Reason2Roam's
Resources We Use to Travel and Plan our Adventures
20+ years of travel to over 65+ countries has taught us a lot!
*Some of the links below are affiliate links. When you click on one of these links and purchase something we may make a small commission. Remember, Matt and Heather will ONLY ever link to a product that we use and trust and that we feel would be useful to you.* Check back before you book your next trip to find the latest intel from Reason2Roam.
Travel Gear
Osprey Travel Bags
We have used many different types of luggage but the porter 46 is our favourite because it is a backpack that opens up in to a duffel bag and is just the right size. If you prefer a version with wheels, the Osprey Sojurn is a good choice.
Steri Pen
The Steri Pen has been a game changer for us. We no longer buy single use water bottles but use tap water wherever we go. We also each bring a clear 500ml Nalgene bottle.
Eagle Creek Packing Cubes
These packing cubes are a lifesaver. One is for tops, one for bottoms, one for underwear etc.. Not only does this help save space in your bag, but then you knows where everything is too!
Small Backpack
This little bag is a lifesaver. It works as a bag to carry to the beach, for dirty laundry, grocery shopping etc.. It's light and strong.
Scrubba Wash Bag
It doesn't matter how you travel, you will likely find a need to do a little laundry on the road and this dry bag is built for the job! We bring small paper laundry detergent and a clothes line as well.
Lonely planet Guidebooks
Call us old school if you want, but these are still a great source of info you can't get anywhere else. We like that you can buy digital chapters now.
Clothes we wear
In general we look for clothes that dry quickly, pack well, have pockets for storing money and keys etc. The lower the cotton content the better.
Rail Riders Clothes
Matt loves the clothes made by these guys. They are light and don't wrinkle and have lots of pockets to store your stuff.
Mountain Equipment Co-op
For our Canadian friends, MEC is a great place to get clothes for travel.
REI
If you are based in the United States then this store will be your best friend for buying travel clothes.
Oboz Shoes
A sturdy pair of shoes is important for walking on cobblestones and carrying your gear. Heather is a big fan of Oboz because they are comfortable and put up with a good amount of abuse.
Chaco Sandals
Heather loves these sandals. They have good structure and tread that makes walking on a variety of surfaces easy. If you like to unleash your toes these sturdy sandals won't let you down.
Personal Care Items
Diva Cup
Ladies, this is for you. This will change your life. There are 2 sizes and you do need to to buy the right size for you.
World Nomads Travel Insurance
We almost always have travel insurance - and we never visit the United States without it! We have found World Nomads to be affordable and easy to work with.
Electronics we use
Sony A6300 16-50 lens
After a LOT of research, Heather landed on this mirrorless camera because it is small, sturdy, and has great electronics. If you prefer a DSLR camera we recommend the Canon Rebel as well.
Good fast glass helps to take great photos.This lens is great for low light and is the full frame equivalent of a 50mm.
Cell Phone
The best camera is the one you have with you, and we always have our phone with us. The camera on this phone is spectacular and it does all the other things a phone should do too.
Samsung Galaxy S2 Tablet
We started with a Kobo then moved to a Kindle and finally purchased this device to read and access the internet. Why? We couldn't make the free library books work on the other two devices.
These aren't cheap but they do cancel background noise and make sleeping on buses and planes much easier. They also have great sound for your favourite playlist.
Surface Laptop 2
Blogging, editing photos, and staying connected means lugging arond a laptop. We like this one because it's smart, relatively light and easy to use. We also have this wireless mouse which packs flat to take up less room.
Online Photo Storage
We store our best photos on this site. We also sell our photos with this site.
Adobe Creative Cloud (Lightroom)
Lightroom is a great tool for editing and storing photos. The creative cloud licence includes this software and other useful tools.
Back-country gear we use
MSR Pocket Rocket Stove
We really like the pocket rocket when canisters are available for purchase. It's small, light, and fast. The MSR XGK is another good option if you need to use multiple types of fuel. A third option is the Jetboil if you only need to boil water.
Primus Pot Set
This pot set is perfect for the two of us. The heat exchanger makes boiling water quick and efficient.
Sawyer Water Filter
Light, cheap and effective, this is our go to water filter in the back country. We have also used aquatabs to treat water chemically.
Big Agnes Fly Creek 2 Tent
This is our lightweight backpacking, bike touring tent and we LOVE IT! We have also used the Mountain Hardwear Trango 3 for over 10 years. We need to replace our Trango, and have our eye on a tent made by these folks (when we win the lottery)
Western Mountaineering Sleeping Bag
Light, warm and extremely well built - this could quite possibly be the best sleeping bag we have EVER owned. Heather uses the Terralight and Matt uses the Summer light.
ENO Double nest Hammock
We are pretty excited to own these and can't wait to use them on a trip. We also picked up a set of Atlas Straps and this bug net.
Crazy Creek Chair
There are a few luxuries we allow ourselves when camping and this is one of them. We really like the HEX 2 version of this chair because it's light and rolls relatively small.
Ultra Light Dry Bags
These ultra lightweight dry bags are essential for keeping gear dry in our packs or on top of our bike racks.
Surly Disc Trucker Touring BIke
In the world of bicycle touring, this is the bike that most people use. We love our Surlys! We have Schwalbe Marathon tires and they are still going strong after 3,500 kms!
Ortlieb Bike Panniers
These are the bags that you attach to the outside of your bike on a bike tour. We loved our Ortliebs because they are simple, tough and waterproof.
Booking Accommodation
Hotels.com
This is quickly becoming our hotel booking site of choice. The app is really useful and allows us to earn a free night stay after 10 nights.
Booking.com
We almost always check this site as well to be sure we are finding the lowest price possible.
Hostelworld.com
We still like to stay in hostels and this is the site we use to book.
AirBnB
If you prefer to stay somewhere out of the normal, AirBnB can be for you! We have hosted on this platform and stayed in people's homes and they have all been amazing experiences!
Booking Flights
Expedia
We still like to use this old standby in concert with the other sites listed here.
Skyscanner
We almost always check this site as well to be sure we are finding the lowest price possible. We like the month at a glance option and the go anywhere option!
Google Matrix
This is another of our searching favourites. You can't book directly from the site but it often finds flights the others miss.
Rome2Rio
This site is perfect for finding routes we hadn't considered which can also bring your flight costs down. For example, flying into one city and taking a bus to your destination of choice.
Blogging Tools
When we started blogging we used a free wordpress.com site. Our goal was to keep family and friends up to date on our travels. We have switched over to a wordpress.org site because it allows us to have a custom domain and do lots of other neat stuff we couldn't do on the .com version.
Blue Host Hosting Services
We use bluehost for hosting our site. They also manage our domain name.
Mailchimp
When you get an email from us, it is this monkey that delivers it to you!
Upviral
This is the tool we use to run contests with unique referral links.
Thrive Architect
This has been the answer to some of our problems and helps us make pages like this pretty!
Tailwind Pinterest Scheduler
This is a Pinterest scheduling tool. We have just started to use it, but it seems to be pretty easy to use and will save us time.
Superstar Blogging Course
Information is king and this course has all the info you could ever need to start a blog.
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