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7 travel items not to bother buying
WSA adsense code -->Againt on the theme of travel purchases - some things I’d suggest you don’t waste your money on.
1. Swiss Army Knife
Of all the items that exist on a Swiss Army knife (or Leatherman tool) I’ve only ever used knife blades, scissors, tweezers, bottle openers, corkscrews and nail files. On an actual penknife, the only ones I can use myself are tweezers, nail files and knife blades – and the tweezers suck.
All of those items except bottle openers will definitely be confiscated at Heathrow. Emery boards are cheap and light, I have a very cool bottle opener key ring, and when travelling I either drink wine in a restaurant or bar (where they open the bottle for you) or stick to beer. As I said, the tweezers on Swiss Army knives suck, so if I can, I’ll bring separate ones anyway.
That just leaves knife blades and scissors. In my regular day to day life I do occaisionally need one or the other of these items. However, a simple penknife costs only a few £/$ - a lot less than a complicated multitool – and a pair of scissors even less. If I’m checking a bag, or not flying, I’ll usually put in a pair of nail scissors – they do most jobs if they need to. If I’m doing carry on only, I do without and haven’t had a problem yet.
2. Sewing kit
This might just be a personal one. I rarely have buttons come off stuff disastrously, nor do I regularly rip my clothes. It takes me forever to mend things when I’m at home, so I’m not going to waste my holiday doing the same. At British airports sewing kits are sometimes confiscated, which kind of defeats the point, and if something becomes unwearable, I’m probably in a place where I can pay someone to fix it for me or get a replacement, or make do until I get somewhere where I can.
3. Compass and/or Whistle
One of the fundamental rules of travel should be that if you don’t use it at home, why on earth would you use it whilst travelling. Compasses and whistles are cases in point. Outside North America, many/most cities are not arranged on a regular grid pattern, and it’s just as easy to navigate with a map, particularly if you are not a regular compass user.
Similarly, whistles are only useful in a few tiny situations – if you’re mugged then you should just handover your cash, if you’re attacked then the whistle needs to be round your neck already, and preferably in your mouth. Which is just a recipe for falling over and knocking your teeth out, or swallowing it.
Naturally, if your trip is in a wilderness area, or you use these items in your day to day life, feel free to disregard my reasoning above. Otherwise, save your cash.
4. Inflatable travel pillow
I have a (short) list of things wrong with these:
- the look stupid
- they aren’t very comfortable
- they get punctures
- they are a pain to blow up
5. Immersion heater
Ok, I don’t have one because I only drink hot drinks from time to time (I’m not a proper Brit either – I don’t like tea). But in any case, pretty much anywhere you want to go there will be coffee on sale, most places can do hot tea, and if you can get coffee, you can get hot water.
Otherwise if you take one, you’ll also need the right plug adaptors, and a mug that won’t break whilst you boil the water. Also a fire and electrical hazard.
6. Travellers cheques
Only worthwhile if you are going somewhere where you can’t rely on ATMs. And that people, is almost nowhere – Mongolia, Burma, some of the ‘stans’. Everywhere else, travellers cheques (or travelers checks) are more limiting.
Outside the US, travellers cheques are not like regular cheques. You can’t normally use them in hotels, restaurants, etc. So, to use travellers cheques, you tend to need regular office hours. (Inside the US, just use ATMs like everyone else.)
Travellers cheques are replaceable, but that is quite a hassle – there aren’t Amex / Thomas Cook offices on every street corner. Also, especially in places where the script does not use the Latin alphabet, your signature will need to match exactly in order to cash them. In Thailand, I once had to sign my name about 15 times before they would give me any money.
7. Special travel clothes
These are really good. They wash and dry quickly, have millions of pockets, come in a myriad of sensible colours,…
Except that they tend to be ugly, styled to suit men and in colours that I really, really hate and will refuse to wear. They make you stick out like a sore thumb, in the same way that that middle aged men in shorts stick out in Paris. Wear your regular clothes. If you wouldn’t wear travel clothes on a day trip in your home area, or to the shops, (assuming the weather is right) then why would you want to wear them whilst away?
