The Adventurer's Gear Thread

I’m in my mid-late forties and I like to take naps every afternoon I can get away with it too!

When I was in Morocco in 2014, my wife had terminal cancer and it was about a year before she died, so we took lots of rest stops and naps in the afternoon. We still did and saw amazing things, as you can see from the pictures above, but we took our time about it. That’s why it took us a month to see what would have taken about two weeks if she had been healthy.

My new wife would really like to show her 16 year old daughter a third world country and how most of the world actually lives, and Morocco is on the list for our next trip when we can actually travel again.

de Stokesay said:

I’m in my mid-late forties and I like to take naps every afternoon I can get away with it too!

When I was in Morocco in 2014, my wife had terminal cancer and it was about a year before she died, so we took lots of rest stops and naps in the afternoon. We still did and saw amazing things, as you can see from the pictures above, but we took our time about it. That’s why it took us a month to see what would have taken about two weeks if she had been healthy.

My new wife would really like to show her 16 year old daughter a third world country and how most of the world actually lives, and Morocco is on the list for our next trip when we can actually travel again.

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I'm sorry for your loss, my friend. I'm glad you are getting back on the road. The world has so much to see!

Morocco is an amazing place. Spent two weeks there once upon a time. Crossed the Atlas Mountains. Watched camels wading in the surf on the Atlantic coast. Explored the ruins of Roman cities. Amazing. Now I am 62 and am not quite ready to give it up yet... But I know the gale of time is approaching and I’ll soon have to reef my sails. But not quite yet... next summer we are heading east... heading towards retirement and passing through Asia to complete a circumnavigation that has been three years in progress (or 20, depends how you count.) As Blackthorn said, it’s been a good life. I’ve got no right to complain. My wife and I were discussing it the other day, and we are so thankful that we chose to adventure during our prime years (living overseas and spending money on experiences rather than objects). We’ve known so many people who said they’d save it for their retirement years, and then fate tragically stepped in to prevent them from doing so. We are grateful for every moment. It’s been especially gratifying to be so blessed as to raise our kids overseas and introduce them to so much. Sigh. I’m rambling. Wishing everyone a 2021 that allows travel... and satisfying memories of a life well lived for those who are hanging up their hat and whip.

Tiki Tom said:

Morocco is an amazing place. Spent two weeks there once upon a time. Crossed the Atlas Mountains. Watched camels wading in the surf on the Atlantic coast. Explored the ruins of Roman cities. Amazing. Now I am 62 and am not quite ready to give it up yet... But I know the gale of time is approaching and I’ll soon have to reef my sails. But not quite yet... next summer we are heading east... heading towards retirement and passing through Asia to complete a circumnavigation that has been three years in progress (or 20, depends how you count.) As Blackthorn said, it’s been a good life. I’ve got no right to complain. My wife and I were discussing it the other day, and we are so thankful that we chose to adventure during our prime years (living overseas and spending money on experiences rather than objects). We’ve known so many people who said they’d save it for their retirement years, and then fate tragically stepped in to prevent them from doing so. We are grateful for every moment. It’s been especially gratifying to be so blessed as to raise our kids overseas and introduce them to so much. Sigh. I’m rambling. Wishing everyone a 2021 that allows travel... and satisfying memories of a life well lived for those who are hanging up their hat and whip.

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Tiki Tom, I see you live in Vienna. I spent two weeks in Austria last year, beginning and ending in Vienna. We spent most of our time in Salzburg, but a couple of days in Halstatt. We loved every minute of it. Austria is one of my favorite places I have ever been. I wish I had made. time for the Lipizanner Stallions, or however you spell it.

de Stokesay said:

My new wife would really like to show her 16 year old daughter a third world country and how most of the world actually lives, and Morocco is on the list for our next trip when we can actually travel again.

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For this purpose I can strongly recommend Nicaragua. Lovely people, very welcoming, yet what they have stacked against them would shock most North Americans. A land where poets are national celebrities. And as a bonus, their dialect of Spanish is a particularly easy one to understand, in my experience [compared to, say, that of northern Mexico].

Blackthorn said:

Tiki Tom, I see you live in Vienna. I spent two weeks in Austria last year, beginning and ending in Vienna. We spent most of our time in Salzburg, but a couple of days in Halstatt. We loved every minute of it.

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Yes, Austria is a wonderland for travelers, so beautiful and historic. It was purely by accident that I got a job here. I had been applying for jobs all over the place and this one just happened to be the one that came through. A match made in heaven. One of the best things about Vienna is it’s location. So much of Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa is just a short airline hop away. In my next life, I want to come back as my kids.

de Stokesay said:

My new wife would really like to show her 16 year old daughter a third world country and how most of the world actually lives.

