Communications:
We currently use one of the big two cellphone providers in the US for our cellphone needs. In preparation for the trip I went to their website to see what package/offering would work best to fit our specific needs for our visit to Thailand. After researching for a while on their website I came to the conclusion that it would probably be better to go to our local store for the carrier and just talk through things with them as I was getting more confused and the price just seemed to keep going up.
So Andra and I headed off, a benefit of being retired, to the carrier’s store. Upon arrival they took my name and phone number and after a few minutes a nice young gentleman came over to help us. We explained our upcoming plans to him and he started discussing various options, which both Andra and I thought, were very expensive and really didn’t meet our needs. We are fairly heavy IPhone users and the data side of things was just crazy expensive.
For those of you who use Iphone, you probably understand that the phone can burn many megabytes of data just making sure it is happy with itself and its’ surroundings! In additional our trip was going to span multiple billing cycles so we would have to pay the massive (from my perspective) up charge in two billing periods.
In relatively short order I gave Andra the look that said to her let’s get the hell out of here before I let them know what I think about this whole thing! We came home and I looked one more time at their website and finally decided that we were not going to deal with this issue for this trip. So we decided to just leave our phones at home for the trip.
Okay; we actually carried one but planned to only turn it on if absolutely essential and we would just deal with the consequences of that when we returned home. Thankfully we never needed it so no issues there.
What we decided to do was just carry my IPod and use WIFI in the hotels and if needed go to a coffee shop or other public WIFI location for our connectivity. We saw that public WIFI is everywhere in Thailand as we traveled throughout the country. Every store and restaurant have signs offering it. I am not sure how comfortable I would be using it for anything of significance but texting or video calling was just fine by me to us it.
All of the hotels that Gate-1 provided throughout the trip offered WIFI in public areas and all but one (so the other 4) offered it free of charge in our rooms. It was more then adequate for our needs. We texted with everyone and FaceTime’d several times. Sometimes the bandwidth wasn’t adequate to nicely support the full video offering so in those cases we did audio only. Again, it worked really well. And we talked to everyone as often as we wanted.
We were able to email and do other needed tasks fairly easily, although the bandwidth was a bit restrictive at times, which was fine as I wasn’t paying for it directly. As we previously wrote in an earlier posting the 14 hour time change between Thailand and Colorado really worked well. When they were getting up, we were done with our day, relaxing for the evening and visa-versa. During our day they were sleeping so not having true cellular coverage really wasn’t an issue for us at all.
Upon returning from the trip I received my usual monthly text from my carrier that my bill was ready and the amount was exactly what I was expecting, with no international fees. I feel certain that if I had elected one of the many offerings they have for overseas travel this would not have been the case, as we have lived through that on several previous experiences! So all in all we were very happy with our communications choices.
So what would I do differently next time? An interesting question that I still need to further think through. I could get a local SIM card for my phone although getting one to fit an IPhone can be an issue from what I hear. I could bring and Android phone or purchase a cheap one there at one of the many local phone kiosks…..not exactly sure. Or another option is to change our US carrier to T-Mobile as their international offerings are really much more appealing. One thing you can be certain of is that I will have researched it before I change anything!
Luggage/Packing:
Again in the Preparing for Thailand (Thursday, October 9th, 2015) post we talked a bit about a recent trip we took to Maine and Massachusetts and how our packing had not worked as we moved between locations. And also that the large suitcase we took was right at the 50 pounds mark so was on the edge of requiring overweight airline charges.
We always pack light, as both of us hate dealing with lots of luggage. So for this trip we decided to replace our 28 inch luggage with 25 inch as we felt we could easily fit what was needed in that size and it would be much easier to handle and not be pushing the weight limit issues.
We are big fans of Eagle Creek luggage as it is good quality and reasonable in price. They also have a great warranty, which we have used previously. Steve overloaded a day-pack coming home from Europe a few years’ back, which caused a seam to pull out. We sent it in and in just a couple of weeks it was returned in perfect condition.
