Three of my Favorite Things (for travelling)

Here are three items I always bring on long trips.

1.  Kensington noise canceling headphones. These are much cheaper than the heavily advertised version by Bose and they work very well.  With the headphones on you can actually listen to music on an airplane, but don’t think that you are going to sleep all that much better.  One AA battery will get you there and back although I always bring a spare in case I forget to turn off the noise canceling switch.

2.  Paul Fredrick Non-Iron Dress Shirt.  Although not sold as a travel shirt this non-iron shirt looks almost as good on the second wearing as on the first and you can wash it in the sink, hang it to to dry and wear it again on day three.   I have "non-iron," and "wrinkle-free" dress shirts from other manufacturers but none are as good as the Paul Fredrick.

3.  Kodak DX7590 digital camera.  There are plenty of things wrong with this camera – like almost all digitals it’s slow to start and has a long refresh rate between pictures (and thus is not good at capturing action) and it’s bulky.  This camera, however, has two redeeming features.  First, and most importantly, it has a 10 times zoom and not a useless digital zoom but a real 10 times optical zoom.   The zoom makes all the difference when you want to get the close-up of that gargoyle on top of Saint-Chapelle.

As noted, the real lens makes the camera bulky but do you want to impress your friends with your "cute camera" or do you want to impress your friends with your photographs?  (Also, if you want impress your friends with your photos be sure to delete 80 percent of them.)

The other redeeming feature is the battery life.  With an additional 256mb memory card I can take well over 100 pictures, about right for a week trip, and can leave the battery charger at home.