travel vaccines, a little research could save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. If you don’t get your travel vaccines at home, it’s more than okay to leave home without them, as long as your DO get them.

After spending several weeks enjoying the coast of Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, we decided to continue down the east coast to Sydney.

Griffin had visited Sydney before, but I hadn’t, so I was getting pretty excited.

Upon landing we headed out to Bondi Beach to catch up with Griffin’s friend, Joel, who was letting us crash at his place for a few days. Bondi Beach is an awesome place and we had a great time relaxing there for a few days.

After a couple of days at Bondi Beach, we hopped a train to just outside the city center, where we were greeted by Kathryn, a friend of Griffin’s from his previous travels, and her husband James, who had graciously offered to let us stay with them during our visit.

We arrived to a wonderful home cooked meal, which we had been missing for a while. And, after a good night’s sleep we were ready to go explore Sydney.

Our first stop was the most recognized landmark in Australia, The Sydney Opera House. The place is huge and it was interesting reading the placards and learning a bit more of the history of it. We opted out of the tour because it was a little too expensive for us and we were having a hard time fitting our Australian expenses into our budget already. We took a fun walk around the Royal Botanic Gardens and then walked across the Harbor Bridge for a great view of Sydney Harbor and another look at the iconic Opera House.

We did, however, decided to tour “The Rocks,” which was the area where the British Prisoners, who would become the first Australians, initially settled upon arrival into Sydney Harbor. Since it was a national holiday, the tour was only two Australian Dollars. Sweet! The tour was interesting and I highly recommend checking it out as it really gives you a feel for Australian history.

Later we went down to the harbor to watch the fireworks for Australia Day, which was a nice surprise since we hadn’t planned that!

We spent the next couple of days catching up on work. You may have noticed that pattern by now. Usually, our travel schedule consists of touring for a few days and then working a couple days. While we saved up for our travels while we were in Korea, we decided that we didn’t want to deplete our savings and then have nothing when we arrived back home, so Griffin ramped up his business and I’ve been doing what I can to help. If you are thinking of long-term travel and can do some work remotely, I encourage you to try it! It can also be a nice break from the constant barrage of tourism.

So, after relaxing and working a couple of days, we went back into town and took a ferry out to the Manly Beach area. Basically, all of Sydney is beautiful and lined with beaches. I love Sydney!

Kathryn and James could not have been more gracious hosts. They took their free time on the weekend to drive us to the Blue Mountains to see the view. I’m sure the scenes there were beautiful, but unfortunately we weren’t able to see them! There was a fog that moved in and we couldn’t see a thing! We settled for checking out some postcards of what the scene would have looked like. We hope to visit again one day when the weather is better. Kath and James are such a fun couple that we really didn’t need to see the mountains to have fun.

We spent a total of about a week and a half in Sydney, which was not nearly enough for this beautiful city. We hope to visit again some time after we’ve saved enough Aussie Dollars to see everything!

About midway through our time in Indonesia, we needed to decide our next destination. Griffin’s little sister had set a wedding date, so our time was limited, but we knew we wanted to see all we could of Oceania before heading back to the U.S. So, we booked our next flight to Cairns, Australia, the most popular access point to Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef.

We arrived in Cairns and got settled into our hostel before trying to determine what avenue we wanted to take to get out on the reef. Griffin had been diving before and easily talked me into wanting to give it a try. We looked into several intro-diving options, but they were all pretty expensive. Finally, we found an option that would grant us the opportunity to actually get our diver certification, as well as a way to get our budget around it.

We headed down to the Reef Encounter office to talk with them about their Hostie program. Basically, we needed to go out on the live-aboard boat as paying customers, during which time we would get our diving certificates, then we would stay aboard to help with things like washing dishes and making up beds, etc. In return, we would have free accommodation, free gourmet food, and at least two free dives each day. We figured out that in order to balance out the amount of money we needed to spend as customers, we would need to stay aboard for an extra 10 days. It seemed like a lot of dishes, but we decided to give it a try.

Early the next morning, we boarded the Reef Experience, a day boat by the same company that would dock near the Reef Encounter and serve as a taxi out to our floating hotel.

We settled into our rooms and got started with our course right away. I believe we had the best dive instructor possible in ‘Albie.’ The guy was patient, fun and extremely talented and knowledgeable. Not only was he a great teacher under the water, but his explanations of theory were easy to understand as well. Eight dives, several hours of book work and a test later, we were certified divers able to dive on our own up to 15 meters.

Each time we went under the water was a new experience. It honestly could never get old to me. Sometimes we had an agenda, something special we wanted to see, sometimes we just went for a relaxed exploration. We enjoyed swimming through tunnels, or just peaking into some of the soft corals to see what fish were hiding there. No matter what, we always saw something new and amazing.

As hosties, our days started early with setting up for breakfast. As soon as that was finished, we would go out for our morning dive. From the water, we would grab a quick shower to get the salt water off us and then head downstairs to wash up the breakfast dishes. Then we would spend the rest of the morning cleaning up rooms for the incoming new passengers. Lunch setup, lunch dishes, afternoon cleaning… all just the next steps until we could get in the water again for the afternoon dive at 3:30. After the dive, wash off again, dinner setup and dishes, plating up desert and then waiting to see if there is room for us on the night dive. Head to sleep and then do it all again the next day. By the time we left there, we felt like regular crew members. We stayed aboard so long, we decided to go ahead and get our Advanced certification. Now we can dive down to 30 meters. =) Not to mention, we gained several new friends. Always the best part of travel.

When we finally got off the boat, we literally had land-sickness. For the first couple of days on land, we felt like we were constantly swaying. It was a crazy feeling.

We ended up sticking around in Cairns for another couple of weeks, catching up on some work and checking out the town. We even went back out to Reef Encounter for a another night and a few more dives.

Cairns is a beautiful place with a million options for checking out the reef. We met some great people and had some of the best experiences of our trip.

Have any of you been scuba diving? Share some of your favorite memories and locations in the comments. We would love to hear them.

From here, we booked a flight down the coast to Sydney. Check back to see what we got to do there. =)

I have rested my head on everything from plush amazingness, to a couch cushion, to nothing at all. A couple of months in, I was a little worried about the possible future pillows I might encounter, but I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of lugging around a giant pillow or fighting to stuff it into my bag every morning. So, I did some research on what other travelers suggest for the best travel pillow.

This is not ideal.

This is really not ideal.

It didn’t take long to figure out that a down pillow is the way to go. Firstly, I love down stuff. If I could surround myself in down cushiness all the time, I totally would. It’s comfortable, it has a nice cooling affect and it’s lightweight. Additionally, a travel size feather pillow can fit almost anywhere. Believe me, if there is an inch of open space in my bag, I can force my travel pillow into it!

The best travel pillow I came across was from GooseFeet Gear, a one-man company that makes custom down gear including everything from down socks to pants to pretty much anything you want.

