My Pack

My cousin recently asked me for advice on a backpack to buy for travelling.  Of course, I don't have a great wealth of experience in this area, so I can only really discuss the pros and cons of my current pack.  That said, I've been wanting to do a review of my current pack for awhile now, so this is a good opportunity to post some pics so you can all see what I've been lugging around.

I've been using a Pangea 75 from MEC.

The "75" refers to the pack's capacity, in this case 75 litres.  Here's a couple pictures showing the front and back of this bad boy:

You'll notice from the back shot that the suspension system is quite rugged, which is something you're really going to want.  Pay special attention to the "belt" on this pack.  The straps are very wide and well padded, and it allows you to comfortably shift a lot of the weight of the pack off of your shoulders and on to your hips.  The back pad is adjustable top to bottom, which is why I highly recommend actually going into MEC if you're planning on getting a pack.  The pros there can help you to adjust the pack to fit you perfectly before you leave the store.  It's also important to note that we're all built differently, and it may not be possible to adjust a pack to fit your specific body type.  For that reason it's a good idea to have a few packs in mind when going into a store.  Your favorite pack on paper might not turn out to be your favorite pack on your back.

A feature of this backpack that I'm really keen on is the fold-away suspension system, illustrated here:

I can just fold up the suspension system, cover it with this zippered flap, and voila, my backpack is now a duffel bag:

This is particularly nice when you're planning on flying with your backpack as you don't have to worry about loose straps getting caught in things and damaged after you've checked your luggage.  Checking your backpack at the airport segues nicely into the next nice feature of this pack, the removable day pack.

That nice part on the front with the awesome flag on it just happens to zip off.

That's handy for camping when you want to bring a few things on a day hike without having to bring your whole pack with you.  It's also nice when flying because you can use it as your carry-on luggage.

So those were the key points that I was looking at when I got this pack.  Something to consider when looking at a pack like this is that it's not perfect for all travel situations.  For a serious expedition this pack is actually quite small; you can get packs in excess of 90L at MEC.  Also, for the kind of vacation where you're checking into a hotel upon arrival and staying there for the duration of your visit a backpack is a bit unnecessary.  The pack was great in Japan since we were constantly on the move, but for a more stationary trip you can get a LOT more gear in a regular suitcase.

Well folks, that's all I can offer in terms of backpack advice.  It's been awhile since I've talked about travel gear, I hope you all enjoyed the read.  Sorry it's so late getting up, I was playing around with the photos and didn't get it all uploaded in time before I had to leave for work this morning.  See you next week!

Damajagua

Well my friends, we've got our trip to the Dominican Republic booked, and so commences our more in-depth research of what we'll do while we're there.  Of course snorkeling and sitting on the beach top that list, but we're trying to find other forms of entertainment as well.  It was while hunting around for activities being offered outside of our resort that Graydyn came across tales of Damajagua.  This is a river outside of Puerto Plata with a series of waterfalls that people like to hike up and then swim down.  Many tour companies will take you to this area so that you can enjoy the adventure of jumping off waterfalls.  However, they also do their best to downplay the danger in this activity, and I feel that it's my civic duty as someone with a public forum to pass on the warnings that we were coming across in our search for information on Damajagua.  I need not repeat the details, but will simply direct you all to a page created by the bereaved parents of an 11-year old boy who died at these falls in 2005:

http://www.adamvitaterna.com

   That page lists another, more recent death, and the Trip Advisor forums are filled with tales of struggles, injuries, and terrifying close calls.

   So, what's the point of all this, aside from giving fair warning to any of you that may find yourselves in the Dominican Republic?  I think that there are two very strong lessons we can take away from here.  The first is the value of research.  This exactly the kind of activity that appeals to people like me, and had I found myself at my resort looking at a brochure of smiling people leaping from waterfalls into the turquoise waters below I would have signed up in a heartbeat!  It's always a good idea to know the area you're visiting, and if at all possible have a good grasp on the activities you want to do before you ever leave home.

