Travel Essentials Guide
It might not feel like it with the weather at the moment, but summer is just round the corner. Which means it’s almost time for many of us to head off on our annual family holiday – or maybe it’s your child’s first overseas trip with the school? (we all know school trips are important although going away without you there might feel nerve wracking for them and you!) Wherever it is you’ve got planned for the holiday, you’ll have probably spent more time planning the trip itself rather than the accessories you’ll need to take with you. So, here’s our handy guide to the most essential travel accessories this year.
Best Luggage
When it comes to investing in luggage for family holidays it pays to think practically, as well as being tempted by the design, style or colour of the luggage. The lighter your suitcase when empty, the more holiday essentials you can pack. Bulkier suitcases – particularly hard-shell ones – can often weigh close to 6kg and can often be difficult to manoeuvre on uneven terrain. Many hard-shell cases can dent remarkably easily too.
For me, the best value full size suitcase on the market is the KIPSTA 105l Suitcase Essential from Decathlon, which – as the name suggests – has a whopping 105 litre capacity but weighs only 4.2kg. Our KIPSTA luggage has been a godsend everywhere we’ve taken it. We’ve taken it around Europe by rail for a month (twice), and dragged it through Jordan, Egypt and Iceland, as well as a couple of ski trips. Our late Jack Russell terrier even used to sleep on top of it when he travelled Europe with us, and it still looks great after all that. As well as looking fantastic and its durability the KIPSTA 105l Suitcase Essential is incredibly practical too. One feature we find great about the suitcase is that it has a top and bottom compartment that can be accessed separately, which makes it particularly handy for separating each family member’s belongings from the other. This is particularly useful if you’re moving from place to place, as we often do, rather than just arriving at a hotel and unpacking everything. This suitcase is a bargain, but don’t just take my word for it check out all the five-star reviews on the Decathlon website.
Currently on sale from Decathlon for £59.99
Best Cabin Bag
There’s only one thing more frustrating about modern air travel than paying for hold luggage, and that’s paying for hand luggage! The allowance for hand luggage has gotten smaller and smaller in recent years on budget airlines.
There are lots of products on the market for getting out of these fees, including hilarious coats that are lined with pockets for carrying your luggage. Personally, I beat them at their own game by using the KIPSTA 20L BAG ESSENTIAL from Decathlon, which can easily carry enough to last me a weekend away – especially in the warmer months. The dimensions comply with all budget airlines’ free allowances, so it makes for the perfect cabin bag. This is an absolute steal, and it has a side pocket that allows you to fold it into itself when not in use. In colder months, we take an extra KIPSTA in my pocket and all wear a couple of layers of jumpers, then put them into the spare KIPSTA once we’ve boarded the plane.
At just £6.99 from Decathlon
Best for coffee lovers
One of the great pleasures of travel can be sitting in a café sipping a fresh java and watching the world go by. But if, like me, you get through five coffees a day the costs of this can soon rack up. If you’re lucky there might be a Nespresso machine in your hotel but more often than not it’s a simple kettle, which means ground coffee is off the menu. Luckily,
I found a solution last year when I came across the Nanopresso from Wacaco – who make a variety of other travel systems for coffee lovers. This remarkably compact contraption has saved me a fortune and lets me drink my favourite brand (Lavazza), whatever hotel I’m in. It’s made up of a few small parts, measures less than 16cm and easily fits in my jacket pocket, which means I can take an espresso machine with me wherever I travel. Making a brew is as simple as unscrewing the cap, filling the small coffee filter basket with your chosen brand, screwing on the top back on, filling the bottom of the Nanopresso with water from the kettle and then pumping the coffee out with it’s retractable pumping handle. The results are every bit as good as a regular espresso machine thanks to the 18 bars of pressure that it produces as you pump. There’s even a removable cup incorporated seamlessly into the design, so you’ve got everything you need in a tiny little package – except the coffee that is.
Currently retailing for £72.90 from Wacaco
Best 2-in-1 Car Seat and Backpack
Dragging car seats on holiday with you is a real pain in the bottom, but most car rental companies charge a small fortune to add them to your booking. Luckily this BoostApak 2-in-1 car seat/backpack from Trunki makes bringing a car seat on holiday a doddle. It’s light enough to be carried by most children over the age of five – depending on what you put in it of course – and is certified to ECE safety standards.
Not only will it save you money on hiring expensive car seats from rental car companies, but it can also save you money if you’re travelling with hand luggage only; thanks to the fact that airlines typically allow a car seat on top of your hand luggage when travelling with children. We’ve used ours with Ryanair, Easyjet and Wizz Air and not had any problems with any of them. We actually use the BoostApak to transport liquids over 100ml as you’re supposed to put car seats in the hold, so it saves us money on buying sun creams, deodorants and other larger liquids overseas. It can easily pay for itself in just one trip.
Available from Halfords for £54.99
Best travel adapter
Almost everything we travel with these days is charged by USB, which is great because there’s nothing I detest more when travelling than those adapters that turn a UK plug into a European one.
They’re often unnecessarily bulky and have an annoying habit of not staying in the plug socket properly because of the weight of the adapter and the plug combined pulling it out. It makes much more sense to buy an EU USB charger with more than one USB socket in it if you ask me. There are various models that will do the job nicely but with the larger ones that have four USB sockets you’re potentially going to have the same problems.
In my opinion buying two smaller chargers, each with two USB sockets, makes more sense. We use the Pipestation® EU 2 Pin to USB Plug Travel Adapter Charger, available on Amazon, which is small, lightweight and charges two devices at a time pretty efficiently. By using two of these we’re able to charge all the family’s devices each night wherever we are in Europe.
Available on Amazon for £5.49
Some great tips.
Great advice thanks