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Great idea. Morocco would be terrific. Another easy-to-get-to idea is Sarajevo. Wife and I went there last year. It is called the Jerusalem of the Balkans. I have never seen such centuries old diversity in such a small city. Take a few steps and you cross from the Muslim to the Eastern Orthodox neighborhood. There are also Catholic and Jewish areas. A line in the main street marks the boundary beyond which alcohol cannot be sold. And the city still has the scars and blasted buildings from the war in the 1990s. Definitely a place that makes a person give serious thought to the problems of the world ...but also gives hope.

Blackthorn said:

I'm sorry for your loss, my friend. I'm glad you are getting back on the road. The world has so much to see!

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Thank you. Yes, I can’t wait until travel is once again possible. My new wife and I bought an adventure bike in August and want to do some travelling on it. Weekend camping trips, the. SoCal to visit some of my family, then someday when there’s more time available Istanbul to Beijing via the old silk routes through the ‘Stans.

Tiki Tom said:

Morocco is an amazing place. Spent two weeks there once upon a time. Crossed the Atlas Mountains. Watched camels wading in the surf on the Atlantic coast. Explored the ruins of Roman cities. Amazing. Now I am 62 and am not quite ready to give it up yet... But I know the gale of time is approaching and I’ll soon have to reef my sails. But not quite yet... next summer we are heading east... heading towards retirement and passing through Asia to complete a circumnavigation that has been three years in progress (or 20, depends how you count.) As Blackthorn said, it’s been a good life. I’ve got no right to complain. My wife and I were discussing it the other day, and we are so thankful that we chose to adventure during our prime years (living overseas and spending money on experiences rather than objects). We’ve known so many people who said they’d save it for their retirement years, and then fate tragically stepped in to prevent them from doing so. We are grateful for every moment. It’s been especially gratifying to be so blessed as to raise our kids overseas and introduce them to so much. Sigh. I’m rambling. Wishing everyone a 2021 that allows travel... and satisfying memories of a life well lived for those who are hanging up their hat and whip.

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Morocco is indeed an amazing place, and I’m so lucky that I was able to spend a whole month there! It sounds like you have made similar choices to what I did. Good luck on your circumnavigation. I intend to circumnavigate by both motorcycle as well as sailboat. I just turned 47 so I’m hopeful that I have a bit of time left to adventure. I’ve seen parts of 5 continents so far but there’s so much more out there!

Cornelius said:

For this purpose I can strongly recommend Nicaragua. Lovely people, very welcoming, yet what they have stacked against them would shock most North Americans. A land where poets are national celebrities. And as a bonus, their dialect of Spanish is a particularly easy one to understand, in my experience [compared to, say, that of northern Mexico].

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Thanks for the recommendation Cornelius, I haven’t been to Nicaragua yet, although I did spend three weeks in Guatemala a couple of years ago. The only catch is that my wife’s ex-husband is quite protective of his daughter (and rightly so) so it would have to be a place that he deems to be “safe”. I’ll definitely keep it in mind though and perhaps work him up to the idea.

Tiki Tom said:

Great idea. Morocco would be terrific. Another easy-to-get-to idea is Sarajevo. Wife and I went there last year. It is called the Jerusalem of the Balkans. I have never seen such centuries old diversity in such a small city. Take a few steps and you cross from the Muslim to the Eastern Orthodox neighborhood. There are also Catholic and Jewish areas. A line in the main street marks the boundary beyond which alcohol cannot be sold. And the city still has the scars and blasted buildings from the war in the 1990s. Definitely a place that makes a person give serious thought to the problems of the world ...but also gives hope.

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I have a bunch of army buddies who were in Sarajevo in the 1990s and I’ve heard that it’s a completely different place now (fortunately)!

We were actually supposed to have gotten married in Slovenia this past August and were hoping to visit Sarajevo on our honeymoon, but obviously the whole plan got scrapped due to Covid.

I had trips planned to both Morocco and Namibia this year that had to be scrapped...

I feel your pain!

^^^^^ Yes, I can’t believe that it has now been a full year since I travelled outside of Austria. Funny to think that, maybe, from the early 1960s until 2020 all of us were experiencing the golden age of travel and didn’t even know it at the time.

Doctor Damage said:

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Thank you for resurrecting this thread. I've been enjoying it very much.
I wish I had some pictures but last year I spent a week cave diving and exploring ruins of South Texas missions. I'm looking for ideas for this year's exploration.

This vest looks to be made from a really heaven cotton or cotton/blend. I like how it has a collar, too.

Doctor Damage said:

This vest looks to be made from a really heaven cotton or cotton/blend. I like how it has a collar, too.

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Hats off to the men and women in the field. That photo made me think of the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) and the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), although there are plenty of other organizations and charities also doing good work. I only single out WFP and UNHCR because I once knew a woman in Vienna who had worked in both those orgs and could tell a good story over a beer.