I got in touch with Ben, the main man over at GooseFeet to ask about his options for a travel pillow and he quickly gave me some great advice. This guy really knows his trade. He asked me all kinds of questions about how I sleep and what I like in terms of firmness and loft in pillows, etc. By the time he was putting my pillow together, (and Griffin’s, who had to have one as well), I was getting pretty excited about it. Ben actually makes all his products by hand and to order. You can’t beat that!

Optimal.

The pillow was perfect! I chose a black color so as not to show much dirt and Ben chose a rip-stop material to make sure it was durable. The first thing I did was spend some time squishing the pillow down and checking to see how long it took to regain its shape. Then I practiced stuffing it into the smallest spaces I could find and then taking it out and shaking it back to its original form. The pillow passed every test I could throw at it, so I thought it was time for the ultimate test, sleeping. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, my hostel-provided pillow granted me a great opportunity as it was basically a rock with a pillowcase. I whipped out my down travel pillow and was ready to go. I woke up the next morning and decided Ben had done me a huge favor. The thing slept great and I woke up feeling refreshed, without the sore neck I knew would await me with the cotton rock I would have been sleeping on.

From that point on, the pillow has stayed with me on planes, trains, buses, cars, etc. I just shove it into my day pack and I’m ready to dream. It adds no weight to my bag, which is ideal, it’s withstood everything I can throw at it, and grants me the ability to sleep on those rocky overnight trains.

If you’re a traveler looking for lightweight, durable, stuffable pillow, GooseFeet Gear is the place to shop. If you’re like me and your idea of heaven has down clouds, just drop Ben a line and he can hook you up with pretty much anything you want! Don’t sleep on this advice… just get the pillow.

We’ve all sat through the recorded information that bores people to tears on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. The information is fed to you through an ear piece, if it’s working, and then you’re left to wonder what’s been left out and wish you could ask someone directly about particular points that interested you. But there’s no one there but the driver, who may or may not speak your language.

Gray Line Tours was a refreshing change. Everything was streamlined and the tour ran like a well-oiled machine. The bus rolled on in a timely manner to all the places on our list, while a very knowledgeable guide told us information about places we were passing as well as the places we would soon visit. She answered questions for us about the tour bus operations and any other little questions we could come up with about the city and tourist attractions. This was extremely helpful as we had a limited time and wanted to make the most of it. Since we both love European history, having someone we could get facts from was welcome part of our time in Munich.

As guests of the Munich Tourism Board or, München Tourismus as is it official called, we were so excited to get tickets to Gray Line Tours Grand Circle tour, which visits virtually every touristy area in the city.

We decided that to get the most of our experience, we would take the tour around in a complete circle, listen to all of the information uninterrupted, and then choose the specific places to “hop-off” at during our second time around.

This plan worked out great for us and we enjoyed getting to glean as much information about the city as we could before getting out and about at the sites of interest.

All in all, we can highly recommend Gray Line Tours in Munich. We very much enjoyed getting to see the city from the open top of the tour bus, get some extra information and avoid losing precious time by having everything organized for us. If you have the opportunity, please check Gray Line out in any city. You won’t regret it!

When someone says Munich, most people immediately think of Oktoberfest. Yes, this famous festival does fill up the city for 2 weeks each year, but there is so much more to Munich than beer and pretzels.

We had the opportunity to visit Munich as guests of the Munich Tourism Board, officially known a München Tourismus. Their website, with information on just about everything available in Munich, may be the only guide you need. It’s certainly one of the most comprehensive city websites I’ve ever seen… and I’ve seen a lot.

Upon arrival at the main train station, we walked just a few hundred meters to King’s Hotel, which was exactly what we needed to get rested for our whirlwind tour. After a quick and delicious dinner at the famous Augustiner Keller and a tour around the beer cellar, we spent the next several hours before bed trying to decide what to see for the next two days. It was no easy task! We could easily have stayed two weeks and still not see everything! Instead I turned page corners in a city guide book and then tried to cull it down from roughly 30 of my favorite activities listed.

We jumped up early the next morning and headed off to the city center to take in some of the sites. Munich has so much history to learn about that we barely had time to take it all in. We even passed by a little known building with just a plain marker indicating the place where plans for the holocaust were first hatched. From there we took a short walk over to The Frauenkirche, also known as The Cathedral of Our Dear Lady, a beautiful church with several unique aspects, including the legendary “devil’s footprint,” and a curious menorah on the ceiling. You’ll have to visit to find out why it’s there! (It’s quite a touching story.)

By then it was nearly 11:00am and we rushed back to the Marienplatz to get a glimpse of the Glockenspiel in action. We were delighted when the hour struck and the giant clock came to life. You really can’t miss it and it wasn’t at all disappointing to us! Below is a video of the clock in action. It’s a bit long, but fascinating, especially if you’ve never seen it before. Although, I highly encourage you to head there and see yourself!

We settled down to lunch with Isabella from München Tourismus and took her advice on some traditional Bavarian menu items. I think we would weigh entirely too much if we stayed in Munich for any longer than a few days. Wow, that food is amazing.

Finally we headed off to meet up with the famous New Europe Free Walking Tour group to catch some more history for a couple of hours. If you’ve never tried one of these walking tours, you don’t know what you’re missing. They are informative beyond belief, entertaining and will help you get oriented in the city in no time. Plus, they’re free! You should tip your guide at the end according to what you think their tour was worth. What a nice business plan.

When I say that it’s important to get into a tour, I really mean that. Any walking tour will take you around the city to places you never knew existed and give you more information than you could find in a thousand guide books. We had no idea about some of the landmarks in Munich as they are so subtle, yet so important. We saw an extremely unique memorial to the German resistance, the place where the army tried to block the Nazi’s from marching, fun things like the May Pole in the city center, markets, beer gardens and so much more, all while being thoroughly entertained and enlightened about each of these places. The more you know about a city, the more you will love it! München Tourismus can also set you up with a tour, and personally knowing how thorough they are, I know it would be a great option for sure.

When the tour was finished we took a closer look at a couple of beer gardens and had a bratwurst dog for dinner. Yum. Griffin tried out the famous Weissbier, or Wheat Beer, but I’m not crazy about beer so I settled for a Fanta. After Griffin grabbed some night photography time, we headed back to the hotel to catch up on rest.

As if day one didn’t hold enough, we quickly headed out the next morning to see what else we could get into. We were delighted to “hop” onto a Gray Line tour bus to hop on and hop off throughout the city. What’s great about this company is there is a live tour guide to give you information about the upcoming stops and different landmarks about the city. Other companies tend to have a recording, but recordings don’t answer questions, so we were happy for the change. A complete circle takes around an hour and half, which we actually did just to have some uninterrupted information about the city. Then we jumped off at the different stops that interested us the first time around.

Of course, no tour of Munich would be complete without a visit to BMW Welt (World). Here you can catch people driving their new cars around the indoor test facility or venture over to the BMW Museum and see how the company got started as well as all the makes and models! It was really cool, but there was no free gift of a new BMW at end! Too bad!

