5 Essential Winter Travel Gadgets

5  Essential Winter Travel Gadgets

Grip Track

It does not happen often, but when it does, it is bad. Snowstorms in NYC are a pain for drivers. Not only is your car gets snowed in, but you will also be piled on by the snowplows if you are parked on the street. And since the actual snowfall does not last long, you would have to deal with the frozen ice that will be left on the ground. I had to deal with this a few time since I got my car. Most of the time had to dig down to the asphalt to get some grip under the tires. And on our recent trip up north, I had some issues getting up a hill after a snow storm (more here: Travel Essentials of Nearcation). Grip Track, laid under the spinning tires, would give some traction, especially for front-drive cars. This could be helpful in the snow as well as on the icy roads, mud, and loose gravel.


Metal-rimmed snow shovel

Shovel, of course, is very useful to dig out your car if you are caught in a snow storm. During travel, especially during winter and in places known to get snow, you want a compact shovel that is with you throughout the season, packed away in the trunk or another compartment. I have learned it the hard way to keep one around in the car as soon as the temperature dips below 40. Last year I found and purchased a foldable metal shovel, similar to this one: Aluminum Sport Utility Shovel. While most shovels will do the job of digging, they are not all made the same. I had a plastic one previously and it barely lasted a season, and I looked like I was playing in the sand box when trying to dig my car out.



Ice scraper

Cars come equipped with defroster on the front windshield and in the rear. The older models might not have these or working as well. An ice scrapper that heats up on its own would help clear out the snow and ice from the side windows. This gadget plugs into the car's cigarette lighter. Small and convenient in size it can be easily stored in the trunk. My preference, though, is a standard ice scraper. I had a couple of heated ice scarpers, however, neither worked very well. Maybe if I combined the two into one, they might have had enough heat to melt the ice. The human powered scrapper works well with my cars defrosters.



Touchscreen Winter Gloves


Touchscreens on the smartphones are sensitive and react to the energy in our fingers. In the cold winter months, taking your gloves off to work your phone is not much fun in 10 degree weather. Hence the innovation to make gloves function with the smartphones. Yarn woven into these gloves mimics the energy and accuracy of human touch, allowing gloved hands to manipulate touchscreen devices. This cold-weather accessory also protects screens from smudges while using the phone by wiping down the screen with the material. The touchscreen gloves are warm enough to stand up to harsh winter conditions, but are soft and breathable.


Ear Warmers with Headphones
Just because it is cold outside, does not mean you would want to stop listening to your favorite tunes while en route. However, listening to regular earphones would leave your ears vulnerable to freezing temperatures.  Ear warmers with headphones, such as Urban Headphones Ear Warmer, are a great solution. Their behind-the-head design snuggles the back of the head without disheveling hairdos, while delivering high-definition stereo sound on your walk or run.

Ears are warm but your head is cold and you still want to listen to fav tunes?
There is a hat for that -

Sound Disk Sports Beanie
The disks in the cap are positioned on either side, partially behind the ears. They can be adjusted to fit over the ears to drawn out the sound. Though while traveling, placing slightly off, would let listen to music and be aware of your surroundings at the same time. Beanie's sound disk connection also comes with built-in microphone for use with iPhone®, Android based smartphones, and other mobile devices.




Did You Know?:
Cold can decrease your smartphone's battery life. When the temperature dips below freezing, the lithium-ion batteries can loose some of their charge. However, this is not permanent. Best operating temperature for these type of phones is 32 degrees to 95 degrees F (0 degrees to 35 degrees C). Stepping inside a warm place and restarting your phone should bring the power levels back up.

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New Cool Up-and-Coming Travel Gadgets

Charge It Up

Virtual Charging
Charging pads are making a come back after a rough start with upgrade in technology. They are easier to use and are now much more efficient. The charging pads utilize inductive charging, which requires a charger and your gadget to be touching to get the juice across. Though if Apple has a say in it, these will be outdated soon enough. It recently applied for wireless-charging patent, technology that would even remove the one wire left over that powers up the charging pads.

Cool and Green

Collapsible solar light

This light is powered by the power of the sun. One full charge can last for 6-12 hours depending on usage.
Makes it a great gadget to have around during emergencies and power outages.
Also since it has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and weighs only 3.8 ounces making great on trips as well.
As yo can see from the picture, the light collapses to a flat compact and easily transportable packet.
It is durable, waterproof, and reliable in extreme weather conditions. The 10 LED lights inside can brighten a space of up to 15 square feet, producing six to 12 hours of light after being charged in direct or indirect sunlight for four to six hours.

