Do you have some weird things you travel with? I have 15 to share with you. These are some of my weirdest travel essentials. Let’s look at some of my favourite travel gear and some travel tips!
When you watch packing videos or read packing blogs, most people have reasonably similar packing lists. But often they’ll have just a few things that are unusual, which made me think about what I pack that isn’t always packed by others.
I have a list of 15 items I bring with me – maybe not on every trip, but often enough to be regulars on my packing lists.
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And I have a question for you, or maybe it’s a riddle? On our next holiday we’re flying from Canberra to Sydney and back again, with no flights in between. That’s Canberra, Australia and Sydney, Australia, which are about 300km apart and in the same country. So why am I packing our passports? Read until the end and I’ll tell you!
Cross body phone strap
Day to day I mostly drive wherever I’m going so I just carry my phone with me and put it in the charging tray in the car. But when I go away, I use public transport, and I use my phone to pay for things, and for maps to get around.
So, I’ll be walking around with my phone in my hand, which carries a risk that I could put it down and lose it, or a thief could snatch it from me.
This is where item one comes in – a cross-body strap for my phone. I have a few of them but I mainly use a pinkish one similar to the one shown below – it’s actually pretty colourful when you see it closely!
It clips on to loops attached to my phone case, or for cases without loops, I have this little thing that I insert into the case, and it has a tab that comes out the charging port hole with a D-ring on it.
Tenegui
Years ago, when I was in Japan, I bought this Tenegui – in Japan it’s common for public toilets to have no means of drying your hands. Also, there are no garbage bins on the street, so you have to carry your rubbish around with you until you find a bin at a konbini or a vending machine. So, people in Japan carry teneguis for wiping their hands or wrapping up their rubbish. I also find it useful for wrapping up leftover food to take back to my hotel room – if it isn’t squishy! But something like a sandwich, say.
Jewellery trays
I feel stressed if I’m disorganised, so I like my hotel room or cruise ship cabin to have a place for everything, and everything in its place. These two trays help me to do that – they are flat, so really easy to pack, but they snap together into little bowls. I always take the small one with me and use it to put my jewellery in at night. The larger one I take on longer trips and it’s had various uses over the years – makeup or skincare, camera accessories, anything that I don’t want to lose track of really!
Micro cord
This roll of micro cord has 38 metres on it – or 125 feet for the Americans reading! But it’s bulky so I’ve cut off a few metres and I take that on longer trips where we may need to wash some clothes. I can tie it between two things – out on a balcony perhaps or between two over the door hooks, or across the shower. I can always find somewhere to put it! And then I can hang clothes over it to dry. I do have a proper travelling clothesline but it’s chunky, so I don’t bother with it anymore.
Solid perfume
You don’t see solid perfume for sale much, which is a pity, but if you look for it you can find it out there. I have this Diptyque Philosykos, which is a unisex scent. I like it for travel because it won’t spill – once I had one of those travel rollerball perfumes break in my luggage and it ruined a couple of things – it melted the plastic on a folding mirror I recall – I can’t believe that perfume can melt plastic, and we put it on our skin! The solid perfume is also good for flights, since you don’t need to put it in your liquids bag.
Deodorant wipes
Something else I carry on flights to avoid filling up the liquids bag is deodorant wipes. I don’t use them for the whole time I’m away – they’re a bit expensive for that! But for the actual flight they’re great to freshen up with before you disembark.
Matches
Why would I carry matches when neither of us smoke? Well, they’re better than air freshener sprays for getting rid of toilet smells. After you’ve done the deed, strike a match and let it burn down a bit. Then shake it out and the smell will get neutralised pretty quickly.
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Suction hooks
You’ve heard about magnetic hooks for cruise ships? I wish I could use them in a hotel room! But instead, I carry suction hooks. I mainly use them in the bathroom, to hang up the bag my shampoo bar is in, or perhaps my face cloth. I’ve even used them to hang towels, so they’re quite strong! They work best on a smooth, flat surface – they fall off textured ones. They’re one of those items I always pack, and then if I find a use for them, they can come out to play.
Collapsible containers
I carry one or two collapsible food storage containers on longer trips. If we’re staying in an Airbnb or a hotel room with a kitchen, they come in handy for storing and heating up leftovers. And recently I had gastric sleeve surgery for weight loss so now I can’t eat a full meal. If I’m eating out, instead of wasting food I pack it up and take it with me.