BMW Welt is the same tour stop as the Olympic Park, which is a beautiful site in itself. It’s easy to spend hours wandering around taking in all the athletic history.

We were also able to check out the English Garden, Opera House, City Hall, and the Nymphenburg Palace, all within a few steps of a Gray Line stop.

After picking up a few souvenirs, we finally and regrettably had to leave the beautiful city of Munich all too soon. I am absolutely sure we’ll be back again! If you get the chance, please make sure to visit Munich… even if it’s not Oktober!

We were greeted at the King’s Center Hotel by a friendly staff and a smooth and quick check-in. (Also a plus when you’ve still got those backpacks on!)

Our greatest greeting, though, was when we entered our room. The room was absolutely beautiful. It included a large, wood-framed bed carved with beautiful designs, a desk, a beautiful wardrobe and others. I have to admit to you that I love a clean bathroom… I wasn’t disappointed with the bathroom in our room. It was spacious and clean and had everything we needed, including plush towels. We’re both into nice linens, so we love good towels! Is that weird? =)

We asked reception for a recommendation for a good restaurant nearby and we were so glad we did. The staff didn’t hesitate in directing us to Augustiner Keller, the famous beer garden and cellar that we didn’t even realize was close to us. We had a wonderful dinner there and then took a walk around the cellar as well.

After dinner we settled into our room and spent some time looking through guidebooks at the limitless things to see in Munich. (No easy task.)

We both slept like rocks and awoke feeling so much more rested and happier. If you’ve done long term travel, you know the importance of good sleep and recuperation to help you travel well. Cranky travelers are not good to be around!

We crept downstairs in our PJ’s to have breakfast and we were, again, pleasantly surprised. A buffet of deliciousness awaited us and we couldn’t wait. I love breakfast food and I could eat it three meals a day. This buffet had everything I wanted and then some! I definitely ate too much, but it was so worth it!

It is so much less stressful to go see the sights of a city when you know you don’t need to worry about the place you’re coming “home” to that night. We knew our hotel was centrally located, comfortable, clean, offered good sleep and a delicious breakfast the next morning. You can’t beat that.

To top it all off, when we were getting ready to leave, the staff made it leisurely by offering to hold our luggage for us while we spent the last day in the city seeing the rest of the sites on our list.

I will say that we encountered one slight issue, which was a slow internet connection. Internet is not included in the room prices, which is annoying this day and age, so we purchased it separately. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t the connection we were hoping for, which slowed us down in our work a bit. Overall, not a big deal, but something we feel the hotel should work on.

If you’re looking for good accommodation in Munich, we can definitely recommend King’s Center Hotel, a fantastic place to get rest and then get involved in everything Munich has to offer!

As we prepared for our 12+ month around-the-world-trip, we didn’t quite manage to fit everything into a carry on, but we were able to find a lot of helpful ways to reduce the size and weight of our chargers. As I’m sure we are not the only ones who are frustrated by the space and weight of these things while traveling, we thought we’d share our solutions and some other options that have since been discovered as well.

The first item we wanted to reduce was the power adapters for our two computers.

You have been lugging two computers around the world on your backs!?!

Yes. We would not recommend it for everyone and for most couples, one computer or a tablet would probably work fine, but, as Griffin is running a Design Company and Valerie’s computer weighs less than many tablets, that is conclusion we came to. That being said, we would not recommend it for most people and Griffin does not enjoy lugging around his 5+ pound behemoth of a laptop all that much.

Power Cables

We researched and tried to find a smaller, lighter option from the 45 and 85 Watt power bricks we had and found some interesting options, but nothing that seemed to be worth the time or additional money for our needs. We also knew we didn’t want to get rid of the 6 foot extension cables from our chargers as many times, they are needed to reach from outlets to our laptops. In the end we ended up going with a 6 foot extension cable to share between our two adapters and this has worked really well. We made sure to get one with three plug on the end so that we could charge two commuters, or one computer and two other devices if needed.

USB Chargers

Once we had reduced our laptop cables by one extender, it was time to move on to our USB Devices. We travel with the following USB rechargeable items:

• iPhone(2) – These have changed travel for us forever! Griffin traveled for 6 months in 2007 before the iPhone came out and had to spend hours researching online for hostels, train routes, maps, tourist information, hotel directions and more. Now with the iPhone and all the amazing travel apps that have been made for it, within about 20 minutes, we can find and book a hostel, get train directions to that city from our current city, get walking directions from the train station to the new hostel and look up things to see and do in the new city all without needing to waste paper with printing or writing all the information down.
• iOS Backup Batteries(2) – We use these on long trips to get some extra use out of our iPhones, iPods or iPad as desired.
• iPod Classic(2) – Capable of holding the most music and also has a much longer battery life than our iPhones. In addition, we use these as back up hard drives for our important documents and files as they really are just music playing multifunction hard drives.
• Kindle(1) – Valerie reads all her Jodi Picult novels on this and we also use it for internet when we have no other options as it has free 3G in most countries around the world.
• iPad(1) – Griffin uses this for all his reading as well as for quality checks when designing and testing interactive iBooks and Custom eBook Templates for his clients.
• AAA(4) & AA(2) Batteries – (These may not seem like USB rechargeable items, but we’ll get to this in a minute.)  We use the triple A batteries to charge one of our favorite travel accessories – our in-ear noise canceling Audio Technica Earphones. We keep one in each set and two charged up in the charger. The Double A is used for Griffin’s Whahl trimmer which we use to save money on hair cuts and to try and keep his beard under control.

OK, so we know this is a long list and that all of these items are wants, not needs especially for travel, but we enjoy them enough to lug them around and some of them are needed for business and sanity reasons as well. (We always seem to get the seat right next to the only crying baby on the plane, train, bus or boat no matter what!)  That being said, we have them and we needed to figure out a way to charge them with as little equipment as possible.

Let’s first look at the iOS devices since we have seen that most travelers have them and the charging systems for them, while small, can be made even smaller with a little effort and research.  Here is what we use to charge these:

Kindle USB Power Adaptor(2) – These are thinner than the standard apple USB chargers and allow us to fit two of them on the 6 foot extension cable listed above whereas we could only fit one of the Apple iPhone chargers, so we left those at home.

InCase USB Mini Cable Kit(2) – These are awesome.  They come with an iPhone/iPod/iPad charge/sync cable as well as a mini and micro USB cable and they are all only about 3 inches long, so they take up no space or weight.  We recommend this kit over other options as it is to Apple specs and works with any and all iOS cases even ones as exacting as the LifeProof Case whereas the others we have tried do not.

Retractable USB Extension Cable(2) – We use these in case we need or want a little extra length to our cables when charging.  The only downside we have found is that, possibly due to how thin they are, they sometimes are unable to sync and they also tend to fray somewhat easily.  We have replaced one of them while on this trip, but had already gotten about two years of use out of it by then, so not a big issue.  If we need to sync then we just unplug and use the short cables and are good to go.

