Portable Power

I have not yet found the one that works. Though there are more and more new portable power gadget coming up with much better technology.
The power inverter that I got for my car was Xantrex 150 Watts. While I could see it being on and working, it did not provide enough juice to power up some of the electronics in the car. One of them was a small Shark vacuum. Though maybe that vacuum just required a lot more power than the outlet provided. Even so, it might be time to look into an upgrade, since as I mentioned these have more and newer technology in them that provide higher voltage. If someone knows of a power inverter that can easily power something like the hand held vacuum, please leave a comment to let me know.
For now I came across the Cobra CPI 480 400 Watt, which plugs into your car cigarette lighter, but has a regular electrical plug on the other end. Power inverters plug into your vehicle's power port to provide AC power to mobile devices requiring up to 120-watts of continuous power. This one provides up to 400-watts of AC power, hence the name. It has received decent reviews and with 400 watts continuous power handling and 800 Watts peak power might be just enough to power the vacuum and other electronics. Plus the price is not bad at all.
If any one has this one or have seen it work let us know what you think about it

How to Pick Travel Gear by By Laura G on eHow

An interesting short article on some of the things to consider when getting ready for a trip including some pointers on travel gadgets to take along

How to Pick Travel Gear

New Cool Gadget Find of Today:

Walkie talkie watches - Walkie talkie watches are a great way to keep in contact with your travel companions. No more holding a walkie talkie in your hand to communicate with your friends, just talk into your watch like the great spies of the movies and cartoons. Some of these have an option where you do not even have to press a button to talk as they are voice activated.
Since these double as a cool digital wrist watch, you have one less thing to pack. Actually, it would be at least two less things to pack as you would need more than one walkie talkie to communicate. Hence you would not need to find a place for them or look for them in the backpack. Moreover, the walkie talkie watches come with recharchable Li-ion battery and include an AC adapter. So you would not need to replace or carry extra batteries with you on the trip.
As most combos go, you would not expect much of these in terms of functionality either as a watch or a walkie talkie. However, suprisingly these have great features such as LCD display, multiple channels, and a communication range of 5-6 km (3-4 miles). A lot of these also include earpieces for even more covert conversations. With so many cool features these could be great for communicating between cars on a road trip, keeping track of your family or friends while camping, at amusement parks, and much more

Walkie talkie watcheson amazon.com

Spill-proof your travel - long or short

Here is an article on Realsimple.com that describes 10 cool, convenient, and also advance travel mugs that keep you from spilling your tea and coffee while commuting or longer travels and some also tell you the time and prevent from burning your tongue:
10 Spill-Proof Travel Mugs

Digital Luggage Weighing Scales Review on TechyZone

New Cool Gadget Find:

  Today I came across a review for a cool digital luggage scale. I thought I would share this as a follow up to "Portable Luggage Scale" post. The review is by TechyZone blog for the long-named No-More-Excess Digital Luggage Weighing scales. "...The No-More-Excess Funky is one of the best looking baggage weighing scales on the market today. It also happens to be one of the lightest and easiest to use, and may just go on to become the ultimate travel accessory for frequent fliers..."

http://www.techyzone.com/reviews/luggage-weghing-scales-no-more-excess/

Online sites and apps to help plan your trip

The Geek's Travel Guide: 25 Online Apps to Help Plan Your Trip
This guide includes some great information with some useful sites and apps that make traveling more fun and informed. Sites such as GasBuddy, Traffic and Google Maps are those that I use quite often myself. GasBuddy gives you a great overview of gas stations that are nearby and might have the lowest prices or at least closest to your location. I used to use Traffic.com to check out traffic flow before starting driving. Though I forgot to do so quite often. Recently I started using Google Maps instead, which overlays current traffic conditions over the driving directions you are currently viewing. And if I really want to make sure the conditions are good to go, I compare Google traffic with Traffic.com. Maybe too much, though they are quite often different from each other. Hmmm
I will be also checking out Ask City mapping site as I did not know it existed, actually I didn’t realize Ask was still around.
What are some of the apps and sites do you use on regular basis to plan out your trip?