Yoga Toes
These things that look like overgrown toe separators for putting nail polish on are called Yoga Toes. And they do exactly what they look like – they stretch out your toes. After a long day walking around in one of our travel destinations, I put them on and put my feet up for half an hour. They help to ease aches and tiredness in my feet and calves. They can be a bit uncomfortable while they’re on but once they come off, they relief they bring is like magic!
Otrivin Menthol
This one is very specific – Otrivin Menthol. It’s a nasal decongestant and I think it’s only available in Australia – perhaps New Zealand too but I haven’t seen it anywhere else. It is THE BEST when you have a blocked nose, and since I’m prone to colds when I travel, I take plenty of it because I don’t like using the cold and flu tablets – I swear they make me feel worse – so I use this to help me stay sane.
**UPDATE** After my video went live, lots of people contacted me to say they can buy Otrivin Menthol where they live, so apparently it is available in many parts of the world!
Philips Hue light
We’ve stayed in the same hotel in New York eleven times so obviously we love it. But what we don’t love is that because it’s a small building tucked between much larger ones the rooms are quite dark. I wake up best when woken up by natural light. So, when we go to New York we take a Philips Hue Go smart lamp. It’s the second version, which has Bluetooth, so I can set a time on the app in my phone before going to bed each night for it to wake us up in the morning. It starts off dim and gets brighter and brighter. It’s also great in an inside cabin on a cruise ship.
Silk pillowcase
Silk pillowcases are meant to be gentler on your skin and hair. I’ve used one for years but when I don’t, I never notice a difference. Maybe it’s too late at my age!
But I will pack one for some trips, not because I’m worried about the effect on my skin or hair but because my hair colour – the pink dye – comes off on pillowcases and may stain them. For hotels and cruise ships I don’t usually pack my pillowcase but if I’m staying in an Airbnb or someone’s home I always do. It saves getting a charge for extra cleaning or replacing their pillowcase!
Don’t pack a white one though, or the housekeeping staff may take it away and you’ll never get it back!
Little watch charger
This little watch charger plugs into either a lightning or USB C cable. My Apple watch is getting on a bit now and goes through stages of losing its charge really quickly. If I carry this little watch charger with me, I can use a power bank to charge it up on the go. I’d use a small cable like the InCharge X by Rolling Square.
AirPods neck cord
I have ridiculously tiny ear holes it seems, and I can’t wear in ear headphones. Even my AirPods won’t stay securely in my ears. To avoid losing one I use this silicon neck cord. You put the Air Pod in each side like this and put the cord behind your neck. It’s particularly good if I want to listen to some white noise on a plane when I’m trying to sleep. I don’t have to worry that an Air Pod is going to end up in the seat somewhere. On a plane, losing some tech in the seat and having to get a flight attendant with a torch to find it is one of my great fears.
Why the passports?
Now for the answer to my little riddle. Why am I packing our passports for a trip where we are flying to Sydney and back? The answer is that we’re going on a cruise to New Zealand from Sydney. I bet you guessed that it was something to do with a cruise! But did you know I even pack our passports if we are cruising from Australia to Australian ports only? It isn’t usually required by the cruise line, but if something extreme were to happen and we ended up in another country it would be a lot easy to get back home if we had them.
Do you have any weird travel essentials? Comment below!
And then you can read my post on minimising your travel gear, and this one about some lightening your toiletry load.
Links to products
✈️🛳️ When we travel, we use the following (may be affiliate links):
📱 Phone data: AloSIM eSIMs. Use code 7NBZZYI
🔐 Data and device security: NordVPN
🎟️ Tours and tickets: Viator
🧳 Away luggage. Get $40 off and we get a commission if you use this link
🏷️ Air Tags have helped us find lost luggage
🛍️ Mardi’s favourite toiletry bag
🧴Larger containers to decant toiletries into
⏰ Philips Hue 2 can be used as a sunrise lamp
🌅 Philips Sunrise alarm clock
🪝 Suction hooks for additional hotel storage
🧊 Packing cubes
🪞 Folding lighted makeup mirror:
🪭 Handheld fan for warmer climates
💍 We use this hanging jewellery organiser as a travel medications organiser
🎧 Airfly allows Bluetooth headphones to connect to in-flight entertainment
🧳 Level8 luggage
🏨 Expedia for booking hotels
🚢 Shore Excursions Group for booking port tours on cruises
About
We are Mardi and Michael Linke. We’ve been travelling together for over 25 years and we love to share our experiences, showing the places we go and reviewing hotels, airlines and cruises.
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