Comment by splonk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by splonk | Hacker News Reader

I do a considerable amount of long term travel carrying about half of this, but it all depends on what you're trying to optimize for. My personal design goal is that my bag fits under airline seats, so I never have to worry about gate checking a bag and risking lost luggage. The main tradeoff is that I do a lot of laundry in sinks - you really learn the effectiveness of detergent when you see the color of the water coming off some clothes you thought were pretty clean. These days I'm a bit lazier and try to end up somewhere with a washing machine every week or two to break up the hand washing chore. I've done the towel wringing trick but it's not all that necessary with my clothes unless I'm in a damp environment and am short on time.

The two things that I mostly agree with - eSIM is a massive improvement (I also use Airalo), and I've also tried to standardize on USB-C (except for my headphones, where I haven't found a good replacement). /r/onebag does have some good product recommendations but is somewhat skewed to young backpackers.

I would encourage everyone to ignore anyone telling them they're "doing it wrong" when traveling. You know yourself, make your own decisions. Personally, making an effort to meet digital nomads all around the world sounds like hell on earth to me. Also, it's wasted effort. Trust me, they'll find you and tell you all about themselves.

> /r/onebag does have some good product recommendations but is somewhat skewed to young backpackers.

/r/onebag is skewed towards solving all your problems by buying something, and seems astroturfed to within an inch of its life.

Can someone explain this expression to me? "astroturfed to within an inch of its life"

The expression "astroturfed to within an inch of its life" means that most of the reviews are fake recommendations for marketing reasons. Specifically, it's a mixed metaphor, which makes it harder to understand. "Astroturfed" describes a marketing campaign that is disguised as genuine opinions, in the way that AstroTurf is an artificial lawn that is supposed to look real. "Within an inch of his life" is an old expression typically used to describe a thrashing or beating and means "almost to the point of death", but is used metaphorically here to mean "extremely".

For readers not at all familiar with American idioms, "astroturfed" is a response to "grassroots". A "grassroots" movement in American slang is one that is bottom up and not driven by advertising, corporations or political parties. Astroturfing gives the appearance of being grassroots when it is not.

Lived all my life in America and never made that connection. Whaddya know!

I should have known that :-) I was curious, so I looked into this a bit more. Monsanto advertised Astroturf in 1971 with the slogan "The new grass-roots movement. It's away from grass, to Astroturf." In the 1980s, grass-roots vs Astroturf started to be used as a political metaphor by people such as Bob Dole and Lloyd Bentsen, and then became a popular media expression in the 1990s. So ironically, the metaphorical use of "astroturf" was originally driven by advertising.

Holy shit, that’s a good explanation.

How do you know the individuals offering their ostensible personal experience of a particular product aren’t being paid to disingenuously market said product on social media?

Aka native advertising.

Yeah, I came to the same conclusion as far as optimizing for two carry on bags.

My setup is really simple but works for me for months at a time. I have a tri fold clothing bag (an old Patagonia burrito, which they sadly don't make anymore) that's for clothes, grooming/hygine, etc, and then a messenger bag that's for laptop, kindle, headphones, emergency rain gear, medications, other similar things.

It may not work for everyone, but I found paring down to essentials was very worth it. I never have to worry about checked bags going wrong. I can wear both bags comfortably while walking for a couple hours, so if I'm moving locations or can't check into my accommodations yet it's no big deal.

One thing I like about this setup is I don't look like I'm hostel hiking. I just look like someone in business casual with an extra overnight bag. It's not fair or just, but sometimes this makes the difference about getting hassled hanging out somewhere with wifi for a couple hours.

The tri fold is roomy enough to pack a suit and plenty of casual clothing. I just hang it up when I get to my room. Unless I'm wearing or using it, items go back to their place in the bag. I never have to unpack, pack, or worry about leaving something behind.

A few simple tricks can make a big difference, but they're probably pretty personal. I pack a lot of extra socks, undershirts, and underwear, all made of thin wool. This helps me stay fresh if I'm a bit long between laundry services. In my electronics bag I carry a short extension cord, some USB plugs and charging cables, etc. That'll make you the hero in every cafe you go to.

