Forget the long lines and dinged up, forced-to-fit equipment at traditional ski rental shops. Black Tie Ski Rental Delivery brings the good stuff right to you. Created five years ago, the valet ski and snowboard delivery service now has 10 locations serving 21 resort areas in the western US and Canada. The personalized service, top-of-the-line…
Add some pizzazz to making that morning cup of coffee. The jeweled Clip N Scoop from Cox Creations of Las Vegas will open your eyes long before the coffee’s brewed and keep the bag of beans fresh long after. The innovative kitchen tool comes from designer Gretchen Cox, who makes a variety of funky jewel-…
Inspired by the silk escape maps issued to Allied airmen during WWII, Map Scarves are now available for fashion conscious travelers. The silk gold-tone scarves feature detailed city maps of London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin, Vienna, New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC. They “cover” all the major sights and attractions, along with a few…
Keeping fit while travelling has just gotten easier with the Puma Trainaway collection. Blending technology with cutting edge athletic equipment, this ingenious training kit includes water-repellent shorts, moisture-wicking T-shirt, and running shoes that all fold inside the matching jacket that turns into a carrying bag. Another added benefit is a specially designed slot within the…
Snowshoes have come a long way from the ones Richard Proenneke used to get around in his Alaskan outback winters forty years ago. Today’s showshoes are made to move. That’s the idea, anyway, with MSR’s Lightning Ascent snowshoe. This snowshoe provides 360 degrees of traction, and is made of aerospace-grade aluminum. The shoes make trekking…
The world’s foremost innovator in dog outerwear, K9 Top Coat promises canine apparel that is both durable and fashionable, comfortable yet functional. This is not the sort of dog clothes that comes in a bag at Petco. K9 Top Coat apparel comes in all sorts of material. For cold weather, there’s contour-hugging fleece and lycra…
Developed by Motorola and the snowboard company Burton, the Audex Bluetooth Ski Jacket lets you listen to your iPod or even talk on your cell phone on the slopes completely hands free. The iPod or phone plugs in a connector in a pocket and then you control everything from a panel on the jacket’s sleeve….
We all hate schlepping around a big tripod. Now a company in Santa Cruz, CA called Joby has created a mobile, flexible solution. The Gorillapod is super light (45 grams), super cheap ($22), compact, portable, bendable, grippable and super smart with flexible legs that can wrap around poles, trees and fences, or just stand on…
Definition Bag-a-holic: “one afflicted with the compulsive desire to acquire new bags (purses, briefcases, backpacks, etc). Symptoms: caches of little-used luggage paraphernalia; subconscious gravitation to travel-related stores. Treatment: sfbags.com.” I for one have long suffered from this condition. What friends and family don’t understand though, is that this obsession is not pathological. What underlies every…
It’s happened to me many times. I buy the latest computer, printer, PDA or cell phone. A day, week or month later, it’s replaced through planned obsolescence with a newer model that’s faster, smaller, and/or cheaper. Now, Apple Computer has followed that trend — again — to better compete with low-end competitors by introducing a…
Oh to watch the world go by from 40,000 feet. When I fly I love gazing down at the hills, mountains, lakes, streets and tiny, tiny cars. Then I doze and miss a few hundred miles at a time. Today that’s okay, because now I can catch up on what I missed wtih Google’s free…
Very, very soon, Research in Motion Ltd’s BlackBerrye-mail devices will support Google Talk instant-messaging and Google Local mapping programs. This service from BlackBerry for Google Local mapping will let mobile users view maps and satellite images, find local businesses and even get driving directions on their handsets.