Adventure Gear?
”Just me and my Swiss Army Knife” *



* Lyric from an adventuresome Jimmy Buffett song.

Something a little different, as I'm finally travelling again.... On Saturday, I'll be taking the long haul, via Dubai, to Beijing for the first time since 2019. so pleased to be headed back into the classroom again rather than having to do it online, for all sorts of reasons. Given it's already going to be very hot at the other end (and London is rapidly sliding towards the usual Summer hellheat), an actual jacket isn't an option, so it'll be a vest for me. Last time I went out there I experimented with a cheap canvas MC style vest - basically a sleeveless Type 3 with two inner pockets. This worked quite well for its intended purpose, which was to keep passport, tickets, phones, wallets, mp3 player.... all in one place, leaving my trouser pockets empty, the vest being easily shed onto the scanner, making processing through security fast and efficient (particularly important as I'll have to do it more than once each journey with the changing flights). Turned out to be qualitatively better than its cheapo status suggested, but it had its drawbacks. The mandarin collar didn't let me fold a shirt collar out over the top, and more significantly, I wasn't so keen on the laced sides. I'm undecided of its future now; I have an inclination towards patching something up, which that might be good for, or it'll go on ebay.

The value of the 'sleeveless jacket for hot weather travel' concept proven, I spent a little more on a sale in early 2020 on one of these from Helston's, a French motorcycle kit manufacturer:



This promo image is slightly odd, in that the black vest, which I chose, is made to the same style as the tan one here - i.e. the same mix of leather and canvas on the bottom, flapped pocket (not all leather), and the black canvas is a uniform colour, not partially faded. I can only guess that this was a prototype used for the marketing images and some details were later changed. Bonus ball: the branding is much less obvious on the actual item, with only a very tiny label on the front. I'd rather no external branding at all, but it is what it is. I think this will blend in nicely with a cod-50s casual denim / workwear look, as I tend to wear travelling.

No interior pockets, presumably as it is designed to be accessed on the go, without having to unzip. Those front pockets are, however, pretty huge. The angle, top-entry pockets go all the way down, and the flapped front pocket is on the top of those. One of the big pockets can swallow a large novel if needsbe - though I plan one side to carry my passport in its holder and all the tickets, the other the 5x4x1 protective case that holds my mp3 player and its headphones. My UK phone will go in one side, my china phone the other. The smaller pockets at the front will carry wallets and keys. All the pocket space I need, not so spread out that it's hard to keep track of stuff.

Oh.... and there's a massive pocket on the back, which I'm guessing is intended to stow gloves or a rainmac or something. It's not that accessible on the move and probably not the best choice for security in crowded places, but it's a good place to stow a cap / novel / newspaper I might not want / need close to hand en route. Currently it has a couple of Bronson A3 caps tucked in it for kicking about in over a weekend / evenings in Beijing when I want an easily pocketed cap on my head and don't need to worry about keeping the Sun off the same.

Sizing is on the small side; I'm not exactly small, but at 46 Chest / 42 Waist I wouldn't have considered myself an XXXL. (In the UK, I vary between XL and XXL, in the US L and XL, sometimes even medium.) I'll get some decent photos done en route at the weekend.

Looking forward to finally wearing this.... I bought it in a sale in early 2020 (FCMoto.de currently have them down to about GBP60; I think I paid just a little more than that. Full retail is £100ish), but then covid hit and this is the first time I'll have flown since then.

In the past, I've boarded with a briefcase-backpack with my laptop and work bits in it, and a separate, smaller bag with all the other bits, but this time I plan to do without the smaller bag and just use the vest. (I will probably slip an Indy bag into the hold luggage, though, just in case I want it out there, as it's likely to be too hot for more than a shirt in downtown Beijing most days there. Air conditioned airports and planes are another matter!).

I am definitely in the market for a nice light cotton travel vest that does not scream photographer/poser!!.

fireman said:

I am definitely in the market for a nice light cotton travel vest that does not scream photographer/poser!!.

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One of our members posted in an old thread the following advice (sorry, can't remember the name/link):

Don't wear Khaki Travel vests in the city. One of the primary reasons to wear one is to conceal a pistol. Most of us shooters ASSUME that anyone wearing a khaki vest or a fanny pack is carrying, badly. Just a heads up. I hope I didn't burst the bubble there, but khaki vests are kind of notorious. Note khaki vests—you could probably buy an olive drab one from Cabelas's and be OK. For some reason, no one carries in a safari jacket.

Being mistaken for an armed civilian is probably not an issue outside the US, to be honest. Here in Canada you'd just look like the sort of middle-aged man who never married and is hard-core into vintage home "hi-fi" stereos and builds kit models of WW2 tanks and drives a dusty but rust-free Corolla and wears eyeglasses with flip-up dark lenses. But yeah, I hear you about it being a bit oddball. That said, who cares? haha