Now you may have noticed that the above options will also work to charge any electronics that use Micro and Mini USB such as some camera, cell phones, Kindle and more.

In order to charge our batteries, we purchased the following:

AA & AAA USB Battery Charger – We use this with a set of two AA and four AAA eneloop rechargeable batteries and it works great.  It is small, compact and we like that is can easily charge both types of batteries.  As a side note, we highly recommend eneloop batteries linked above.  They are a little more expensive, but, currently, they are by far the best as far as number of charge cycles, quick recharge, and charge length.

NOTE: We also have brought along the included Apple iPad Charging brick as it is needed to quickly and fully charge the iPad.  That being said, we have seen USB adapters that claim to boost the normal USB output in order to be able to charge the iPad, but are a little skeptical as the ones we have seen all seem to be made by no-name companies in China and probably aren’t too reliable.

Alternative Options:

While we have used and are quite happy with the above system, since we have left the U.S., we have seen some new and clever alternatives become available.  They are listed below.

Apple Micro USB to iPhone Adapter – If you wanted to cut the above set up down to one less cable, you could purchase this adapter made by Apple for the European market and get rid of the purpose built iPhone adapter above.  Alternatively, you could keep the three cables and have the option to charge 1 iPhone/iPod, 1 Micro USB device, and 1 Mini USB device or 2 iPhone/iPods and one Mini USB Device with the adapter.

Innergic Magic 3 in 1 Charge Cable – We have not tried this out ourselves, but it looks like it could be a pretty cool solution with two caveats.  First, you could only charge one device at a time, which is usually not ideal and secondly, if any of the end pieces break or malfunction, you are stuck with a useless cable depending on which one it is.  For these reasons, we would not recommend this as your only charging solution except for maybe on short trips where new cables could be purchased easily if needed.

Keychain Charge & Sync Cables – These things are really compact and fold away into a self protecting plastic shell.  They come in different versions including one for Micro and Mini USB and one for iPhone/iPods, etc.  We have purchased and used the Micro and Mini USB one and can highly recommend it as an option.

Storage

While you could just store all these things in a plastic bag or something, as for the USB cables and power adapters, we have been using the smallest envelope from this Travelon set and find it works perfectly.  Initially, I was not impressed with these as the zipper seems to weigh about five pounds and seems excessive for a travel specific bag, but as we have used them over the last 11+ months they have proven to be amazingly durable and tough.

The rest of the items we throw in a zip-able mesh type bag so we can easily see what is in there, but also easily pack it by moving things around inside, if needed, to fit into a tight space.  Another cool option we have considered, but not tried, would be to use one of these cool Grid-it systems to keep it all together and organized.

Extra Outlets

If you find yourself needing more outlets, as we did, here is the best solution we have found so far:

Monster Cable Outlets To Go 3 Plug Outlet wit USB – This is the smallest, lightest, and most versatile three outlet option we could find.  This three port charger wraps nicely around itself for easy and compact storage and has one USB charging port as well.  We  don’t use this all the time, but when we need it, it is awesome and only takes up a small amount of space in our bag.

3 Prong to Two Prong Adapter – If you are going to take along the above power outlet, you may find times you will need to use it without the third ground pin (the round one), so you can either remove the ground pin (not recommended, but an option), or buy one of these for about a dollar and have both options available.

Plugging It All In

There seems to be a lot of confusion among frequent travelers and non-frequent travelers alike as to what is needed when heading off to another country in terms of being able to plug in your electronics and making sure they don’t blow up or catch on fire because of the higher voltage, etc.  Many think you need a heavy and expensive voltage converter as well as plug adapters, and, for some things that would be the case, but for 90% or more of electronic equipment, you will not be needing a heavy and expensive voltage converter.  Let me say that again.

For 90% or more of electronic equipment, you will not need a heavy and expensive voltage converter.

Not only do you most likely not need one, but there is an easy way to check each piece of equipment you have in order to make sure.  What you need to do is look for small  writing usually found of the charger for your equipment or sometimes on the actual electronic.  It is usually next to some logos and company names like the UL Listed, CE, and maybe a “do not throw away” logo, etc as seen below on the Apple iPad Charging brick.

What you are looking for are words similar to or including:

Input: 100-240v~ 50-60Hz

This means that the device can handle a range on input voltage from 100 all the way up to 240 and means you can safely use it in every country in the world without a voltage converter.  If your device reads something like Input: 100-120v~… then you cannot use it in any country with more 120v of power without a voltage converter.  Hope that helps.

Once you have determined whether or not you need a voltage adapter, the next thing you will need is a plug adapter to allow your plug to fit in a plug socket from another country.  If you are only going to be visiting one continent or country, then I would just recommend checking what those places use for plugs and buy the one you need as it will be the smallest and lightest option.  You could also just show up in that country and most likely buy an adapter from a local market or hardware store for a lot cheaper, but if you are not willing to risk it, go ahead and pre-order.  If you will be visiting a lot of countries with various socket shapes and sizes, then we can recommend universal adapters like the one below:

Universal Plug Adapter with Surge Protection – This is about as small and light as these things come and it has worked well for us all around the world.  We highly recommend you to make sure the one you buy has surge protection built in, as we were using the power plug on a train in India and it fried our adapter and, more importantly, our Apple Mag-Safe power cable and at about $90 a piece that was not a cheap mistake.  It would have been much better to have fried a 10¢ fuze.  Lesson learned.  Don’t make the same mistake we did!

In all, we were able to save several pounds of weight and a lot of space simply by changing a few things out for smaller versions. Obviously, some products are better quality than others, but we have personally tried out the things above and can recommend them to anyone looking for better electronics solutions. We hope this stuff helps you as much as it has us!

All our chargers and electronics gear ready to be packed away.

All packed up and ready for our backpacks!

With a combined total of more than 50 countries visited, Griffin and I have stayed in our fair share of questionable hotels. It’s a rare opportunity to report accommodation that actually exceeds our expectations.

While checking out the sites in Brussels, Belgium, we had the absolute pleasure of staying in a fabulous boutique hotel called Pillows. This hotel is one of Sandton’s “concept hotels” being introduced throughout Europe. Basically, the concept is that the hotel is all-inclusive, with as many extras as you can possibly think up, all for the price of any room that you book. I think we must have asked the poor receptionist a million questions about this to be sure we had it right!

Upon check-in we were just in time for afternoon tea and sweets, which was provided in the downstairs lobby. We were permitted to help ourselves to whatever we liked. After settling into our amazing room and not really wanting to go out again for dinner, we went back downstairs and made a meal from the appetizers and drinks served in evening, which suited us fine. We were offered any drink we wanted and an array of finger foods that filled us up while we relaxed at the bar.