We decided to try their Eagle Creek Tarmac 25. Upshot is we loved the bags. They were plenty big to easily fit what we needed to take. Best thing is that both bags were easily under 40 pounds each when we left and returned so there wasn’t any stress during check-in at the airports. We saw lots of people on the return flight trying to move stuff around between bags at the baggage counter…that did not look fun!
We also purchased the Eagle Creek Pack-it system, which included both clothes folders and packing cubes. When we made the decision to buy them (sort of expensive I think!) we committed to ourselves to make sure and use them throughout the trip. Upshot there was we absolutely loved them!
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| Loaded Eagle Creek Tamarc 25 suitcase |
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| The packing cubes fit easily into the suitcase, in many different configurations |
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| All of the packing cubes, folders and miscellaneous items that were in Steve's Tarmac |
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| Medium folder (18 inch) |
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| All of his shirts and pants for three weeks fit easily in two folders |
We came home after almost three weeks of traveling with our suitcases as organized as when we left and we wore everything we took. We were able to easily find whatever we were looking for each morning and evening. We liked that the cubes have a clean side and dirty side. You take the clean clothes out of the cube, wear it all day and then put it in the sealed dirty side when you're done with it.
As an example Steve brought along:
Again, we were easily able to fit all of this in Steve’s packing folders and cubes, with the exception of what he was wearing (pants, shirt, shoes, etc.). We were also able to easily split our clothing up so Andra’s suitcase has half of each of our clothing and my bag had the other half of each of our clothing, just in case one bag was lost we could easily function with one. We also carried a leak proof bag of toiletries and another with first aid and medicines.
We are now huge fans of these packing folders and packing cubes, once we made the initial investment and commit to using them!
Technology:
This is always a very personal choice for each traveler. Some like to go really light and others, like me prefer to have something similar to what they have at home. For me it just feels more natural to have a good subset of my usual tech stuff along. When I travel without it I always seems to wish it was along!
Given this we carried our 11-inch MacBook Air which, as usual worked flawlessly throughout the entire trip. We just love this very basic machine. Not lots of power or storage but it just works…always! Andra used this to capture the highlights of the day each evening and with the nightly WIFI we were able to begin each days blog post, which was really nice having it already out there, just waiting to be completed. I also brought a 1-terabyte external hard drive, which we used to backed up our pictures and other stuff each night. We carried this in a different bag from the computer, just in case.
One area that has been a problem for us previously, especially on cruises, is getting all our electronic and digital cameras charged. Even on modern cruise ships they usually only have a single or very few electrical plug(s) outside the bathroom area. We usually only have a single converter so that is also a restriction. Given this, we are constantly having our various electronic devises/cameras only partially charged as we never seem to get everything topped-off at night. Again, not a big deal but I thought their must be a better way. So off to Amazon I went where there are lots of various offerings to fill this need. I eventually decided on the BESTEK Portable International Travel Adaptor.
This little gem will allow for three items to be plugged into the top of it plus it has two 1-amp USB charging ports and two 2.4-amp USB charging ports.
Using the BESTEK, I was able to charge all our electronics and cameras concurrently, which was so nice. As a bonus, the devise also conditions the incoming power which I see as an additional big benefit as this always makes me a bit nervous when charging in foreign countries and/or cruise ships! The units are currently selling for approximately $43 on Amazon, which I feel very strongly is money well spent. I was talking to one of the other travelers in our group about this item one evening….funny thing is he has also recently purchased the same unit and also was totally impressed with it.
One tech item Andra and I decided not to bring along with us on this trip was a small blue-tooth speaker. We thought we wouldn’t miss it and could just use the speakers on the MacBook Air or IPod. This was a big miss for us! We found that we really enjoyed relaxing in our nice hotel room each evening when she worked on the blog and I worked on the charging/backing things up and organizing for the next day with a little background music playing. This seemed to help prepare us to sleep after each busy but fun day and the speakers on the IPod and the Air just didn't cut it! The upshot here is we will be bringing our small blue tooth speaker on next trip!
