OVERRATED travel gear & what I bring instead

I have to make a confession: Over the last few years, I think I bought every single travel gadget. And even though many of those gadgets are really useful and I love traveling with them, there are just so many of them that I wish I never bought. So in today's video, I'm going to talk about ten overrated travel gadgets and what I bring instead. Because for most of those things, I found cheaper and more useful substitutes. And now let's move on to the first overrated travel gadget. What's an overr

ated travel gadget? Very spontaneously… The Heroclip. Definitely. We only use it to hang the clothesline when we travel. I really don't know why I'm still carrying it around. And I have to totally agree with my husband because the first thing that I wrote down when I started to brainstorm my list of overrated travel gear for this video are Heroclips. Everson and me, we own several Heroclips. A Heroclip is basically just a carabiner that's attached to a hook. In reality, apart from being way too

expensive, I just find them too much trouble to do anything with them. It just takes too many steps to, actually, get them off the bag, open them, close them. And both Everson and me, we just never really found a good use case for them. So what I use instead is just a cheap, lightweight carabiner. Or, I also love using these hooks that I got from Amazon. They're very cheap. It's like a pack of ten for a few Euros. So even though they don't actually look like it, they work very well to hang bags

on tables and stuff. Plus, I can also use it to hang up my other bags. I often use it to hang up my pants to dry in the shower and all those things. So these hooks always travel with me while the Heroclip stays at home. The next overrated piece of gear that did not live up to my expectations are the inCharge 6-in-1 Multi Charging Cable. Basically, this is just a small charging cable that magnetically sticks together and it has a few adapters on both sides, so you can really mix and match and cha

rge most of your devices with it. And when I saw this cable a few years ago, it was actually kind of love at first sight. I was so excited and I really thought it's super useful and I absolutely need to buy one. So I went ahead, I think it was like four years ago, and I ordered four of their cables on Kickstarter. I ordered two of the small keychain versions, and I ordered also two of the long cables that they had. The long cables never really worked properly and they always lost the connection.

And from the short ones, I think the first one broke within half a year or so. So basically, out of four cables that I bought, only one is still barely alive. And I personally found them to be very fragile and it does not hold up very well. So you just need to do like this and then the adapter falls off. And I also did not like too much that there is like this combination of a Micro USB and Lightning. It did not feel correct to use it in my opinion. It always "hurt" a little bit to thrust this

cable into the slot of my expensive iPhone and I never really felt comfortable using this. And there were lots of issues when you moved any device a little bit that the charging would just stop. So instead of the inCharge, I just bring short cables for what I need. I'm also a big fan of adapters. If you have seen any of my videos, I show them all the time. You can buy them in any combination for a very affordable price point. So these are great to just bring along. And nowadays I can also charge

most of my devices with Magsafe. This… Unfortunately also stays at home. The next overrated thing, in my opinion, is a water bottle. I always carry a water bottle with me when I'm back home in Austria, because I can just refill with tap water. But when I travel, I rarely bring a water bottle with me. Especially when I travel to countries where I cannot drink the tap water. For several reasons: The first reason is that I need to buy water in bottles to drink anyways, and then I don't even save a

ny plastic by bringing my own bottle. Another reason is that when I'm traveling for weeks and months at a time, I don't often have the option to properly clean my bottle and then they all get all gunky and gross and I really don't want to drink out of them anymore. And another thing is that I always find them annoying to haul them around. I personally just find it more flexible to reuse bottles that I get anyways, like empty water bottles or empty Coke bottles. And I usually refill them just lik

e I would refill any other water bottle. But I enjoy the flexibility that I can just throw them away when they get funky. Or, that I can just throw them away if they get too bulky in my bag. The only bottle that I sometimes travel with, especially to countries when I cannot drink the water, is my Grayl water purifier. I already did a separate review video about it and I will leave it somewhere in the description. But this bottle is very bulky, so what we usually do is just we refill any other bo

ttle we have and then leave this bulky thing in the hotel room. And the next item on my list are neck pillows. And you would not believe how many of those things I bought in my lifetime. But the truth is I just don't find them comfortable at all. I don't have a very long neck, so I always feel like they push my neck forward. And also they don't really give a lot of support to my head so that I could actually sleep. So I really don't find them comfortable at all. There's no other use for them apa

