GLOBAL NOMAD// For the Independent Female Traveler

I have a confession: Up until a few months ago, I didn’t own a smartphone. I was still using an old cell phone that required duct tape to keep it together and a pair of tweezers to remove the SIM card. I’m not a technophobe, but part of me resisted the idea of being “on” all the time. When I travel, I like to disconnect from the hectic pace of North American life. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Rough Guides

I grew up in northern Alberta (Canada’s equivalent of Siberia), and snowshoeing was part of our school curriculum. Every winter we’d head out into the woods with traditional snowshoes made of wood and rawhide lacings — something I enjoyed far more than our square-dancing class or a game our gym teacher invented that involved whipping rubber balls at you as you ran for your life across the double-sized gymnasium. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: iStock

Once, while camping, I slept right through a tornado. Yet snoring — or even nasally breathing, for that matter — will instantly wake me from a sound slumber. So inevitably during a long-haul flight I’ll end up sitting next to someone who’s snoring like a grizzly bear. Or a screaming baby. Or a drunken passenger who wants to show me his collection of porn magazines (yes, true story). To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Phitek

Perhaps, like me, you’ve found yourself caught in a torrential downpour in the middle of nowhere, and that well-worn “waterproof” jacket you’re wearing isn’t so waterproof anymore. I now carry one of those emergency disposable rain ponchos in my backpack, just in case, but if you don’t want to look like you’re wearing a giant garbage bag, there’s another option. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Granger’s

Nowadays, most people want to stay connected — to some degree — when they’re traveling. The question is whether you want to lug around your laptop or netbook or smartphone when you’re backpacking in Laos or Bolivia or Azerbaijan. I once brought my laptop with me as I traveled across Cambodia in the back of a pickup truck along with about 30 other people (plus sacks of rice and live chickens), and it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn’t such a smart idea. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Citrix

When you’ve got a wad of K83,000 Lao kip jammed into your wallet (because it won’t possibly fit into your moneybelt), it can be easy to lose sight of the fact you’re only carrying around about US$10. When dealing with different currencies, it’s hard to know how much you’re actually spending, particularly because exchange rates can change on a dime these days — the Canadian loonie is practically bipolar. So whether you’re debating over that Buddhist thangka in Kathmandu or those half-price Prada shoes in Paris, there are tools that can help you stick to your budget. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: OANDA

Whether you’re looking for a gift to help the traveler in your life protect their electronic equipment, document their travels or just figure out where the heck they are, there are plenty of ideas to suit either the techno-geek or the techno-phobe. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Magellan

There’s something to be said about detaching from technology when we travel — I like to drop off the radar to truly get away from it all. But I also realize that’s not always practical, and there are a lot of cool gadgets out there designed to make life easier and more comfortable on the road less traveled. Here are a few gift ideas for the traveler in your life, most for under $100. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Belkin

If you’re shopping around for a new backpack, you might feel overwhelmed by the vast array of choices in every size, shape, colour and price range. Whether you’re looking for a purpose-built pack or something more generic, it can be challenging to choose between dozens of models or know how much to spend. Here are a few things to keep in mind when looking for the right pack. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Deuter USA