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Discussion
24 comments for “7 travel items not to bother buying”
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If you’re staying at a hotel in the US, many other items can be left at home as well: soap, shampoo, hair conditioner, hand-held hair dryer, shaving cream, razor, comb, toothpaste, toothbrush, sewing kit. If these are not already in your room, the front desk usually keeps a supply of these items and will gladly bring them to you.
Great list — I haven’t seen a traveler’s check in years!
I’m in complete agreement with all of these- I have an awesome compressible pillow; it’s so much better than those horrendous inflatable things.
I can’t comprehend people who carry things like immersion heaters (although I do bring tea-bags with me as hotels in North America tend to provide that god-awful cheapo kind).
That’s funny because I love my Swiss Army knife. It’s great having a corkscrew in a youth hostel so you can uncork and unwind and meet lots of people.
I also go camping and knit so I find my knife handy and dandy. I have used every feature eat least once (Even the toothpick). But I suspect you aren’t much of an outdoorsy girl, are you?
I’ve never heard of taking an immersion heater before. Ditto on travel pillows. They’re stupid and you can actually take a real pillow on planes as carry-on. Sewing kits are silly. No one mends anything at home anymore, why would they do that on a trip?
I’m an outdoors girl only in my rich mental life. In the real world, I’m a city person through and through. I can’t believe you’ve used the tool for getting a stone out of a horse’s shoe.
I do enjoy having a (beer) bottle opener on my keyring. Most satisfying. I guess the corkscrew works the same way.
The only one of these I disagree with is the sewing kit - amazing how often we’ve needed them, and I’m sure as hell not wasting holiday time looking for a tailor or a dry cleaner in a strange city. I never pay for them though, we have a stack picked up in hotels over the years.
I agree wholeheartedly with the entire list
In fact, to save anything if a button falls off, etc.. use your dental floss
It acts like a strong, tough string. Even works a shoelace if doubled up.
The inflatable pillow definitely sucks, but I bought a travel pillow that compresses down, but when you open it, it puffs up to a HUGE pillow that can be squeezed back down to a small one again
This is a great post - I go traveling and I definitely never had any use for any of the items mentioned on this post - not that I even own of these items
If I wasn’t good at telling direction from trees and the sun (erm, really - blame boy scouts) then I’d definitely take a small compass.
It’s really useful in a brand new city to know the directions when getting your bearings (I don’t mean that to be a tautology!)
On the other hand, the iPhone has a built in compass…
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what about a first aid box?
Fully Agree with your Swiss knife, cheques, pillow and rest of all things can never be bother if we buy and i would suggest to keep fresh and buy anytime specially traveling hobbiest.
The only thing i dont bother buying is shampoo’s because it always goes messy on all my clothes while in the baggage, and you cant take it with knowadays in your hand baggage either, so i just buy it whenever i land to the holiday resort.
Good advice. I also try to avoid buying magazines at the airport. I try to find a friend and swap for some of their magazines to keep me entertained (and the magazines can all be old since its all new to me).
Good list and travellers cheques are already losing out to the prepaid currency cards and if a swiss arm knife is carried in hand luggage through a uk airport the chances of it not being confiscated are extremely remote nowadays.
As a diver compass is useful but as it is built into my dive watch i reckon i can get away with that one.
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I’m in agreement on the swiss army knife. People always get them for me because I go camping a lot, but I never really find any good use for them. Most of the tools included suck. I’d rather just have a knife and a wedge tool.
Great list.
I generally take a very small sewing kit with me (white, black, brown, blue string and 1-2 needles + some assorted safety pins and a random button or two), however I can pull all of that out of my sewing stash, so no need for a specific purchase. Most of the time, if something does happen however, I rarely sew, I’ll just employ a safety pin until I’m home.
LOL! This is so right on, and very smartly said.
My sister-in-sin always takes an espresso maker with her. Everywhere. And, being gifted with a nice pile of assets, she travels a LOT. Hey: there are some things a person shouldn’t have to be without!
What? You have to have the travel pillow - i need it
Honestly the little ones that you get on planes are rubbish! Although granted, you do look a little silly…
I’m sure as hell not wasting holiday time looking for a tailor or a dry cleaner in a strange city. I never pay for them though, we have a stack picked up in hotels over the years.