Mine is a small bottle of liquid bandage. It stays in my toiletries, can go through that, and is superior to most bandages!
Salt. I really, really enjoy salt on my fries. I have a few paper bags of salt in my purse at all times, so when I get a bag of take away fries and they forgot to put salt on it (which happens a LOT where I live) I can add my own salt! Saved me from disappointment many times.
Binder clips to bind the curtains together. Sometimes hotels have hangers with pants clips on them, for everywhere else? Binder clips.
I bring my headlamp with me almost everywhere. It’s crazy how often you need a flashlight at the most random times, and the best flashlight is one you don’t need to hold.
A small Brita filter helps with getting nice clean drinking water. A 20 foot Hdmi cable to connect my laptop to the tv. A universal remote since not all tv’s allow you to switch the inputs. Also a powerbar, which can also be used as an extension cord.
Vaseline. Is that non-standard? It doubles as lip balm and for those really dry patches of skin that come around (currently in Japan and it’s been dry af). Or even for small cuts, or used as hand cream.
Also can be used as a fire starter (for camping, just to clarify!).
My grandparents ruined Vaseline for me. I will gladly carry multiple things to never use that stuff again.
Tea. A lot of hotels have tea and coffee making facilities, but a horrible selection of teas.
What out companies founder took along in his hotel bag had been interesting, too. He always had a 100W light bulb (back when they were common), as hotels used crappy, low wattage bulbs in the room. He just switched them for his own 100W bulb so he could actually see something. He switched it back when he left. The other important thing was a set of plumbing tools, so he could remove the pressure reduction from the showers.
I think this one wins the thread. Plumber tools are quite non-standard
As was the old boss.
I’ve recently started to throw a mini screwdriver set into my laptop bag. I can even fit a small pocket knife and a bit of soldering tin into its case. Obviously not a good idea for flying, but it has been useful a few times.
I also keep some crappy headphones in that bag. Priceless if someone around you in public transport is being annoying.
Travel router. I can plug it in to a router (if available) and instantly have a network all my devices connect to automatically that can either connect to a commercial VPN or my home VPN. Works to rebroadcast a WiFi network as well. If you have to pay for WiFi, you can pay for one device and clone the MAC onto the router and rebroadcast a signal all your devices can use. Works on planes, hotels, you name it. I have a gl.inet but there are a few.
My proudest script kiddy achievement was at hotel that had paid WiFi and a free tier. I clicked the free tier but it wasn’t very good and there was no way to upgrade to paid, even after changing MAC and deleting cookies etc. I found a piece of gym equipment that used internet in the hotel gym, cloned its MAC address onto the device, unplugged the gym equipment and boom I had full speed internet as it was on the network’s whitelist with no throttle.
Smart!! Do you have any recommendations for what to look for when buying a travel router?
I have the Beryl AX3000, the cheaper one like the mango (when I bought it) didn’t have as fast of an Ethernet port or something like that… they’re $80 so not a huge deal. They have a new one but I have no idea what the difference is!
Whenever I visit new cities I always bring an extra backpack that can either fold nicely or one of those disposable backpacks from a lighter material. Just found that it’s best to use it instead of my regular backpack in case it gets stolen. I put only the bear neccesities such as a bottle of water and a sweater and I’m ready to go.
Sketchbook. On work trips, I always finish one drawing every night as a way to get out of a work headspace.
A roll of ‘for rectal use only’ stickers.
Ooh, that does remind me. I bring wet wipes, for rectal use only.
I carry a box of assorted googly eyes. I’ll see you out there, fam.
I always make sure I bring a nice towel on my carry on. We got some high quality cotton Turkish towels that double as blankets when traveling. Not sure if it’s standard outside the hitchhikers guide.
A towel, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with
You sound like one hoopy frood
Universal diffuser for hotel hair dryer.
Liquid bandages?
I didn’t realize liquid got injured enough to have a product like this.
Yeah, they’re like bandages, only liquid.
I have a weed grinder in my wallet. It’s one of those card-sized, flat, cheese-grater ones.
My buddy would have one in his wallet and all the doggies in the airport were mighty friendly with him. For me that’s just extra anxiety while traveling when I can use pretty much anything to grind weed in a pinch (all pun intended)