Initially, I thought the name Pillows was an odd one for a hotel, but after one night’s sleep in that bed, it seemed perfect! That was, hands down, the best bed I’ve slept in on our travels. It truly felt as if I were sleeping on a cloud for an amazing night of much needed rest and recuperation.

We slept in for an extra hour, which I can seldom do in most places, but the quiet location of Pillows afforded me the luxury. When we woke up, we padded downstairs in our PJ’s to see breakfast would hold for us.

This is just one of the three tables full of breakfast food to choose from.

We were not disappointed! If you’re counting the number of “bests” we’ve encountered, here is another: this was the best breakfast we’ve had in any of the 32 countries we’ve visited so far! Talk about a buffet! There was every kind of bread, spread, egg and sausage you can think of for breakfast, including what has to be my favorite kind of toast spread I’ve ever tried. (It tasted like a kind of ginger cookie, but with the consistency of peanut butter. I have yet to find this spread since, though I’ve been looking everywhere!)

After filling up on bacon and eggs, etc., we headed back up stairs to get caught up on some work. The internet was super fast, so that wasn’t a problem.

Before long we were off to see the sights in Brussels, feeling completed rested. We were pretty much just plain excited we had booked two night and could do it all again!

Honestly, after just two nights at Pillows, we felt like we’d had a week-long vacation. It was just what we needed and at just the right time!

My only complaint, if you can even call it that, was that the sensor lights in the bathroom (Yeah, I said sensor lights in the bathroom) were positioned just a little too far away from the shower, which prompted the lights to periodically turn off while I was in the shower. Not to worry, though. A quick wave of the hand and everything came back to life.

If the other Sandton Hotels are anything like Pillows Brussels, I can’t wait to try them! If you’re in going to Belgium, I cannot recommend Pillows highly enough!

When it came time to finding a lens for our one year around the world trip, I made sure to do my homework. I wanted to be able to take as many different pictures in different situations as possible, while still balancing the cost and weight of the lens. I wanted a versatile lens that would also be reasonably compact and light. When you carry all of your possessions on your back for a year, every square inch of space and ounce of weight is important.

I knew we would possibly be going to Africa, so I wanted to have a zoom lens to handle safaris and animal sightings. Something around at least 300mm zoom would be ideal for capturing elephants, lions, and zebras from a relatively far off distance. From my experience with a previous 300mm lens that did not have stabilization built in, I knew that I would either need a stabilized lens or be mostly limited to having to use a tripod or monopod at the full zoom range. My preference was to to find a lens with stabilization built in but this can usually add significant weight and size to the lens, so this was a concern. I enjoy mostly taking landscape shots, so I also wanted a lens that could zoom out to 18mm or less to capture as much of the view as possible.

Finding The Lens

With these criteria and possible trade offs in mind I started searching the internet for options. First I checked Canon’s lenses but none of them had the zoom range I was looking for and any of their stabilized lenses were usually rather large and heavier than I would have preferred so I moved on. In the end, I searched through a total of four of the top lens manufacturers in the world and was excited to find one lens that met all of my criteria and more and is actually the worlds smallest and lightest zoom lens in its class! In addition to this, it was priced in a reasonable range for such versatility and far cheaper than anything similar by most of the other manufacturers.

The lens I am talking about is the TamronThe Company who makes this lens. They are among the top four manufacturers in the world. 18-270mmThis is the zoom range in millimeters. For point and shoot users, this is equivalent o a 15X optical zoom and is almost unheard of for D-SLR Cameras F/3.5-6.3This is the lowest f-stop range of this lens. It is a measurement of how much light the lens can let in. More on f-stop later. Di IIThis is Tamron's indication that this lens is made for most consumer DSLRs and engineered for optimal image quality. VCStands for Vibration Compensation - the technology that is built into this lens to help keep images sharp. This is great for longer exposures, or highly zoomed in images as your hand can shake a little and would otherwise cause some blur. PZDStands for Piezo Drive - Tamron's breakthrough technology that allows for faster and quieter precision autofocus while also reducing the size and weight from the previous version of this lens.. To help myself and others out, I have added some tooltips to explain what all those letters and numbers mean for humans;-) Just hover your mouse over the word you want to know about and a pop-up will give you some more information about it.

Design

I am no scientist or optical expert, but, by judging from the size, shape and weight of other lenses with similar and even less capabilities, I think Tamron has made more than a few technological breakthroughs with this lens. This is actually the second version of an 18-270mm lens that Tamron has made. Their first one was also amazingly small and light, but this one took everything a step further and they were able to achieve an incredible 24% reduction in length and a 18% reduction in weight. Check out the image below for what that looks like visually. Very impressive in my opinion.

A 24% reduction in length and 18% reduction in weight from previous version


Having an Industrial Design background, I am very picky about the way things look, feel and operate. That being said, I have been very impressed with this lens given its price range and versatility.

Size & Weight

As stated earlier, this is the the world’s lightest and smallest lens in its range, so it kind of speaks for itself on that. There is no competition for this lens from a size, weight and versatility perspective. It measures 3.8″ from the tip of the lens to the base of the mount and probably a little closer to 4″ long with the lens cap and mount protector on it. It is just under 3″ in diameter and fits nicely into even my very small draw-string type daypack with many other supplies. Overall, the lens is about the size of my fist, which, for a 15X zoom SLR lens is amazing. One of the fun things about this lens due to it’s compact size is the surprised comments I get from people when they see it go from 18mm to fully zoomed. This is because as it looks about the size or smaller than most 18-50mm lenses that come standard on most DSLR Cameras when zoomed out, but is about three times longer than any of them when zoomed in. check out the picture below to see what I am talking about.

The lens weighs right under 1 pound and when handling it, feels a little on the heavy side for its size, due to its compactness. However, when fully extended the weight seems to jump to the other side and feels almost too light, but it is, in fact, well balanced. Too light from an old school weight = performance perspective, but the lighter the better from a new school travel photographer perspective.

“Illegal” Activities

One situation where this lens really helped out was when visiting the DMZ or Demilitarized Zone on the border of North and South Korea. They have a rule that no lenses with a zoom range of greater than 90mm is allowed. Normally any lens with a zoom range is rather easy to spot as it would either be a lot lot longer, or a lot wider diameter (or both) than this Tamron lens, but this lens is deceptively small. Because of this, my lens was not spotted or inspected closely and I was able to get this shot of a north Korean soldier from across the border line.

Taken using the Tamron 18-270MM-F3.5-6.3-Di-II-VC-PZD fully zoomed at 270mm.
Click to view larger, or see original image here.

To give you a better idea of the incredible zoom range of this lens, here is a picture take from the same location at 18mm.  The guard from the picture above is just barely visible next to the centered door of the building in the background.

