TL;DR. If you are looking for a small, light, fast drying towel to use while backpacking or traveling, I recommend the PackTowel Ultralight. I found I can effectively dry my body with a 25″x35″ towel, but the body size lets me wrap the towel around … “A Tale of Four Towels”
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I would like to produce images which inspire to help others see the world in new ways like Ansel Adams, Mary Ellen Mark, Sebastiao Salgado (Salgado@NYT), Steve McCurry. Peter Turnley, David Turnley or Galen Rowell. After many years I realized I am more of a “snapshot” … “Photography”
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The next 2-3 years we will be renting our home out as we explore living other places. We are living out of 1-2 bags, and Jackie has some capsule wardrobes that are stored in a location we can periodically access. Traveling actually started a couple … “Traveling Begins”
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I think of trekking as travel which involves a significant amount of walking while carrying all the gear you will need. Nights are spent in huts, hostels, guest houses, inns, hotels, yurts, or maybe tent provided by a guide. These trips might be a few … “Trekking Packs”
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We are on the Camino now. Ask if you want to follow us on Polarsteps or join the the WhatsApp group for people walking the Camino in May. Jackie and I had hoped to walk The Way of Saint James, aka the Camino de Santiago … “Camino de Santiago”
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TL;DR I became intrigued by the digital nomad lifestyle in the 1980s. I got to know a number of the early digital nomads, and follows many more via blogs and websites. In later years Rolf Potts noted one of my early travel pages as providing … “A “Digital Nomad” Experiment”
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If you listen to popular culture and the ads which “inform” us about acceptable conduction you would be inclined to believe that there are numerous specialized products and activities that we must engaged in for the sake of properness. I ran a series of experiments … “Personal Care Heresies”
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Bugforce Scale as proposed by Paul Wagner is an attempt to describe how annoying mosquitoes are from a qualitative perspective. An example of one of my level 9 experiences was descending into the basin around Dick’s Lake is Desolation Wilderness. While walking down the trail … “Bugforce Scale”
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The following is a reference I use when selecting the next hiking or backpacking destination with a bias toward Northern California. I make it in 2002 and just now am updating in because many of the links were out of date. Each year I say … “Hiking Destinations”
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Updated February 2023 My packing list for trips than range from a few days to several months. Items “*” are optional. This list was extracted from my Packing & Traveling Light post. For a more complete description of these items see my gear for life. Packing … “Packing List”
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You can get commercial information from NapaValley.COM. For years, I found The Best of the Wine Country to be a useful guidebook to the area, but it’s out of date now. Wine Wine is the first order of business. There are more than 400 wineries in the Napa … “Wine Country”
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San Francisco is a beautiful, world class city. There are numerous museums, places of nature beautiful, great food, and well known tourist spots. You could easily spend several weeks exploring San Francisco and only scratch the surface. The SF City Pass can be a good … “San Francisco”
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Part of my visiting northern California series. I would recommend taking two days to explore the area around Monterey. If you had a lot of time you could make it a four day leg and continue down Route 1 to Hearst Castle / San Simeon, … “Monterey Penisula & Big Sur”
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Monta Loma (MLN) is a great neighborhood which has a real community. Long before nextdoor, the community had a website, mailing list and later a wiki. We have community and block parties, a gardening group, CERT team, etc. There was (and maybe still is) a … “Monta Loma Neighborhood and the Mid-Peninsula”
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I tend to prefer mildly spicy food with complex combinations of tastes. Southwest, Mexican, Indian, Thai, Fusion, Californian, and especially Pacific Rim. I can enjoy classic French and Vietnamese, but the subtlety is sometimes lost on me. Great meals involve more than food. It also … “Great Meals”
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I think most people would be best served packing light, and using a carry on size “travel pack” which is a cross between a backpack and soft-side luggage. Travel packs will often have light weight internal frames to make them easier to carry, handles on … “Travel Packs”
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I recommend clothing that can be comfortably worn day after day for a wide variety of activities. My clothing is typically made from technical fibers or merino wool which provides good mobility, decent durability, is light weight, fast drying, and odor/stain resistant. I use mostly … “Recommended Clothing”
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… with a focus on the mid-peninsula. There are a number of general websites which cover the bay area including Yahoo Bay Area, SFGate (Chronicle & Examiner), San Jose Mercury News, CitySearch SF, Yelp and Craigslist. This post is mostly about living in the SF bay area. I have a separate post … “San Francisco Bay Area”
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