I was just back in the States for a week or so, flying home to surprise my parents for Christmas. The flight really put a strain on my budget since it was a last minute idea and I was paying holiday rates, so I limited myself to spending no more than $150 on new gear. Time was short, as well, so I was limited to things that would ship immediately. This is what I ended up with:

Alfa USB Long-Range WiFi AdapterI love my Macbook Pro but I’ve never been happy with the wifi reception — while traveling with a friend, he could regularly see 3-4 more hotspots on his Android smart phone than I could with my laptop. I remembered reading a post a couple of years ago where Anil over at FoxNomad had mentioned a wifi booster of some sort, so I poked around the interwebs a bit and found the Alfa USB long-range WiFi adapter on Amazon. At less than $30, it seemed worth trying, even though I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get it to work on my Mac.

After some head-scratching and digging through forums I did get the driver and application installed and I can say that so far it’s speeding up my download speeds and grabbing signals I can’t see without it (I’ll post a full review after I’ve had a chance to test it). The app is a little clunky and it’s a pain screwing on the antenna every time but if that means I can work in my room rather than in a hotel lobby or at that cafe across the street, I’m all for it.

It’s fairly easy to use: screw in the antenna, plug in the USB and launch their app. It will show a list of wifi nodes. Select one, click ‘connect’, wait for it to log in and then switch from wifi to the the USB connection in your network preferences and you’re done. I haven’t found a way to get it to remember passwords, though, so it can be a hassle typing it in each time.

They offer two additional antennas that should reach even further but I wasn’t able to have them delivered in time. I don’t know how durable it is –it’s made of cheap plastic– but it weighs nothing and if I can get 6 months use out of it it’s worth the price to me.

Barska 10×40 MonocularWhen I first started this trip, I brought a sharp pair of $300 Nikon binoculars. Unfortunately, they weighed two pounds so they tended to stay in my main pack and didn’t see much use. After six months on the road they disappeared, either while in a bus’s cargo hold or from my hotel room.

There are times when I’d like to see something closer up, so a monocular seemed like a good option. It only cost $40, has the same power as binoculars and only weighs 9 ounces, so I don’t mind cramming it into a corner of my day bag. And at that price, I’m not paranoid about it walking off again. The optics are pretty bright and sharp. It is a little slow to focus but I can live with that considering how little I’ll be using it.

Timbuk2 Messenger BagI’ve been really happy with my old Timbuk2 Swig backpack but after almost two years of daily abuse, it was starting to come undone. The stitching was coming apart on the main strap and –more importantly– the waterproof rubberized layer was in ribbons.

I generally carry my laptop and camera with me, so being safe from an unexpected downpour is pretty important to me. And the Swig certainly performed well in that regard — my only real complaint was that it was just a hair too small for the SLR and required careful packing to fit everything in.

I’ve used Timbuk2 messenger bags for years — my main transportation has been a motorcycle for a decade or more and I have always been impressed with their durability and ability to keep the wet stuff on the outside of the bag. This one features a lot of pockets, which is always welcome, and has a narrow pocket for the laptop (though not a padded laptop sleeve as the old pack had). Everything fits easily and so far it’s comfortable. I generally carry my day pack slung off one shoulder so it feels pretty natural.

At $70 for the large size, it’s more than I wanted to spend but I expect to get 2-3 years worth of use from it. Considering that I once spent $50 on a fancy high-tech shirt that I threw in the trash just 2 weeks into my trip, I think it’s a good investment.

Added anything new to your kit lately?

Please note that these are affiliate links, meaning that if you purchase one of these items from Amazon I’ll get 4% of the sale. Buy that monocular and I’ll make a buck and change. Buy a Mercedes and I’ll name my first born after you :)

I’ve continued to whittle away at the chiropractic nightmare that is my backpack, mostly by ditching a small item here or there, or clothing I wasn’t using. It all added up to a few pounds in savings, but a recent trip with just my daypack convinced me it was time to cut deeper.

I made a short two-day run to nearby Ayutthaya and decided to leave my main pack behind in storage. The experience of getting off the bus with only a single, 25-pound pack was a revelation. I was able to actually get out and walk around, getting a feel for my surroundings, before going to search for a room for the night. Before, I would have been lugging both my daypack and my larger, slightly-heavier main pack and would usually just limp straight to a guesthouse listed in a guidebook, sweating and miserable.

The writing was on the wall: my beloved camping setup was going home. It made no sense to lug it around when I wouldn’t need it for 6 months or more. I’d bragged to myself that the full setup was “only 7 pounds” total, but the truth is that it all weighed in closer to 10. The ground sheet for the tent and a bag full of essential non-essentials like tent pole-splints, patches, and gadgets all added up quickly.

I’d already ditched the ThermaRest sleeping pad back in Trat — I’d put it in my daypack and was walking out of the hotel early one morning, bound for the Post Office to mail it home. The three women who worked the front office were all sleeping behind the counter and I noticed that one was sleeping face-down on bare tile. Sometimes the Universe is subtle and sometimes it’s not — I left it with them.