rt from flying. And I always found them a little bit too bulky and dead weight in my luggage for weeks and months. And you probably don't notice that when you travel different than me, when all you do is arrive in the hotel room, drop it there, and two weeks later pack your bag again to fly home, then you may feel different about it. But when you're constantly on the move and you always have to pack and carry your stuff with you on a daily basis, then this gets very annoying. So what I like to b

ring instead, and it has more uses and is more smaller to pack, is an inflatable camping pillow. I have one from Sea to Summit, the Aeros Ultralight Inflatable. I even find it more comfortable in an airline because usually in the headrest there is this flap that you can fold forward. So what I like to do is kind of secure this pillow here between my head and the headrest, and then I actually have something I can lean my head against. I hope you heard that with the microphone here. And I also use

it in the hotel room when they don't give you enough pillows, or when I go to the beach and I want to have a nap, or in a hammock, all those things. So I find this very useful, whereas this just has one use and that it does not even do good for me. The next overrated travel gear is the Scrubba. The Scrubba is marketed as a washing machine for travel. And it basically is just a simple dry bag where you can put your clothes inside, you add water and detergent, you remove the air and then just mas

sage the whole bag. And it has some silicone nibs inside that supposedly helps with the cleaning. But basically, that's all it is. And while this sounds great in theory, there's just so many things that I dislike about it. First, I find it way too expensive for what it is. Second, they say it's lightweight, but it's actually 150 grams. And the only thing that could really convince me to buy it would be the valve, because I would find it very useful if I could remove the water out of the bag afte

r washing, because that's the most tedious thing. But unfortunately, this valve does not remove any water. It just removes the air before you start washing. And this is something I can easily do by hand with a normal dry bag. So what I use instead is just a normal dry bag for a fraction of the cost. And I personally buy the more expensive ones. I always use the ones from Sea to Summit with their Ultra-Sil material because the material is extremely thin and lightweight. I have the 13 liter bag, a

nd with that size it only weighs 47 grams. In my opinion, it's much cheaper and more lightweight and it does exactly the same thing as the Scrubba. And if you want to know how I do laundry on the road, I will also link a video down below. And the normal dry bag also has many more uses for me. I can just use it as a normal dry bag when I go to the beach to protect my things from the sand or the water. I also use it as a laundry bag. And I already have all my things in there when I'm ready to wash

them. I also use it to just protect all my gear in the backpack if I really get into a heavy rain. The next item on my list is the Matador FlatPak Toiletry Bottle. If you saw a few of my videos, you know that I'm a big fan of Matador products and that I use a few of them regularly. But honestly, these toiletry bottles are just not one of them. And I showed this bottle years ago in one of my first travel toiletry videos, and even then I was not too excited and already doubted the durability. May

be you can see it already got very white. So I'm not really sure how long this thing will last. Even though the guys from Matador said that that's perfectly normal. I remember that even after using it for a very short time, the hinge on the lid already looked like it was about to break, and it also just sometimes popped open and made a big mess. But the worst thing for me in the end was that it was just impossible to clean this thing. Because there was no way for you to get inside. And I had sun

screen inside, which basically just turned into a hard gunk. Because I think it's the same fabric than they have in their soap pouches. And the soap pouches are marketed that they can dry the soap inside the bag. So I guess there is some truth to that. So what do I bring instead? Well, any other refillable bottle will do. If I really want the same form factor, I just reuse bottles like this. But honestly, I don't have too many products that I need to refill anymore because I switch to solids as

much as possible. And for that, I usually use the Matador FlatPak Soap Bar Case, which I think is an excellent product. The next overrated piece of gear that I did not buy in a long time anymore are those transparent pouches that you can buy to protect your phone from sand and water. I personally don't trust them, and I also don't want to display all my valuables like this on the beach with this little transparent pouch hanging around my neck. So what I use instead is a small dry bag. And this i

s almost the same that I use for my laundry. It's also from Sea to Summit, again their Ultra-Sil version. And it's a two liter bag. It's 100% waterproof, protects all my things from sand and water and all those things. Plus, I also use it to transport my wet bikini back home from the beach. And what I often do is just wash it directly inside this bag when I'm back home. Another overrated piece of gear for me are those refillable perfume spray bottles. I bought several of them over the years, and

