Day 54 - The Most Valuable Gear

It's Day 54 for Nick on the road since the rally started.  After 54 days you would think I would learn to get rid of my extra weight, but I keep picking up things instead.

Here are some of my gear highlights of the stuff that was really useful on the trip!  Note, this post is edited because I got first place wrong!


5th Place:

My ThermaRest Trail Pro camping mattress.  This thing is great!  I only need a space on the floor and I will sleep great.  And once in Roatan, I used it on top of a bad futon; the futon itself was really uncomforable, but the camping mattress on top took care of that!  Out of 54 days, I used it to sleep on for about 10 out of the 54 nights on the road:

2 - Tucson
1 - Guadalajara
1 - Queretaro
3 - Oaxaca
1 - Antigua
1 - Tegucigalpa (Jorge used it; I took the couch because it was short)
1 - at Volcan Telica on a camping trip


4th Place:

My Reef sandals.  I wear them every day.  I have a pair of converse shoes and hiking shoes, but I always go for the Reef sandals.  Mine are really old and starting to fall apart, but they have held up a really long time, and they are incredibly comfortable!


3rd Place:

Third place is a combo.  My Google Nexus 4 unlocked cell phone was a contender because it is a really good smart phone and it was already unlocked so it was very easy to set up in Honduras.  During our trip we found that we were out of cell phone range, but if I downloaded maps for offline use, we could still use the GPS and see where we were on a map, even with no cell phone coverage.  But the poor battery life of only about 5 hours disqualified it for Most Valuable Gear.

A very special thanks to Murray and Go Help for Helping Out with that battery problem!  They got me a Go Help Jackery!  This little battery extender helped me stay charged long enough on several bus rides through Honduras to make arrangements with Couch Surfing hosts and do some research on next steps on the trip.


2nd Place:

2nd place "most valuable gear" goes to...Axel's Samsung Mini cell phone and Mexico cell plan!  His phone was something like this one offered by T-Mobile.  The phone itself was very slow and there were many times that Axel wanted to throw it out the window while waiting for the GPS map to update or trying to type a message.  But as a hot spot, it worked really great!  Since I have been working part-time on the trip, Axel's cell phone and data plan provided the connection I needed to get some important work done as we were traveling down the road!  Here's proof:

We had GPS maps to figure out where to go, WhatsApp to stay in contact with our hosts, and many more items for which a cell phone and data plan were very valuable.  I learned my lesson!  Once we were in Honduras, I got my own Honduras SIM card and data plan, and it worked great!  And now I am doing the same in Nicaragua.

Take an unlocked GSM phone with you, get a local phone number, and get a little battery backup when you do a road trip!


1st Place, Most Valuable Gear

The Sony DSC RX 100 camera.  I use that camera for some really great shots, even in extremely low light!  I am very happy with it.  Almost every picture posted to the blog was taken with that camera.  There have been several times along the trip that I worried I had broken it.  Not yet!  So far, so good, it is still working well!


Other Contenders:

REI's Flash 18 backpack has been a great daypack for sightseeing.  I counted on Axel for his cell phone; he counted on me to carry his wallet around in the backpack!

REI's Flash 62 backpack has carried a lot of weight!  I did not have to wear it for long periods of time until I went camping with it last weekend.  It did really great.  It was comfortable, pretty easy to adjust, and carried all my gear!  But if I had to pick another pack, I would get one that had a zipper all around, instead of a top-loading pack.  I think being able to open up the whole pack makes it easier to organize, and pack / repack.

The Spot device.  Essential for friends family and coworkers who want to know where I am at and if I am OK!  The mapping service is really great.  This one did not make the final cut because the mapping points expire after a week.  From what I can tell, I cannot archive them.  And it won't work unless it has a view of the sky.  It worked great sitting on the dashboard of the ambulance, but doesn't work at all from inside a bus, so it could not record all the little trips around Honduras.  Even on a recent hike, it did not record every 10 minutes because many times we were under shade and there was no direct view of the sky.