Taken using the Tamron 18-270MM-F3.5-6.3-Di-II-VC-PZD fully zoomed out to 18mm.
Click to view larger, or see original image here

Build

The lens feels very solid and reasonably durable but is also very small and light for its capabilities, which shows in some of the build techniques as a lot of the parts of the lens are made of a high quality plastic in where other, more expensive lens might use metal. I see this as more of an advantage than a disadvantage because of the focus of this lens. Tamron set out to make the smallest, lightest and one of the most versatile lenses in the world and they could not have done that with heavier metal parts or maintained the reasonable price with less strong, but more expensive aluminum. I can tell from holding the lens and using it that this is a quality made lens and that, while made out of plastic, it will withstand reasonable abuse and has for the past 9 months of our trip so far. The only semi complaint I would have about the build quality is that he lens does seem to creep

Switches

There are three total switches on the lens including an Autofocus /Manual Focus, Vibration On/Off and a lens lock switch. All the switches feel pretty solid with the exception of the lens lock button, but it it the one that is used the most and having it be easier to moves actually makes more sense, so I wouldn’t call it a disadvantage so much, just hope it doesn’t break as it does feel less than solid overall. That being said, no issue to date that I have experienced.

Features

The biggest feature of this lens by far, is its combined size, weight and zoom range. Add to all that, the virtually silent vibration control and this is a very full featured lens.

Negatives

What? Did you think this lens was all cherries and ice cream? While this lens does have an impressive feature set and amazing versatility, there are a few trade offs that go against a possible purchase.

F-Stop

In the tooltips at the beginning I said I would touch back on f-stop later. Well now is the time. f-stop is a measurement for the amount of light a lens lets in to the camera. Below is an example of some different f-stop settings.

As you can see, the lower the f-stop, the bigger circle of light that is let into the camera. The benefits of being able to use a low f-stop like f/2 or f/1.8 as seen below this are twofold:

• First, because the lens is letting in more light, you are able to take more blur free images even in low light, or when zoomed in really far. If you have ever seen sports photographers with their lenses ten times bigger than their cameras, that is because they are zooming in really far, but still want the maximum amount of light available so they can get a blur-free photo of the winning touchdown or slam-dunk, etc.
• The second advantage of being able to use a very low f-stop is that it allows you create what is called a “shallow depth of field” in your images. Maybe you’ve seen a picture of a flower, or a professional outdoor portrait where the petals or the person’s face is in sharp focus, but the entire background of leaves, grass, trees, etc. is blurry and out of focus looking. This makes the subject of the photo stand out even more and the background visually seem to fade away and become unimportant further emphasizing the subject. This is called depth of field and the lower the aperture, the smaller the depth of field which, in turn make it easier to blur out the background and/or foreground and guide the viewer’s eye to the main subject of the image. Check out the slider below for a more visual way to understand depth of field.

LEFT = F5 | RIGHT = F32

[beforeafter] [/beforeafter]

I share all this to say that an f-stop of 3.5 is OK for low light and/or a shallow depth of field, but by no means ideal, and the minimum aperture of 6.3 is pretty difficult to use for blur free photos in all but the brightest of days and does not allow for a shallow depth of field for the most part. There are work-arounds to both of these issues such as using a tripod, a flash and placing the subject much farther away from its background, but these are more advanced techniques and not usually well known or utilized by the person this lens would generally be marketed to.

The other issue besides the f-stop for this lens that I ave found is that throughout the zoom range and especially at the 270mm range, pictures are not very in focus and sharp to a trained eye. Additionally there is some heavy vignetting at certain zoom ranges, but both of these issues should be considered while also taking into account the incredible zoom range of this lens is somewhat of a marvel in itself.

Conclusion

Overall I would highly recommend this lens to anyone who is a beginner to intermediate photographer looking for a versatile all-in-one lens for less than $1000 that is small and light. I say beginner to intermediate not because you can’t take professional pictures with this lens, but because I think it would be harder for a professional to set himself apart consistently due to the limitations of this lens. I knew the limitations to this lens going into it and have been more than pleased with what it can do and the lack of a burden it puts on my back while carrying and the lack of dents caused to my wallet when purchasing it. If you are looking for one great zoom lens that should be able to capture about 90% of the pictures you would want to take of cities, landscapes and people both close up and from a distance in bright light, then this is the lens for you!

Big thanks to Tamron USA for their support and partnership of our photography and for supplying the lens reviewed.

For more information about Tamron and the lenses we use, check out our sponsors page here.

Full Specs

*values given for Nikon AF cameras
**Length is the distance between the mount face and the tip of the lens. Entire length is the distance between the tip of the lens and the tip of the protrusion.
***The Sony mount does not include the VC image stabilization functionality, as the body of the Sony digital SLR camera includes image stabilization functionality.
Before & After demo images from flagstaffotos.com.au

Experience the warmth of our people during an evening of ceremonial rituals, powerful cultural performance, storytelling & hangi feasting!

One of the things that I was most looking forward to about visiting New Zealand was getting to know a little more about the Maori culture. I had heard little pieces of information about the indigenous people of this beautiful place, and was interested to learn more. Although Maori people make up more than 14% of the population of New Zealand, it is still difficult to get much history about the culture, short of just asking someone.

Then we heard about the Tamaki Maori Village in Rotorua. We quickly signed up for this unique learning experience.

Our bus arrived at our hostel right on time and we were greeted by both the driver and a guide. As we made our way to the village, the passengers formed a tribe and our bus became an ancient canoe that we paddled along the way. A chief was chosen to represent our group and the guide gave us important information about how the Maori people came to be the first inhabiters of New Zealand.

Upon entering the village, three Maori warriors came make sure our tribes came in peace. Once it was established that we meant no harm to the village, we were invited in.

Inside the gate, the village stands much like Maori villages once did. Groups are free to tour around and watch presentations about village life and even participate in a few dances and games if they like. Maori history and culture is alive and well here.

The group was then lead to an outside pavilion area where our dinner was being cooked via geothermal heating in a pit! We watched as lamb, chicken and vegetables were pulled from the ground, smoking hot and smelling amazing!

While dinner was prepared, we were treated to a show like no other. The warriors and women of the tribe put on demonstration after demonstration to show us everything from how to keep rhythm during dances, to how to kill an enemy with a wooden paddle. Photography was encouraged, but who could take their eyes away from this spectacular exhibition?

After a short video about even more Maori history, we were ushered into the dining hall for a feast! The very food we saw pulled from the pit earlier had been prepared, along with other treats, and was set out buffet style before us. I’m a little bit of a picky eater, but there was nothing I didn’t LOVE about this dinner. When desert came, it was more of the same homemade goodness, including a new favorite, Pavlova!

When all hearts and bellies were full, we set off from the village to return to the modern world. Our driver led us on several sing-a-longs that made the time pass all too quickly.

In the end, this was one of my favorite experiences of our travels so far, and is sure to become a fantastic memory of our trip to New Zealand. If you’re visiting New Zealand, I encourage you to give this experience a try. You certainly won’t regret it!

