Must Pack adventure travel "survival" gear you won’t read anywhere else.

Today I am going to give you Four Items Of Survival Gear that you probably would never have thought of.

It’s the end of the year and you have a little time on your hands.

The glimmer of the gifts you got and the regrets for the ones you didn’t are already starting to fade as you try not to think about how many pages your next credit card bill will be.

So while you still have a few days before the onset of the post-New Year’s hangover intertwines with the gluttony of college football bowl games and requisite snack foods, you might start thinking about where your travels may take you in the upcoming new year.

For us United State’rs, at least the dollar has come up some when compared to the European Euro and English pound. (And it is really up against the Mexican peso, which is good news for me, as I will be traveling extensively there in the upcoming months.)

One thing that all travelers have in common is the necessity in determining what to pack.

Some seasoned travelers eschew a written list entirely.

And then there are people like myself, wherein even my lists have lists.

You might wonder which method yields more efficient packing and taking less superfluous stuff.

I don’t know, but I do know that I carry too much crap.

As I have mentioned many times before, this is likely a direct result of my years in the Boy Scouts, thus the curse of Sir Baden-Powell: motto – Be Prepared.

So whatever method of list making you pack by, here are those four items that may just save your life, or at least make you feel better about yourself.

 

The next time you are on holiday with the President-elect of the United States, you might consider carrying a candle.

Just think, if you had been at the dinner table with Barrack and family when the lights went out on the entire island of Oahu and you whipped a candle out of your pocket–but not until you informed the Secret Service what you were reaching for–what a great impression you would have made with the First Family In Waiting.

Hell, it might have even landed you a diplomatic post in some exotic spot that you had on your travel destination list.

 

Next on the list is packing your MP3 music player when doing back country skiing; but NOT to listen to music or all those podcasts you keep downloading but never have time to listen to. 

No, it’s the light from the player that might just be the beacon for the rescue helicopters looking for you when your spouse notices you have been gone for two weeks longer than expected. (Hey, she was enjoying the peace and quiet…until a mouse showed up in the house.)

 

Now, we get serious. Many of you are traveling in areas that push the concept of extreme adventure travel. You have to have serious testicularitude to travel to places where losing your head means more than acting a little silly: places where an American or British passport has the potential to find your neck on the business side of a saber.

A vacation in Afghanistan would be high on that list.

Your very survival might depend on making just the right impression with the local chieftain or warlord.

Not many of us  have or would carry enough cash to fit that need and I somehow doubt you or I would be likely to have access to or be packing a weapons cache that would garner their interest and favor.

So, what is the latest weapon on the war on terror?

How about a pocket full of Viagra pills.

That is exactly what worked recently when a CIA agent handed a local chieftain four of the little blue friends and said,

“Take one of these. You’ll love it. Compliments of Uncle Sam.”

Sure enough, when the spy-dude returned four days later, the chieftain was falling over himself (quite possibly literally, esp. if he took all four of the pills) with cooperation,

“You are a great man,” the chieftain said.”

After that the CIA officer reported, “We could do whatever we wanted in his area.”

(Area being geographical and not anatomical in nature, I can only assume.)

 

Finally, not to downplay the importance of propping up Afghan chieftains, but sometimes our personal comfort, or serious lack thereof, is enough to ruin an otherwise wonderful adventure.

And that includes sore buttocks.

I apologize if this is too graphic in nature, but this is important…ah…stuff to talk about.

If you have had the unfortunate result of drinking water or eating something that has turned your insides into a caldron of churning burning acid and converted you posterior exhaust system into something powerful enough to lift a Titan rocket off the launch pad, you probably know the subsequent situation where frequent rectal purging and constant wiping with paper about as soft as a sheet of plywood has left you rueful and raw.

While prevention is obviously the preferred remedy, sometimes…ah…stuff happens.

So, the last item on my Where Else Would You Read This list of survival tools, is something to sooth that aching arse.

Butt Paste^®

When I was perusing the isles of personal health care items for my trip to Indonesia, I happened upon a bin of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste.

I have to admit, the bright yellow package with red lettering first caught my eye, and after seeing the name, how could I not pick one up.

At first, it was just the novelty of the name that caught my attention, but then I thought back to the times where I have suffered as described above and wished I could fix that burning feeling both inside my tummy and, well, you know, down there.

I found serious YouTube ads for this stuff that at first I thought were gags (they are not).

No, I have not yet had the occasion to test the stuff and no, I am not willing to create the condition necessary for a legitimate demonstration, but I am going south of the border, so stand by.

And hopefully you won’t have the need to try this yourself, but if you do, you can be assured that, according to the label, the stuff has a pleasant scent.

Why someone would have their nose anywhere near that area to make that determination is beyond me.

But then again, maybe I am not traveling with an adventurous enough crowd.

Not that adventures to the hinterlands really sounds all that appealing.

 

So, what items are on your survival list for those hard to reach areas of the world you travel?