"Must-bring" items for holiday travels

Always experienced travel holiday problems which would not have arisen if we had brought something else along. Not the kitchen sink, of course, but you know , stuff like these:

01. Digital camera straps. There were occasions when I needed 3, 4 or 5 hands and a strap for the digicam around my neck would have made life easier. A short one to dangle the digicam from the wrist is not that very useful but still better than nothing, else you'll have to hold the digicam in your palm which means one hand gone, or in a pocket.

02. Rechargeable batteries for the digicam. I usually bring 2 AA 1600s and 2 AA 2100s.

03. A charger for the rechargeable AA batteries. I didn't bring mine along as I thought my batteries were sufficient (brought twice the above) but found them running out faster than planned because I was frequently viewing shots taken (to conserve memory). Besure to check that your battery charger can take the destination country's voltage. And that your charger has a built-in transformer. Japan's 100 volts was fine for my charger but I didn't bring it, sheee ...

Story : I didn't want to buy and lug more batteries so I checked around and found a Fujifilm photoshop in the Kanazawa Station shopping centre which charged 4 of my batteries for 200 yen, and a camera/phone shop off EBC in Osaka(?) where the manager showed me to a drawer of about 20 battery chargers and an electric socket bank in same drawer and told me to help myself, apologising that the shop cannot be responsible for damages to my batteries in case of blah blah. I set up my batteries in a quick-charger, carried on my tour and returned an hour later for my batteries.

04. Electrical socket adaptor. Say no more, this is essential, unless you've checked that the destination country uses the same sockets as yours. Some hotels have adaptors for loan.

05. Additional memory cards for your digicam. I had two SD cards, 512MB and 256MB, and I just made it even though I didn't have an itchy finger. SD cards are very expensive in Japan where I received quotes of 15,000 yen and 9,900 yen for a 2Gig card. Latter price is for a cheap Taiwan make.

06. If you can make it within the baggage allowance, bring along a small radiance heater. For cold destinations only of course! Especially useful when the aircon remote is in a foreign language. Saves you calling the Front Desk for assistance to set the remote.

07. Some wire hangers as most hotels provide about 4 or so per room.

08. Some binding tape and twine to tie all those stuff you didn't know you'll end up buying.


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