If you want to check out this fantastic experience, you can check out their website here. The tour lasts 3 1/2 hours and they will pick you up from your hotel or hostel. They are awesome about giving discounts, so be sure to check with them beforehand or check with your accommodation staff. You’ll need to book at least a day beforehand and the tours are available 7 days a week. We also highly recommend skipping lunch on the day of your tour! Please let us know if you go!

We are currently finishing our travels in New Zealand and let me encourage and persuade you that if you have not been to New Zealand before, you should put it on your bucket list and make it out here before you die. This place is amazing; so wild, beautiful and clean. It feels like seeing the earth a couple thousand years ago before factories, skyscrapers, garbage and pollution existed. The rivers and streams are clear as glass, some with even a vibrant blue tinge to them. The air is crisp and clean. The sunlight is strong and unhindered by smog or soot from too many cars, homes and people. The trees are large, plentiful and healthy. There must be more moss and ferns in New Zealand than in the rest of the world combined. You can visit and walk around on Glaciers right next to rain forests. You can check out thermal pools of strange colors, boiling mud pools and even a few geysers. You can wear shorts and a t-shirt and look up to see snow covered peaks or ancient glaciers high above. I am telling you, this country is breathtakingly beautiful and well worth a visit.

While visiting the North Island, we met up with some friends of ours that we had gotten to know in Korea. They left a couple months before us, did some traveling around Asia and then headed to their home in New Zealand to settle down and start a Photography and Design company. It was great to see some close friends and catch up for a couple days while also getting an inside look at New Zealand and some local insights into what it’s like to live here.

One of the highlights of our time with David and Vicki was a 10 hour hike across the Togararo Crossing. This is quite a unique landscape with lots of lava rocks and other volcanic features. Many of the landscapes on and around the hike were used as the backdrop for Mount Doom in The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. Toward the beginning of the hike we came across this little waterfall which I thought might make a great extended exposure image. Extended exposure just means that I kept the shutter open for as long as possible – in this case, 20 seconds. That is what gives the water its smooth look and the clouds a little bit of motion.

Click image to view larger or to purchase a print

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Photo taken using Tamron SP AF 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical [IF]

Travel Photo Of The Week Sponsored By Tamron USA.

For more information about Tamron and the lenses we use, check out our sponsors page here.

TECHNICAL INFO: For this shot I used what is called a Neutral Density filter and my awesome travel tripod – the Velbon UT 43D provided by One Source Network. The Neutral Density filter is basically a dark piece of glass which allows you to keep the camera shutter open for long periods of time which would usually not be possible in broad daylight. To create this image I used an ND 1000 which adds ten f-stops or levels of darkness. I used a timed shutter release of ten seconds to make sure my hand didn’t cause any shake in the image and made sure my tripod was set up nice and sturdy.

After a good night’s sleep, we headed up to meet our hostel owners and have some breakfast. Krishna, the hostel guy not the Hindu god, gave us the run of the city over eggs and toast.

We decided to book a full day tour of the city with Krisha for the following day, meanwhile taking care of some errands.

Our tour day started early as we made our way to the Ganges River for a sunrise boat ride. As you approach the Ganges, there are several things you will notice immediately. Although the Ganges is the holiest river in India, it isn’t treated very well. Garbage swells in every inlet and touts are everywhere trying to sell you some good karma. As Christians, we’re not too worried about karma, but found it funny when a girl became frustrated with us for not buying her flowers and stated, “Whatever. It’s your life.”

Cows are considered holy by Hindu people, and so are permitted to rome the whole of the country freely, including cooling off in the Ganges. Somehow, I always thought that was a myth, but I can assure you it isn’t. So, in the garbage filled river cows drift happily by.

As our boat driver rowed us silently up river, we approached one of several important places in the life of a devout Hindu. They are called Ghats, or more specifically “burning Ghats.” A Ghat is an embankment along the river, but a burning Ghat is basically a holy crematorium. As a tout told us vying for a guide job, “Burning is learning. Cremation is Education.” According to Hindu beliefs, reincarnation occurs over and over until a person dies in the holy city of Varanasi and is cremated at a burning Ghat along the Ganges river. Unless they have great Karma, this is the only way for a Hindu to finally reach Heaven.

You can see the smoke from the Ghats from several hundred yards away and as you get closer you can see the fires burning. Usually there are at least five bodies burning and several more families waiting with the body of their loved one. The families don’t seem sad at all and instead seem happy and relieved as they go about preparing the body and fire.

We were told that in some cases the bodies aren’t burned, but are simply rowed out to the middle of the river and unceremoniously dropped in. In those cases, the person can still reach heaven, even though they weren’t cremated. Examples include the bodies of children, pregnant women, victims of leprosy or snake bites, holy men and those who commit suicide. We did witness a body being loaded up onto a boat, but we got distracted by a guy trying to sell us something, and then we noticed the boat coming back to shore without the body. When we asked our boat guide about that, he said, “snake bite.”

So, let’s see what we’ve encountered so far. Trash, Cows, ashes and dead bodies… oh, and one more thing… people bathing in the river. Now, I know that this river is “holy,” but bathing in there? I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be caught dead in that river.

After the sunrise river tour, we headed back to our hostel for breakfast. Then headed back out check out the rest of the city.

Our first stop was the largest university in the area, Banaras Hindu University. The university is beautiful and has a unique arched campus. The temple in the front serves as a place of worship for its students.

Next we headed to the Durga Temple, also known as the Monkey Temple. We love a good monkey temple! Hundreds of monkeys came to greet us and stalked everyone for food. Note: no cameras or bags allowed inside.

We visited a local silk factory where we watched as some workers used a loom to hand make embroidered bedding. We were taken to a shop and shown the beautiful silk products available to purchase. Sadly, we couldn’t fit any of the duvet covers into our backpacks. =)

Afterward, we were pretty tired due to our early start time, so we passed up another temple and headed back to our hostel.

The next day we boarded the Indian Railway for New Delhi.

Stay tuned for Part II of our Train Tour of Northern India.

See more of our picture from Varanasi in our SmugMug gallery here.

Travel Points:

Hotel: We stayed at the Sabh Laxmi Guest House in Varanasi. It’s truly a family run place. The food is great and the staff are extremely friendly and even game me a free Henna Tattoo. It’s not that clean, but what it lacks in cleanliness is makes up for in friendliness. The owner knows that the place is run down, and he’s working on it as he has the money to do so. Overall, we recommend it.

Transportation: Train trips can be booked online at cleartrip.com. Be warned, the trains fill up weeks in advanced and should be booked accordingly. For more information about the trains, including types of cars and train routes, check out seat61.com and click on India under the Asia category on the left.

Daily Budget: Our daily budget in Varanasi was around $40 (U.S.) for 4 nights and 3 1/2 days. This includes the following: hostel, taxi from the Nepal boarder to Gorakhpur, train from Gorakhpur to Varanasi, full day tour, all admissions and fees, rickshaws and food.