I've never found one that did not leak. And they also just ruined the smell of my favorite perfume for me because it broke and it leaked into my bag and everything just obnoxiously smelled like my perfume for weeks and months at a time. And every time I smell that now, it just… What I like to bring instead is either solid perfume. So, absolutely no leaking happening on these ones. And another option that I love very much are those cheap spray bottles. I always buy a pack of ten for like €10 or

so on Amazon. And they never leaked. Not once. So I will never buy one of those perfume bottles anymore. The next item on my list is actually a whole category, and they are expensive travel brands. I personally had bad experiences with all those brands that are marketed to travelers. The ones where you usually just get bombarded with ads on social media until you think you really want this thing. Because the quality never, not once, lived up to my expectations. For example, a pair of Tropicfeel

shoes turned one of my last trips to Brazil into a total nightmare. First off, there was this smell. They smelled so bad. And I usually wear Merino socks. I don't have any problems with smelly feet or smelly shoes or anything, but these shoes, they just stank. And they stank so bad. And it was unbearable to spend a night in a hotel room together with my shoes. Which is not ideal when you're traveling. And after a few weeks they just started to fall apart and the seams opened and I just got so an

noyed, I threw them away and lived the rest of my Brazil trips in flip flops. Which was not very ideal when I came home because I was wearing flip flops with socks and we still had snow here in Austria. But that's a different story. Another thing we purchased after seeing them on Social Media are Voited products. My husband bought one of those house shoes. Because he thought they would be very nice and warm and useful and travel-ready. And honestly, they fall apart everywhere. They ripped. And i

f you would look at them, you would think they are three years old, when in reality, we just have them for three months. And I bought myself one of their Voited CloudTouch blankets to stay warm during the winter. But honestly, this blanket was extremely fluffy for like, two or three weeks and then all these little polyester fibers rolled up. They turned into dreadlocks. And now it's extremely hard. And honestly, all those things are not worth the money. So what should you bring instead? In my op

inion, literally anything else will work better than those products. And I personally start to think that's a sign of their quality. So when I'm bombarded with their ads on social media, then I personally just assume that they are not worth it. The next item on my list are clothes out of Merino wool. And this may probably surprise you, because Merino wool has kind of this reputation to be the holy grail of travel clothes. I personally own and wear some Merino products, but in my opinion, they ar

e very hit and miss. And I only have a very small capsule wardrobe. So everything that I own really gets worn a lot. But many of those Merino t-shirts, some really last forever and are awesome, while others, they just immediately fall apart and show wear and tear within a few weeks. They get holes. They get pilling. Especially when you have to wear a backpack with them. And even t-shirts from the same brand can be very hit and miss. So in my opinion, that makes Merino clothes a very expensive an

d a very frustrating experiment. And then there is another extremely important aspect of Merino wool… And when you want to buy Merino clothes, you should really, really pay attention to that. And that is that it's "mulesing free". I'm not going to go too deep into detail what they do with the poor baby sheep. And if you have a sensitive stomach then I recommend you not to Google this. But just please make sure when you buy Merino clothes that you only buy from brands that really disclose where t

hey source their Merino wool and that it's mulesing free. But then again, a certain quality of Merino has obviously a higher price point. And in my opinion, Merino is really not the only great fabric for traveling. For example, I have one t-shirt that's out of Tencel. That's basically wood. It also dries very quickly. It does not stink at all. And when I'm done with it, I could throw it on the compost. I have a very standard athletic t-shirt from Under Armor since about ten years now. By now the

logo came off, but the t-shirt still looks okay and I have no problem with that. And also, this sweater that I'm wearing is not natural materials, but it has some kind of ceramic fibers weaved inside that enhance its properties. In my opinion, there's just so many other great options apart from Merino wool. And honestly, even 100% cotton can be a great choice. For example, one of my favorite kind of t-shirts is from Primark, their Slouchy Tee. It's just 100% cotton t-shirt, but out of a very th

in cotton material. And honestly, when I wash them, no Merino wool t-shirt dries faster than these things. And yes, they wear out fast. So when I wear them in my rotation of five t-shirts when I'm traveling, then usually after two, maximum three months, I really have to throw them away because there's just so much pilling and stuff. But honestly, I had Merino t-shirts that did not even last that long. And for the price of one Merino t-shirt, I think I can buy 25 of those cheap Primark t-shirts.

It's only, I think, €3 a piece. I don't want to bore you because I could literally talk about different fabrics for travel and how I source my clothes for hours. But if you're interested in a dedicated video about this topic, then just let me know in the comments. And these are the ten travel gadgets that are, in my opinion, highly overrated. And this is honestly purely based on my own experience and traveling with them for weeks and months at a time. And if you want to know my favorite gear tha

t I travel with, then I recommend you that you watch this video that I did a few weeks ago. And other than that, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.