Fit Everything

Fitbug Orb

The Orb looks like a watch, though instead of the clock face there is button-shaped step tracker. It can function as both as a clip on to carry around or as a wristband. Orb tracks activity and sleep, including steps taken, calories burned, distance covered, walking pace, and sleep efficiency. You can also log food eaten and track your progress on the website fitbug.com


Fitbit Flex:

The newest version Fitbit for 2013 is the Bluetooth wristbands. It monitors your activity throughout the day. And as a bracelet, it is more likely to stick around with you since you dont have to remember to clip it on as you go about your tasks. Fitbit Flex syncs to Android phones as well as iPhones and iPads through Bluetooth and website. The sensors send data to your devices, giving you a readout of distance traveled, calories burned, number of active minutes and hours slept. It can also provide information on quality of sleep.
Flex also has a built-in wake alarm and is water resistant, great feature for the road.

Basis fitness watch:

This fitness tracker looks a lot more like a watch. It has a rubber wristband and clock face that displays  readouts for your heart rate, activity, sleep and your goals. Like the other fitness trackers, Basis also has a site with dashboard for tracking all the activity and sleep patterns. Though, unlike other devices on the market, Basis does all this for you automatically without having to change the modes.

New Audio Tech

Audio-Technica SonicSport Headphones

SonicSport in-ear series of headphones are designed for fitness and workouts. They have a headband cord that wraps around the back of the head to keep it in place and fit comfortably. The new active-fit earphone design has a flexible pivot that provides comfortable in-ear positioning, and directs the sound toward the ear canal for maximum bass impact. The SonicSport headphone have angled housing that moves the cords behind your neck and out of your way. The design also allows awareness of outside sounds. Making it great for biking and hiking.


Sony Wireless Speakers

These newest egg shaped speakers by Sony have 360 Circle Sound technology. Which means that they distribute sound all around them and not just front and/or back as might other jukeboxes. These speakers measure 2.7 inches in height and only 2.5 inches in width. Making them quite compact and light (4.6oz) for travel. They also have pretty good battery life, which is rated at about 4 hours. Wireless speakers connect to any device, that has it, via Bluetooth.

JBL Charge

This "little" audio powerhouse packs some juice. JBL Charge speaker comes with a high-capacity, 6000mAh Li-ion rechargeable battery that can provide more than 12 hours of playback time on a single charge. And it has amplifier power of 2 x 5-watts, which provide full-range sound. Not only does it sound good and lasts long, this gadget can also charge up your other mobile devices. It has a built-in battery and USB port to connect your gadget. Similar to Sony speakers, the Charge connects to any device via Bluetooth. It will be available in April of this year.

What are some of the newest gadgets you can't wait to get your hands on? Let us know below

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Travel Essentials of Nearcation

Our getaway during the New Years break:

During the long weekend, we took a road trip north to Dutchess County. I have been there before as I graduated from a college in the area. Though that was awhile ago and quite different.

Our first stop was the Brotherhood Winery. This was our second time there and we stopped in for a refill of their great tasting wines. While at the winery, snow storm began. It is not like the snowy rain in the city. After only a few minutes, I had to clean off my car. And because of the storm we had to shorten our itinerary.
Our next stop was Jenkins Orchards, where we stocked up on everything apple and then some.
The next stop on our journey was a place for dinner. We went to Brasserie 292 in Poughkeepsie, aka Po-town. It has great reviews and the menu sounded good. We were not disappointed. While the prices were not something a college person would afford, the atmosphere, the food and the service were great.

For our overnight stay we stopped at the Inn the Woods B&B. The place was very nice with a hot tub outdoors that we used for two nights. The breakfast they made was amazing, a three course culinary morning feast. The overall stay would have been even better, if the house was not up on the hill that was covered with wet snow that my car could not scale. The owners cleaned up the driveway upon request and it was smooth sailing afterwards.

For the second day of our trip our plans included more educational sightseeing. The first stop was the Vanderbilt Mansion.


It was a five minute drive from B&B. The house is massive, with each room having its own motive and color, grandiose entrances and furniture. Another mansion we visited was the Mills Mansion. It was a contrast to the Vanderbuilt's. Where that one had walls made of and covered with marble throughout the house, Mills Mansion was made of wood. Other than decor and lifestyles, another thing that I learned during the visit is that the owner, Darius, was very opportunistically smart. During the gold rush, instead of joining the dreamers in digging around, he opened a general store selling those dreamers shovels and other tools and accessories needed for digging. In doing so, he made more money than most of the other venturers for the reaches
Getting to this mansion was another story. Like a few other places in the area, we found out that we cannot trust the directions provided by the GPS. Even if we had the correct address. The park's website also did not provide much information. It was only after we called them directly did we get the right route. Here it is if you are thinking about visiting:
- Use your navigational device to get you to the park's gates. Afterwards, turn off the navigation and keep it on to view the map only
- Go down the Old Post road that will be on your right as you enter the gate. Follow the road past a golf course on right side. Once you pass it, you will see a sign on left for the park. This is where you would enter the Mills Mansion. You should see the building ahead and slightly to the left.
Our third night in the area we spent at the Ashokan Dreams B&B. They have a great loft style first floor room with great views. See pictures below of the views from the large windows and from the hot tub just a few feet outside the house.
We took our Panasonic Lumix with us on the trip to use in the hot tub. Yes, that camera is good to use here too. For more picturesque pictures, my wife had her Canon DSLR camera along.