   The second point that I see here is to keep in mind the economic situation of where you are going.  We've become very accustomed to the fact that we live in a sanitized, bubble-wrapped world where attempts are constantly made to mitigate the smallest risk.  Some might say that this has made us safe, but I think that it has also made us complacent.  We have to remember that as we travel to areas hit hard by poverty that we can't count on local governments to monitor and regulate all dangerous activities.  We also have to remember that in a 3rd world country our tour guides are probably desperate for the money, and that's never a safe situation.  In the case of Damajagua I've notice a trend amongst people who have run into trouble; it was raining heavily for days before they went.  An easy trend to spot, and so you would think that the tour operators would simply not allow people to go if the river was running at dangerously high levels, but that will not be the case if you're in a part of the world where those tour operators are relying on you going on this tour in order to feed their families that evening.

   So where does that put us?  In a dangerous situation to be sure.  That's not to say though that we need to remain in our safe little Canadian bubble, it just means that we have to adjust our thinking a little bit.  Learn from the tragedies of others that we can't always count on guides and tour operators to watch out for our safety, and remember that if you don't watch out for #1 nobody else will.  If you find yourself half way through a tour staring at a raging torrent of a river, don't be afraid to say "No, this is as far as I go."  You may be chided for turning back, but it's safety first, and you are always responsible for your own safety.

   I know that was a bit of a grim post today folks, and I'll try to be a little more upbeat next week, but the lessons of others hit me hard this week and I felt the need to pass on those experiences.  Have a good week everyone, and be safe.

Faster Than Expected

Just last week I posted my plans to book a last-minute vacation for late January.  The intention was to wait, possibly even in to early January, to see what kind of deals I could manage.  That particular aspect of the plan has actually gone out the window.  A week of research yielded some interesting travel options, and already some pretty good deals.  As Graydyn began to do more research he found some likely prospects and began to worry that by waiting until the last-minute all of the good resorts would be scooped up and we would be left with a very cheap trip to somewhere sub-par.  So, given his concerns, and the fact that we were able to find a 5-star for under a thousand, we booked our vacation this weekend.

We're going to be heading to the Riu Bachata in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic:

http://www.riu.com/en-ca/Paises/dominican-republic/puerto-plata/clubhotel-riu-bachata/index.jsp

That resort consistently came up at the top of lists of good deals in the 5-star range at various travel websites. I also have a certain amount of faith in the Riu chain of resorts, having spent a lovely week at one in Jamaica, and also having heard glowing reviews from co-workers about the Riu in Aruba.  Getting a place with good food was a critical requirement for me, and reviews of this and other Riu resorts seems to indicate that food is something they do consistently well.

So, there you have it.  We didn't really operate according to the original game plan, but as with all good plans, you've got to be willing to throw them out the window at the first sign that they aren't working for you.  Our next step will be figuring out what to do when we get there.  At this point I'm not entirely opposed to sitting in a beach chair with a drink for a week, but I have a feeling that I'll get restless as soon as I attempt that particular activity.  With that in mind I've already started putting out my feelers for scuba diving, Graydyn's found a good snorkeling day trip, and I've got a bit of information on an interesting sounding hike.  More on all of that as details become available.  For now I'm just happy to know for sure that I'm going south this winter!

That's all for now.  I'm sure that you'll hear more about this vacation as the date draws near.  Have a good week everyone.

I'm Going... Somewhere

Well, Graydyn and I decided to try our luck at last-minute vacationing.  We've booked off the last week of January, but haven't actually booked a vacation yet.  We're just going to keep our eyes on the websites of a few travel companies and see what pops up for that timeline.  Right now I'm seeing a lot of really good deals for 2-3 weeks from now, so I'm hoping that's the general trend and that we'll start seeing some cheap vacations once we get into early January.

Right now I'm making good use of Travelzoo.  For those of you who aren't familiar, www.travelzoo.ca just scours the Interwebs looking for travel deals and then compiles them into a list which they send out once a week.  I've been finding it useful already as a means of seeing what's out there in terms of other travel companies that I can keep a close eye on myself.