In any case, my big takeaway was that I just don't actually need much stuff to be content for months at a time.

> In my electronics bag I carry a short extension cord, some USB plugs and charging cables, etc. That'll make you the hero in every cafe you go to.

A small power strip might have been my best travel investment. Good way to meet people if nothing else.

I added one of these to my kit. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-Grounded-Triple-Cube-Out...

It takes up almost no space, is light, and saves the day at airports.

I've been using a Mogics Donut[1] for several years now - it's been by far the best travel power strip I've used - super compact, enough of a extension cable for plugging into odd corners/below desks/etc, and comes with a built in international plug adapter and can handle up to 5 AC plugs, more than enough for all my adapters. It has 2 x USB-A ports to boot (there's a newer version of their Bagel which has USB-C, but I haven't felt the need to upgrade).

[1] https://www.mogics.com/3824-2

Curious what kind of detergent you have found to be most effective for doing laundry in sinks? I'm aware of Woolite, but presume that's not what you're talking about?

I once had a waiter drop a dish of spaghetti and meatballs in my lap. I was on the road without an appropriate change of clothes. A fellow minimalist traveler gave me his Dawn dish soap and it worked so well that that's all I use now when traveling.

do you pack a little bottle of dawn in your bag? Do you use it as a general detergent, or do you use it to spot-clean stains? I love this idea, just curious about the logistics.

I keep it in a 4oz generic plastic bottle and I use it as a general detergent. A little goes a long way, it's really effective for general cleaning. If used for a stain, I just pour directly on as needed.

4oz? You must go through the lax TSA lines

I just checked and it's actually marked "3.4oz" :)

Shrinkflation ftw?

I just carry whatever powdered detergent is available locally. I've tried the camping strips but I don't really see the point for my use cases. The powdered stuff does seem to set off airport scanners in the US if you have too much of it.

I prefer dish liquid detergent; never pods or machine powder detergent, it is not good for your skin. Disclaimer: I worked for one of the biggest manufacturers of household detergents. Warning: too much liquid detergent may get you in trouble on airports.

The only caveat I'd give on liquid dish detergent is it's often way... bubblier. Rinse it extremely well, or you'll start getting small foam/slickness when you sweat(from personal experience in a soft water area, sadly).

The foam is a very good indicator when you did not rinse enough, I actually consider it a feature.

I use Forever New Powder Detergent for my sink laundry. It rinses nicely and does a good job of cleaning.

https://forevernew.com/

They sell dry laundry detergent sheets, put one in a dry bag along with your clothes and fill it with hot water. Then you can close the dry bag and agitate the whole thing really easily in a bath tub.

> except for my headphones, where I haven't found a good replacement

What issue have you found here? On a weekly basis I use IEMs (Sennheiser IE80) which don't need external power, and Jabra elite active series earbuds which are usb-c. Most options I'm aware of are one of these two categories.

My headphone quality requirements are slim to nonexistent since I mostly only use them on planes and trains to listen to music and block out noise, but my form factor requirements are pretty strict. I currently use Anker Soundbud Slims. I like the wired necklace and the magnets on the earpieces that allow the necklace to be sort of completed, although they're very weak. I pull out one earbud pretty often when I need to hear something, so the necklace lets me just drop it instead of having to faff about with storage. I guarantee I would lose individual detached earbuds pretty quickly. I don't use them for videoconferences, so I don't need a microphone. When I did my USB-C unification the closest equivalents tended to have solid plastic necklaces for more structure and mic mounts (looks like one of your recs has this?), but I store my headphones crumpled up in a tiny pocket. This was a year or two ago so maybe there are better options now, but at the moment my headphones just have a permanent adapter attached to them.

my current go-to headphones [0] are also from Anker, have USB-C charging, and I think they meet your form factor requirements

0: https://amazon.com/gp/product/B08HRN4M3H/

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