So today I bought a box from the Post Office and crammed it full. The sleeping bag wouldn’t fit, but it truly is only a pound and packs small, so I’m keeping it for now. Eight pounds and $30 lighter, my full setup weighs in somewhere around 42-43 pounds now and I can easily fit everything in one bag. Still heavy, but a lot more manageable.

Who wants to camp in this heat, anyway?

After the technical clothing fiasco, I ran out and bought myself a couple of shirts from a tourist-oriented street vendor in Banglamphoo. They’re made out of this radical light-weight, paper-thin, fast-drying material called cotton. They’re both a bit hippy-ish and I paid double what they were really worth, of course, but the Thai markets don’t exactly stock a lot of clothing in the husky sizes. I wear one while leaving the other to soak in the sink.

I later bought a new cowboy hat in Chinatown — total cost: 50 baht ($1.50 US). The vendor patiently explained –with sign language and a calculator– that I could buy 3 for only 35 baht each. Lacking a extra head or two, I splurged and paid full price. I often crush it flat to store in my pack, so it’s developing character at a rapid pace.

The Thais think it’s hilarious when I wear it — I get endless smiles and laughs. I can only assume that there’s some cultural reference of which I’m unaware — knowing my luck, it implies I have sex with farm animals or such. I’m not too worried — as Ray Wylie Hubbard says: “Screw you, I’m from Texas.”

While in Chinatown, I also picked up a decent-quality Chinese Spyderco knock-off with an easy action — it can be opened with the flick of the wrist. It also has what appears to be a seatbelt cutter and a punch for knocking out windows — pretty serious business for only 300 baht. I have a Leatherman Juice CS4, which I love, but getting the right blade out and functional in a hurry is difficult. If things get ugly, there’s a 50/50 chance I’d be defending myself with a nail file.

As for the goodies I brought with me, my favorite purchase so far has been the
Swig Medium Laptop Backpack. Made of durable ballistic nylon, it has enough room to safely and comfortably hold my laptop, SLR, guidebook, and whatever other heavy stuff I’m dumb enough to carry with me on a daily basis. The waterproofing is very good and easily withstood several hard rains on a motorcycle before I left home. Bonus feature: a bottle-opener is built into the shoulder strap.

With great dread and deep-rooted fear, I crammed everything into my pack and maneuvered it onto my poor bathroom scale. I’d hoped to come in under 50 pounds, but the last minute “oh, I just have to take this” syndrome bit hard and the final weight was 57.5 pounds. I’m crying as I type this.

I’ll have to do some serious weeding over the next few weeks and I think I can shave a few pounds off that total, but it’s still a ridiculous amount of weight to lug around.

The only person to guess within one pound was my cousin, Donna, who guessed 58.5 pounds. She didn’t ask for a specific amulet, but knowing her well I’ll try to find one that will grant her peace from her crazy family.

Since she is a relative, and to avoid any cries of nepotism, I’m also declaring the second-closest guess a winner as well. That is Scott from Idaho, who nearly nailed it at 59.2 pounds. After learning he’d won, he replied back that he’d recently met a new special lady-friend, so I’ll try to find one to keep stoking the fires of love.

Congrats to the winners (I plan on visiting the amulet market in the next few days) and a big thanks to everyone who played along!

Continuing my spending spree (which is thankfully almost over), I’ve added a Marmot PreCip Traveler rain jacket that I picked up on sale at the REI Outlet for $65.00. It’s windproof, reasonably waterproof, and only weighs 1 pound. I also picked up a cheap silk sleep sheet at the same time, saving $15 off the in-store price. It’s a goofy shade of green, but who cares? I’ll only use it in the dark. It weighs 4oz and rolls up to half the size of a regular sleep sheet — in-store pickup took care of any shipping costs.

A North Face Windwall windproof fleece was purchased on sale at REI for $75.00 and has been my winter jacket of choice. It really does cut the wind well, only succumbing at 40+ mph on the motorbike. Combined with the rain jacket, I’ve found it quite comfortable in temps as low as 30 degrees F — even on the bike.

For Christmas, my brother gave me a Leatherman Juice CS4 pocket multi-tool which is compact and has all the tools I need, plus a corkscrew. A buddy was giving me a hard time about the, ahem, size of my multi-tool — waving his hi-tech 500-blade wonder about. His had everything but a corkscrew — I pointed out that while his might save him from a crashed airplane, mine was much more likely to get me laid.

Another gift was this rocking iPhone battery, the Kensington Mini Battery Extender, which gives me another 3/4 charge and works as a backup charging cable. My next plan is to hack my iPhone to work with a Bluetooth traveling keyboard for times when I’m out of power on the MacBook (watch for a how-to article soon).

Edit: I’d be remiss not to mention my Dorfman Pacific All Season Crushable Hat. Crushable and lightweight, it’s a much-needed accessory for my bald head.

I’m getting close enough to my final load out for the trip that I’ll soon start test-packing and seeing how just how much this is going to hurt. It might be a good excuse for a contest — guess how much crap Wes will carry around the world?

See my original, interactive gear list here.