We also took the iPad with us as each of the B&Bs had free Wi-Fi included. It was good to have that option available but we didn't get to use it much. I wish we did have an iPad waterproof iPad case as then we might have been able to have the iPad with us in the hut tub.


My newest gadget on the trip was the travel sonic toothbrush. At home I use the rotating full size toothbrush and really like brushing with it. Until I came across these travel size brushes, I had no idea battery operated ones existed for travel. These toothbrushes are compact, light, and easy to use. They operate on one AAA battery. My mouth felt very clean during the trip and I didn't have to compromise for the usual tiny not great feeling travel toothbrushes.





Happy New Year!

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My New Year Travel Gadgets Resolutions

My New Year Travel Gadgets Resolutions

I have an update to my resolutions. During our New Year's celebration me and my wife exchanged gifts. My wife surprised me with iOttie Windshield Dashboard Car Mount Holder. It is awesome and it crossed off my first resolution. I have tried it out on one short trip and it worked great. It gripped the dashboard strongly and it was easy to put the phone in it with one-touch. The phone can be viewed in vertical or horizontal positions and it stays firm in both. The stand gives easy access to the phone while in the mount and easy way to remove it quickly from it.

1. Get phone holder for the car. 
Lately I have found myself using my phone for navigation more and more. It is more convenient as it is always with me so I do not have to think if I packed a GPS with me. Also it is easy to look up an address and then map it right after, while on the GPS it was very hard to find an address and took awhile to enter one from scratch. I think another big reason for me to use my phone, is that my Garmin has become outdated. I have had it for around 5 years now. And while I have updated the maps several times, it has become slow, or at least seems slow compared to today's speeds. Currently, I have the phone on the dashboard, which is not optimal location. So it might be time to make a switch fully and get a windshield dashboard car mount phone holder.
What do you think? Should I make the switch over to phone or stick with GPS?


2. FitBit
I have been looking to be more fit for awhile. I have certain goals in mind. Though lately those seem quite far fetched and might need to be adjusted. I am not new to the gym, but I also have not been a regular due to renovations, working long hours, and many other excuses. I have used a site FitDay.com, that is food and exercise log that helped me understand the contents of some of the foods I have been eating. Which helped me to establish a better daily diet.
This is all good and well, but I have not been able to make more progress lately. Especially after I took a hiatus from playing ice hockey. So I have been thinking of getting the Fitbit One Wireless to help me better track my activity during the day as well as sleep. Which, as I have learned, is very important in controlling weight, mood, and overall well being after 30. And hopefully by tracking all this, to get me thinking more about fitness since it is easy to take along anywhere you travel.
Have you tried FitBit? Or maybe something similar. Did it work? Did you find it helpful?

3. Foldable bike
When we moved into our new place, I had to sell my mountain bike. It was large, heavy, and did not fit well anywhere. It was a great bike and I had it for quite a few years. I still want to have a bike and the compromise is a foldable bike. While looking for one, I discovered there are actually full size foldable mountain bikes. I am considering purchasing this one - Shimano Folding Mountain Bike. It's a full size mountain bike that can easily be stored even in the trunk of my sedan. Makes it great to transport for a quick ride around the borough or an overnight biking trip with the guys.
Too good to be true or a good ride option?


4. Rechargeable Power Pack - reserve power for all our portable electronic devices. This can even keep a laptop going if you get caught short without a power supply. With the latest storms and more coming we need one. And it also would be great for traveling when you are stranded because of the storm that passed days before and with the roads closed as we experienced last year. Here is the post regarding our little detour adventure: Two sides to every gadget. The power pack, such as Trent iCarrier 12000mAh Recharable Pack, would have been great to provide power to our GPS and other gadgets while we were looking for a way out.

5. Travel to warm places have not been to before (with gadgets:)
We love our trips around the country where we get to sight see, experience different regions and B&Bs around us, as well as sample many varieties of wine. Though once a year we like to get away from it all and go south to an all-inclusive resort. Where you do not need to carry anything around except for a room key. We have visited our favorite destination, Dominican Republic, several times. A default when we can't find anything else that is available and at good price. Next year we will be trying a new place, be it Jamaica or a destination in South America.

What are your travel or gadget resolutions for the new year? Let us know below

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