What sort of things do you bring on board a plane when you travel?

Excluding gum and travel pillows, the use of certain travel necessities, namely electronics, will probably be accompanied with the need to use earphones of some kind.

For me, this is easier said than done.

Cue all crying babies… now.

Whenever I board a moving vehicle of any public nature, particularly for long voyages, I’m pretty sure there is an all-call announcement for any parents of small, fussy children to please gather around me and commence making noise. Also, loud talkers and snorers will sometimes fill in the gaps if there are any open seats near me that have not been taken by tantrum-throwing toddlers.

Since I knew we were going to be on lots of flights and trains, etc., I decided to go ahead with some noise canceling earbuds. I got them several months ago and tested them out immediately. I was amazed at what I could hear… (music), and not hear… Korean middle schoolers screaming their way down the hall. I even periodically missed bells and would be startled to look up and find my students had already begun entering the classroom. The earbuds I chose were the Audio Technica ATH ANC23. The price was right at about $70 US.

One problem: when listening to long e-books or on trans-Atlantic flights, my ears started to hurt from the shape and weight of the buds. Noise canceling earbuds, at least the kind we have, come with a two inch block in the middle of the cord to switch the function on or off. The silicon tips on the ear buds weren’t cutting it. The weight of the switch would occasionally pull from my pocket or shirt and tug the earbuds out of my ears, which was not pleasant and constantly having to reseat my earbuds was super annoying.

When Griffin ordered his earbuds, he experienced the same. So, we began looking for some more comfortable tips to bridge the gap between peace and pain.

We found the answer in Comply Foam, super comfortable foam tips to fit any buds.

There are several different options when it comes to Comply Foam tips. Do you want cylindrical shaped or spherical? Color or wax guard? Griffin and I both landed on the cylindrical shaped tips with a wax guard to keep them clean.

The tips feel a lot like your standard foam earplugs. They squish to get them into your ear and then slowly expand for a tight fit. The greatest thing I found about the Comply Foam tips is the added noise canceling effect. By providing a tighter seal inside my ear, less outside noise gets in, letting me enjoy more of the sound quality I was missing before.

They are extremely comfortable and don’t hurt my ears, even after long hours of usage. And, when something tugs they don’t pop out of my ears, allowing me to keep listening with no need to stop what I doing to put my earbuds back in.

As a matter of fact, my luxury item, if you will, while trekking to Everest Base Camp, was my iPod. Having some music to listen to relaxed me during the tough hikes and kept me from stressing. It may have also saved my husband’s life by keeping me from throwing him from the mountain for dragging me up there. On more than one occasion, my entire iPod would be worked out of my pocket and drop to my feet during a steep climb, but the Comply Foam tips held steady and I never even needed to adjust them. With Comply Foam, I feel like the earbuds work how they were intended, and maybe even a little better.

So, the next time a loud-talking mother and snoring father with a screaming baby surround me on a plane, I’ll just squish in my Comply Foam tips and cancel them right out of my world. Ahhh…

Any questions about these reviews?  Please see our Ethics Statement.

Okay, I had to. Sorry.

On our way to Nepal, we couldn’t find a flight that didn’t stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, so we figured why not check it out for a few days.

After checking into our hostel, one of the cleanest we’ve stayed in, we headed out for some food. We got a good night’s sleep and then headed out to see the sights the next morning.

We started out with a visit to the Batu Caves. The caves were located at the top of some pretty steep stairs, with monkeys jumping all around as you climb them. We stopped off at a side cave to check out the cute monkeys, which ended up being more interesting than the Batu Caves themselves. We did check out the temple located in the caves and then actually went back to take some more photos of the monkeys. =)

Click any image to view large and/or purchase.

After going to view an old train station, we headed to the National Mosque. We turned up only about 30 minutes before scheduled tourist times, so we took a walk around and Griffin took some photos outside.

When prayer time was over for the Muslims participating at the mosque, we headed inside to have a look. While Griffin was dressed appropriately in pants, (and so was I),I needed to don a tourist rental robe. I was dressed from head to toe, with only my face visible. We were free to walk around the mosque with exception of the main prayer room in the center. The mosque was beautifully built and surrounded by pools and stained glass. It was a nice breezy reprieve from the sweltering heat outside.

Finally it was getting dark, so we headed to see the beautiful Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twin towers in the world. These towers, completed in 1998, stand 88 stories high. Beautifully lighted, they are the centerpiece of the Kuala Lumpur night time skyline. We took photos and mostly just took time to marvel.

We took a little time to rest the following day as we waited for a red-eye flight to depart at 3:15am. Surprise! It was delayed by about 12 hours. After sleeping in the airport, we were finally onward…

We’re happy with our decision to check out Kuala Lumpur, and hoping to view more of Malaysia at another time. So, if you’re ever in the area, consider a stop over to check out the beautiful sites…and the cute monkeys!

Travel Points:

Hotel: In KL, we were lucky enough to find Serai Inn, an incredibly clean and friendly place, not too far from the subway station. It’s within walking distance of pretty much everything you want to see in Kuala Lumpur, except the Batu Caves. We enjoyed talking with the staff and they were also nice enough to lend us a room while were were trying to get everything straightened out with our flight.

Transportation: In KL, we mostly just walked everywhere. There is a subway system which is pretty nice and the people at the ticket counters can help you get where you need to go. If you want to check at the Batu Caves, then you need the Number 11 bus, which runs about every 20 minutes or so.

Daily Budget: Our daily budget for KL was $34 US, for 4 days, beginning when we arrived on the afternoon of Sept. 29th, until we departed on the afternoon of Oct. 1st. This included all lodging, food, transportation and tickets.

Do you know some great orphanage in Thailand that could use some English teachers and a professional photographer? Perhaps you know of a church in need of some able hands in Africa. Maybe you know of a local or international non-profit that could use a logo, brochure design or website?  We would love to help them, but we need to know about them first.  If you know of any organizations that are in need of some manual labor, helping hands or even some of our more professional skills, please let us know by contacting us here.

What We Can Do

We’d love to consider helping your organization or a good one that you know of.  Here are the skills we can offer for free:

Help US Volunteer More

Do you know someone that lives in a foreign country? One of the biggest ways we can save money while traveling is to stay with friends (or friends of friends) and family. We love meeting new people and always enjoy talking to people who live in other countries. We have met and stayed with some new friends through couch surfing, etc. and have really enjoyed those experiences, but it’s always nice to know that you and your host have a friend in common. If you know someone who would be willing to host us for a night or two and you wouldn’t mind sharing their name, country and city here, we’ll get back with you if we will be heading their way. Most of the money we save by staying with friends and family will go back into our volunteer budget, so you or your friends would be helping us out and allowing us to help others in the future. Thanks so much in advance for taking a minute to think of anyone who might be able to host us in a foreign country and letting us know here. ]]> https://valerieandgriffin.com/know-a-non-profit-wed-love-to-help-them/feed/ 0