The few changes that we made for this trip made a huge difference in our ability to stay organized. This could easily be one of the busiest trips we will ever take, and we stayed organized and charged through the whole thing! We are now very happy with our traveling setup, and hope that what we have learned might be of assistance to you.
As an example Steve brought along:
- 5 pairs of pants
- 2 pairs of shorts
- 1 swim trunk
- 5 tee-shirts
- 6 collared shirts
- 16 pairs of boxers
- 14 pairs of shorty socks
- 2 pairs of dress socks
- 1 pair compression socks he wears on the long flights as he has poor circulation in one foot and these things really help with swelling!
- 3 pairs of shoes
- 2 coats (rain and light weight)
- 1 umbrella
Again, we were easily able to fit all of this in Steve’s packing folders and cubes, with the exception of what he was wearing (pants, shirt, shoes, etc.). We were also able to easily split our clothing up so Andra’s suitcase has half of each of our clothing and my bag had the other half of each of our clothing, just in case one bag was lost we could easily function with one. We also carried a leak proof bag of toiletries and another with first aid and medicines.
We are now huge fans of these packing folders and packing cubes, once we made the initial investment and commit to using them!
Technology:
This is always a very personal choice for each traveler. Some like to go really light and others, like me prefer to have something similar to what they have at home. For me it just feels more natural to have a good subset of my usual tech stuff along. When I travel without it I always seems to wish it was along!
Given this we carried our 11-inch MacBook Air which, as usual worked flawlessly throughout the entire trip. We just love this very basic machine. Not lots of power or storage but it just works…always! Andra used this to capture the highlights of the day each evening and with the nightly WIFI we were able to begin each days blog post, which was really nice having it already out there, just waiting to be completed. I also brought a 1-terabyte external hard drive, which we used to backed up our pictures and other stuff each night. We carried this in a different bag from the computer, just in case.
One area that has been a problem for us previously, especially on cruises, is getting all our electronic and digital cameras charged. Even on modern cruise ships they usually only have a single or very few electrical plug(s) outside the bathroom area. We usually only have a single converter so that is also a restriction. Given this, we are constantly having our various electronic devises/cameras only partially charged as we never seem to get everything topped-off at night. Again, not a big deal but I thought their must be a better way. So off to Amazon I went where there are lots of various offerings to fill this need. I eventually decided on the BESTEK Portable International Travel Adaptor.
This little gem will allow for three items to be plugged into the top of it plus it has two 1-amp USB charging ports and two 2.4-amp USB charging ports.
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| Close-up of the BESTEK charging station |
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| Our charging station! |
Using the BESTEK, I was able to charge all our electronics and cameras concurrently, which was so nice. As a bonus, the devise also conditions the incoming power which I see as an additional big benefit as this always makes me a bit nervous when charging in foreign countries and/or cruise ships! The units are currently selling for approximately $43 on Amazon, which I feel very strongly is money well spent. I was talking to one of the other travelers in our group about this item one evening….funny thing is he has also recently purchased the same unit and also was totally impressed with it.
One tech item Andra and I decided not to bring along with us on this trip was a small blue-tooth speaker. We thought we wouldn’t miss it and could just use the speakers on the MacBook Air or IPod. This was a big miss for us! We found that we really enjoyed relaxing in our nice hotel room each evening when she worked on the blog and I worked on the charging/backing things up and organizing for the next day with a little background music playing. This seemed to help prepare us to sleep after each busy but fun day and the speakers on the IPod and the Air just didn't cut it! The upshot here is we will be bringing our small blue tooth speaker on next trip!
The few changes that we made for this trip made a huge difference in our ability to stay organized. This could easily be one of the busiest trips we will ever take, and we stayed organized and charged through the whole thing! We are now very happy with our traveling setup, and hope that what we have learned might be of assistance to you.
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