Travel gadgets
Spot Personal TrackerNo, not a personally trained bloodhound (though I like the idea of that too) but a simple, yet high-tech reassurance tool for the gung-ho globetrotter or off-track adventurer. The Spot is a handheld GPS tracking device that lets family and friends know your exact, em, spot anywhere in the world and shows it to them on Google Maps.
Just get yourself a Spot Personal Tracker, register with FindMeSpot (about €80) and you can wander to your heart’s content knowing you can send back a heartening little wave by e-mail or text – with your longitude, latitude, nearest town and map link, of course. More extreme Spotees can sign up for Spotcasting that gives real-time continuous tracking (how many a parent might like a teen tracker version).
However there’s a much more serious side to Spot than digital postcards from the edge – it has powerful SOS functions too. A help button sends out your location at five minute intervals, that you need help, but it’s not life-threatening. The Spot doesn’t use mobile coverage, but connects with the Globalstar satellite network to stay in touch just about everywhere. And one press of a 911 button (112 over here) broadcasts an alert to local emergency service responders, and keeps blasting it out for up to two weeks. Should be long enough to have you plucked out the jungle, even an urban one.
- Cost €195 at Great Outdoors, Dublin.
SealLine waterproof rucksackNot surprisingly, it's something of a preoccupation for the outdoor activist: keeping the gear in your rucksack dry. Now SealLine has stepped up to the mark with its mammoth Pro Pack, capable of taking a quick ducking off a kayak, say, never mind the occasional not-so-soft day under canvass or sail.
With a body of strong RF-welded vinyl, a roll-top Dry Seal opening to keep it watertight, massive 115-litre capacity and rugged scrim-reinforced sides and bottom, the Pro Pack is bouncer-tough and big enough to haul an expedition’s costume changes for Shirley Bassey.
It has an adjustable, ventilated suspension system, with padded shoulder and waist straps to make the load carrying easy. These are removable for more convenient conventional travel – because the Pro Pack’s macho good looks could give you cred in any travelling party. Simply beat it up a bit and accessorise with exotic labelling.
SealLine is an interesting outfit, set up in Seattle by a couple of ex-Boeing guys laid-off in a 1970s “restructuring”. That’s still their base, with their other main manufacturing facility in Cork. A few retailers here carry some of their products, but not extensively it seems, which is a pity given this is a top-speced brand with a strong Irish angle.
- Cost $169.95 (€128), from moontrail.com.
Wind-up LED LanternHere's a neat little multi-tasker for your next festival campsite or hunting-fishing, find-yourself excursion: a Wind-Up LED Lantern. You can charge it fully in advance from an adapter or your car's 12V socket to give about four hours full power, which, while not exactly being the Fastnet Light, will let you see what you've fallen over in the tent. There are two brightness settings.
You can then top-up the juice with a bit of elbow grease, say five minutes’ winding, giving you about another half an hour. Unless you’ve arms like Popeye, you’re certainly not going to outwind its LEDs, which last an environmentally enlightened 50,000 hours of use. A bonus is a USB slot that will recharge some, but not all personal electronics, such as a phone or MP3 player. It all depends on your voltage. And your patience.
There are a quite a few of these gadgets around – this space-saving collapsible one is available from Argos.
- Cost €36.78, from argos.ie
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