There's a certain amount of stress to the whole thing.  I know I need to book the vacation, but I can't yet.  I hate knowing that I need to do something, it drives me nuts.  However, shopping around for vacations can be fun in its own right, so I'm enjoying that aspect of this plan.  I've even done some more in-depth research into a few places; not with any real intent to book a trip this early, but just to get a feeling for what kind of research tools are out there.  So far I've made good use of Trip Advisor (www.tripadvisor.com) which lets people post comments about a resort that they've been to.  Seeing the comments of people who have visited your target resort can be very useful, although as with any internet-based review, you have to take some comments with a grain of salt.  I've heard tales of people giving resorts a 1 out of 5 because the weather was bad while they were there.  I'm not entirely sure how the resort is supposed to fix that.

If anyone has a particular favorite resource for trip planning please sound-off in the comments of this post.  The more tools I have for my research the happier I'll be!  I've still got at least a month before I'm likely to be booking anything, so I'm sure that you'll all hear a lot more about this in the next couple of months.  Enjoy your week everyone!

Into the Wild Blue Yonder... Just Not Very Far Into It

I was reminded this weekend of a very important fact: not all great adventure need to be one thousand miles from your home.  Not all time in the great outdoors needs to be found at the end of a plane ride, a mountain pass, or a glacial peak.  Sometimes there are great times to be had right outside your doorstep, in places you've walked thousands of times before.

I returned to my parents' home this weekend to spend some time with friends and family, with no particular plan as to how we would spend that time.  A bonfire at one friend's house led to making some new friends; friends that I would end up kayaking with the very next day.  It's been awhile since I navigated the mighty Bear Creek, and it was a really pleasure to jump behind the wheel of a kayak and race through that raging torrent.  (For those of you not familiar with the Bear Creek, it is a delightfully wide, calm stretch of water that makes for some very relaxing kayaking.) Despite being the middle of November the weather was so nice that I found myself paddling in a T-shirt, with no need of a jacket.  When the weather starts to get foul and we start getting our first taste of winter warm sunny days such as that are an unbelievable treat.

Not content with having a bit of fresh air and sunshine on Saturday another group of us went for a mountain bike ride on Sunday.  Petrolia actually offers up a wealth of backwoods trails for biking on.  Nothing of the caliber to find in mountainous regions such as B.C. or Tennessee, but fun for a novice all the same.  The ride ended up turning into an exploratory run as we started attempting to find little-accessed trails in deeper stretches of the woods.  It's been a long time since I've found myself pounding through the bush on the back of a bicycle and I found the entire experience quite refreshing.

So, a normal, non-holiday weekend.  Not doing anything exciting.  Just going home to visit the folks.  And yet, somehow I manage to spend the better part of a November weekend on the water or in the woods.  Active, adventuring, and smiling the whole time.  I've kayaked that creek dozens of times, and walked those trails more times than I'd care to count, yet it's all new and refreshing every time.  So I'll finish today with Travel Tip #327: Never forget about those great adventure destinations that you have in your own backyard.

Another Suggestion for a Driving Vacation

After I mentioned my plans to visit the Tennessee and South Carolina to drive The Dragon there's been some discussion on the concept of road trip vacations to see epic roads.  I've been on a few brief road trips before, but I've never attempted anything particularly lengthy, and I've certainly never been on a road trip where the driving was the focus of the vacation rather than just a means to an end.  I've got to say that I'm pretty fascinated by the whole concept and I'm really looking forward to our trip down to The Dragon to experience what can really be called a "driving holiday" first-hand.

That brings me to my topic for this week.  I was telling a friend from work about my desire to drive out to B.C. along the Canadian route, just to see a huge swath of our country.  He said that such a voyage sounded just a bit too arduous (I think it's the Prairies that seem unappealing) but he suggested a less logistically-challenging alternative: fly to Calgary, rent a car, and drive to Vancouver from there.  It's a way to see some of the country without having to take a month or two off work.  I'm pretty keen on the idea, and may join my friend on such a voyage in the near future.

