Products That We Always Travel With

The following post contains links to products that we have used.  We get a small commission for any sales if you purchase through the links and there is no additional cost to you. All of the photos and opinions are our own.

During our travels, we have come across a few products that we find indispensable. Because we travel light and try to only take a carry-on bag, every item that we take on a trip has to provide value to us or we wouldn’t take it with us. There are obvious items like our camera, tablet, and other items, but these are some that perhaps you haven’t thought about.

  1. GETIHU Power Bank – Finding an outlet that can charge your USB devices when traveling can often be difficult to impossible. Especially when going to some out of the way places, like an ecolodge in the jungle, make having a portable power supply to charge devices an absolute must. It doesn’t have to be the jungle, though, it could be an airport, certain flights, or needing to charge more than one item and having a single power converter. We carry this lightweight item with us even when we’re not traveling, just in case we find that we have a sudden need.

    Portable Charger
  2. Lenovo USB C Hub – Because we often want to share some photographs during our travels, having a multiport USB hub is a necessity for us. It allows us to transfer photographs from cameras and phones to our tablets in order to share the data. We also use it at home to store photographs on an external hard drive with large storage capacity. It is also convenient to charge multiple devices using a single outlet, which also comes in handy. As you can tell, keeping our phones and other devices charged during our travels is something we find important.

    Multiport USB Hub
  3. Osprey UltraLight 3 Dry Sack – It would be nice if every day of a trip was sunny and clear, but obviously sometimes it rains. This lightweight dry sack allows us to protect our camera and other electronic items when out and about during a rainy day. It rolls up into a tight little ball, about the size of a bracelet, making it easy to toss into our backpack when not needed.

    Dry Sack Rolled Up
  4. eBags Classic Small/Medium Packing Cubes – Being able to organize cloths in our carry-on bags is extremely useful, especially when a trip is made up of several different stops. It also makes it convenient to separate clean clothes from dirty clothes as the trip goes along. They don’t take up any additional space and also don’t add any additional weight to the bags.

    Packing Cubes
  5. Travelon Laundry Soap Sheets – With the limited number of clothing items that can be packed into a carry-on bag, we often can’t take enough clothes to wear something different over a two week period. Instead, we take these laundry sheets that are extremely small, but quite effective to wash a pair of pants or a couple of shirts and hang them in the hotel bathroom to dry. We also usually take clothes that dry quickly, both for ease of washing as well of getting caught in the occasional rain storm.

    Laundry Sheets

All of these items are worth the space that they take in our luggage as we travel.

 

 

Travelon Anti-Theft Bags

This is a sponsored post on behalf of TRAVELON Bags. All opinions are our own.

Plenty of Pockets for Organization

We are always looking for travel gear that makes our traveling more convenient and easier. We often take day trips away from our primary location and need to be able to take several items with us. TRAVELON bags has a variety of anti-theft products that include backpacks, purses, and laptop bags. With all of the interior pockets and zippered sections, they allow us to keep everything organized and easy to find during our trips.

Stylish Laptop Bag

Keeping your personal items secure when traveling is always important as tourists are often the target of thieves. The TRAVELON bags that we have used have slash-resistent straps and locking features to keep pick-pockets from being able to do a “grab and go”. The purse and backpack that we used also have RFID protected internal sleeves to protect our credit cards. They also offer a wide variety of RFID protected wallets as well. The laptop back that we use has plenty of room for all of our electronics and even a place to hold a water bottle, which we have found extremely convenient.

Matching Backpack and Purse
Room for Everything

Whether the purse, backpack, or laptop bag, we have found the bags from TRAVELON to be stylish as well as functional. You can check out some of the other products that we enjoy by visiting our resource page.

Delicious Lamb Biryani

This is a sponsored post on behalf of The Spice House. The recipe and all opinions are our own.

Our favorite meal when we visited India was Lamb Biryani. It isn’t a particularly difficult dish to create, but it does take a bit of time and preparation. One of the reasons that it is so flavorful is that it uses a variety of spices, some of which can be difficult to find. We used several spices from The Spice House and created our own take on Lamb Biryani. It turned out to be quite delicious and very fragrant. Depending on how spicy you like your food, you can control some of the heat by changing the amount of cayenne pepper or type of green chili that you use. We served ours over Basmati rice, but regular rice would be just as good.

Spices from The Spice House

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 lb Lamb Shoulder Chops – cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 8 Whole Cloves
  • 4 Black Cardamom Pods
  • 4 Cinnamon Sticks
  • 1 Large White Onion – sliced thinly
  • 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
  • 1 tbsp Minced Ginger
  • 3 tbsp Fresh Mint Leaves – chopped
  • 3 Tomatoes – chopped
  • 3 Serrano Peppers – chopped (and deseeded for less heat)
  • 2 tbsp Cayenne Pepper
  • 1 tbsp Harissa Spread
  • 4 tbsp Plain Yogurt
  • 2 tbsp Lemon Juice – fresh squeezed
  • 1/2 tsp Saffron
  • 2 tbsp Warm Milk
  • 1 cup Basmati Rice – cooked to package directions
  • 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
  • Salt to taste
Onion, Spices, and Mint

INSTRUCTIONS

Heat the oil in a large skillet on medium heat and, once the oil is heated, add the cloves, cardamom pods, and cinnamon sticks for about 1 minute until they are fragrant. Add the onion and cook until lightly brown stirring frequently, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Stir in the mint and cook for 1 minute more. Add the lamb to the onion and spice mixture and cook until the meat begins to brown on all sides, about 15 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, serrano peppers, and cayenne pepper and cook for about 10 minutes. Finally, stir in the yogurt, milk, saffron, harissa spread, and lemon juice and cook for about 15 minutes. Serve over the rice.

Sautéed Onions and Spices
Lamb Mixture
Add the Tomatoes and Peppers
Lamb Biryani over Basmati Rice