Features
Need stocking stuffers? Look for these travel trinkets
EDMOND — EDITOR’S NOTE: With the holiday season in full swing, The Edmond Sun and the online travel site TravelBlur.com are teaming up to bring you “Gifts and Gadgets,” a four-part series highlighting holiday gift ideas for the traveler.
Charlie Price
Travel Blur
So, Christmas is next week and you’re scrambling to find those last few presents. If there’s an adventurer on your holiday gift list, these helpful travel tools and toys are sure to please.
Get it in Writing
A picture is worth a thousand words and photographs make for great travel keepsakes, but snapshots can’t capture every memory. My advice: write it down or you’ll forget it.
Help your world wanderer preserve those special moments with the gift of a travel journal. Moleskine (about $20, www.moleskine.com) makes a large line of notebooks and journals, and its City Notebooks include a city and subway map and street index. City-specific journals are available for 26 European, 14 North American and four Asian cities.
A Step in the Right Direction
Even the worldly wayfarer occasionally will become lost and confused. It’s aggravating, but easy to do in an unfamiliar location. That’s why I always travel with a compass and a good map.
Several companies sell a wide variety of travel compasses. Mine is built into a carabiner so it clips right onto my backpack. You also can keep your globetrotter properly oriented with a StreetWise map. Laminated for sturdiness and accordion-fold for ease of use, StreetWise (starting at $6.95, www.streetwisemaps.com) has 130 maps for cities, regions and countries in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia.
Do You See What I See
Birdwatchers aren’t the only trekkers who benefit from binoculars. Give your sightseer a closeup view of the mountain peak or the distant shore with a set of compact binoculars or a monocular. Both are available at many retailers and prices vary depending on brand and magnification.
Right Tool for the Job
Question: When do you need a screwdriver?
Answer: When you can’t find one.
Don’t let your traveler find himself stranded without the proper tools to handle an equipment emergency. Get your handy Andy a Swiss Army knife or a multitool so he can deal with any on-the-road fix-it job. Victorinox (www.swissarmy.com), Wenger (www.wengerna.com) and Leatherman (www.leatherman.com) make pocket tools with various combinations of knife blades, screwdrivers, tweezers, nail files, pliers, wire cutters, bottle openers and corkscrews. You might even find one with a kitchen sink. Just remind your traveler to check with the Transportation Security Administration before flying with these items.
Small extras are always fun Christmas finds and these travel trinkets make great stocking stuffers.
CHARLIE PRICE, an Edmond resident, writes online at www.travelblur.com.
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