If you just put Calgary to Vancouver into Google Maps it will, of course, give you the most direct route, largely following the Trans-Canada Highway.  However, Google Maps also lets you click and drag your route around, changing it up in certain sections as you see necessary.  As this would be a scenic trip the direct route defeats the purpose.  However, a few slight alterations seems to yield a more interesting path.  In the midst of Banff National Park Highway 1 branches off towards Yoho National Park and continues on to Glacier National Park.  These are two places that I'd like to hit, but I think they could be done as a side trip, with the intention of heading back to the fork in the road and taking Highway 93 North towards Jasper.  Beyond Jasper the road drops sharply to the South towards Kamloops.  Once the route hits Kamloops I alter it again, pulling it off it's Southerly course and turning it West to swing through Whistler before dropping down to Vancouver.  Of course, once in Vancouver the obvious thing to do it to grab the ferry and head over to the Island.

Now, this is where you, my loyal readership come in.  My experience with the West of our fine country has been confined to Vancouver Island and a small taste of mainland Vancouver.  I'm not familiar with the roads and mountain passes that cover the rest of Southern B.C. or any of Alberta.  So, has anyone been driving through these areas?  How does my route look?  Any suggestions for side-trips, or alterations to see and/or avoid certain regions would be very much appreciated.  Also, anyone who wants to join in the adventure is more than welcome to do so.

That's all of my trip-planning for this week.  Stay tuned, and watch the comments section of this post for any useful Western Canada travel tips.  See you next week!

Responses

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

I wanted to take the time this week to respond to a few comments, just so everyone knows that I actually do read them!  First, an apology to Jay, apparently the road we are going to drive is referred to as simple "The Dragon" and that "The Tail of the Dragon" is actually a gift shop.  There were several references on the Minis on the Dragon website to "The Tail of the Dragon" and I thought that was an official term.

On the subject of driving, Corey posted a link in a comment to last week's blog for a road in California.  Check last week's comment section, it looks excellent.  The link is to the Google Map for that section of road, and I highly recommend checking out the Street View of it.  I've actually heard that coastline from Washington State right down to California offers some phenomenal driving.  I'd really love to check it out sometime.

Switching over to our earlier discussion on currency; I got a pretty disbelieving reaction when I said that I had a hard time finding Yen in Toronto.  Believe me, I was just as surprised as everyone else.  I assumed that I'd be able to score some Yen at one of the big currency exchanges downtown, but I had no luck.  I'm just happy that I called ahead before going down there.  I have to assume that my inability to procure currency was some kind of strange fluke.  My greatest mistake there was waiting until just before I left to try finding Yen.  Which brings us to Travel Tip #1: Never Procrastinate!  If something can be done in advance, do it.  I wouldn't have thought that anyone in a major city would ever have trouble finding Yen, but there you go.  If I'd gotten on that sooner I probably wouldn't have had any issues.

Going farther back in the comments now, my diving buddy Helmut left me a message on one of the Iceland posts.  If you're still reading this Helmut, I got the message late, but I did get it.  I tried to e-mail you, but I got a delivery failure, I'll try again today.  Hope you are doing well.

Okay, that wraps up the responses that I wanted to get out.  Before I go, a little bit of personal news that does relate to travel.  On Saturday I purchased my first motorcycle!  It's a Honda CBR125R, which is a 125cc (small engine) sport bike.  I believe the official colour is Hurricane White.  I'm very excited about it!  Unfortunately I won't get the bike until Spring since the riding season here is on the verge of being over, so I just had the bike put directly into storage.  Come April though (maybe late March if I'm really lucky) I'll finally be able to get the bike out and start practicing.  There's been some talk of bringing it down to The Dragon, but I'll have to see if I'm feeling skilled enough at that point to make it worthwhile.  The happiest news in all of this is that I told my parents that I got a bike and as far as I know I haven't been officially disowned, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Well, more on my motorcycling adventures later.  Right now I need to go to work so that I can afford to get my bike insured.  Be well everyone!