7 Things to Pack When You Travel

New Year, new plans, hopefully a lot of traveling for all of you.

Before every trip the question always comes up, what are key things what you need to have in your backpack?

What can’t you leave at home?

1. Extra money on a credit card - with credit card you can almost pay everywhere for everything, much more safe and practical than carrying tons of cash – the amount depends on what kind of trip you are going.

In the 99% of the cases you will not need this, because luckily there will not be an unexpected/emergency situation, and at the end you will have some extra money, which you can use to make some special memories (still unexpected event, but a positive one)

2. Your hobby - especially for longer trips, it’s a good idea to take with you the thing what makes you relaxed at home. It will help you to connect yourself with the new environment.

3. Travel book (Lonely planet) - first it can look like a lame thing, but it’s not at all. In some countries you have to be prepared that maybe you won’t reach the 4G internet. At the end it will have an emotional connection with you and with the trip

4. One book/ebook - trips are not always about endless action, you will stay a lot of times at airports/train stations/bus station and other stations, or just rest in your bed. In this situation its very useful, and somehow the trip has an effect on the book itself and how it affects you.

5. Tour sandals - yes.yes.yes. "How will I look like?? Nooo!!!"

Who cares!? It’s the most practical thing ever. For hiking, city tour, beaches, you can use it everywhere. Small, easy to clean, you can use it everywhere and durable...and ugly, but still, who cares? You are on a trip, not on a ball.  The mountain tribes will give a 100% shit about what kind of shoes you wear.

6. Half of the cloths you would think - takes a lots of space, its heavy and most of the time totally for nothing. Check the weather of your destination, add an extra pullover and then just leave the half of the cloths at home that you prepared to take with you.

7. One towel - you always need one towel.

If you have some extra tips, don’t keep it in yourself, share it with us!

Join us on our next Passionate Travelers Meeting on Thursday evening:

https://www.facebook.com/events/377042015990337/

Riding a bicycle

In this post I would like to talk about a mean of transportation as simple as two tyres, a frame, two pedals, a handlebar and a seat. Exactly, this vehicle is the bicycle. As simple it doesn´t need anything else than the energy of our legs to make it move on. An essential tool in the early years for children in order to develop their basic movement skills and also a way to create healthy habits in their future. The bicycle is also a style of life for many people but, until what point is it necessary and important its use in general? Here I will give a series of reasons that will make you change your idea of the bicycle.

Healthy reasons. The practise of sport through the bicycle has all sorts of health benefits—physical and mental. It engages your legs and it is easy on your joints, it´s also an activity you can do everyday either as an physical activity or to go to work. Moreover, it helps you to prevent of different illness us as vascular diseases, cholesterol, heart problems and all kind of mental and psicologycal problems. 

 

Economical reasons. That way of transportation it has an insignificant cost comparing with other vehicles as for instance a motorbike or a car in terms of gasoil, parking fees, reparations and checkings,...

Environmental reasons. Using the bicycle every day we are contributing to the care of our environment, which means less polution, better air to breath and a cleaner living context for everyone. Concerning about the importance of the welfare and care of our Mother Earth in general and our cities in particular, this atittude would help a lot to decontaminate the space where we live.

But using the bicycle is not only taking the it and starting to use it in any way. There also are a series of behaviour rules for all those people to respect as drivers they are. And they must be especially aware about the driving rules when they ride in the walkside. And in the same way the must be careful with pedestrians, all drivers in general should be awared of how vulnerable cyclist are when they ride on the road.
 

The real story of plastic.

From the moment we wake up in the morning and brush our teeth, to when we watch TV at the end of the day, plastic is all around us. So much so that it can be hard to imagine leaving the supermarket without at least one item that isn’t in a plastic container.

It hasn't always been like this. In fact, there are people alive today that were born in an almost plastic-free world. Imagine going to the beach and not finding a single piece of washed up plastic trash.

What, in the course of history, caused such a change?

There are a few stories of what drove the demand for modern plastics. One version is that, in the second half of the 19th century, companies in the billiard ball industry realised they needed a substitute for ivory. By then, humans were consuming at least one million pounds of the material each year, and newspapers were reporting that elephants would soon become extinct if that pace continued.

And so the race to come up with a new material began. Over the course of several decades, chemists from Europe and US searched for solutions. After years of trial and error, they discovered plastic as we know it today, and by the beginning of the 20th century, people could buy hair combs and clothes with buttons that were not made of ivory.

Even with this scientific development, there were still no plastic bags flying around the cities, or fish being caught up in plastic rings. So, what triggered this explosion of plastic in our lives?

Two important factors pushed manufacturers to embrace this substance. First was the development of mass production assembly lines. Before that, factories required a lot of labour to manufacture even a single product, making plastic prohibitively time consuming.

The second factor was World War II. The material was used in many ways, from bazooka barrels to aircraft components, and between 1939 and 1945, the production of plastic grew by almost four times. With the end of the war, plastic companies needed to keep making a profit, so they had to switch from military vehicles to Barbie dolls. Plastic was so cheap, everyone could afford it: plastic containers, plastic furniture, plastic toys. And that's when the material gained widespread traction.

But what was a solution before is a problem now. Because plastic lasts for so long, every single piece of plastic ever made still exists, and will continue existing for at least 500 years. To put that in context, if Leonardo da Vinci had drunk water from a plastic bottle when he was painting the Mona Lisa, that bottle would not have fully decomposed yet.

Everyday, more and more plastic keeps being produced, used and thrown away. In countries where disposable cups are made of plastic, for example, it may take only seconds for one to leave the package, be used, and end up in a trash can. So much plastic is consumed that there is an area bigger than France of throw-away plastic swirling at all depths in the North Pacific Ocean. It has become so ubiquitous that birds are using it to build their nests.

And it’s not just the amount of plastic being produced. Everything related to plastic is damaging the planet, from the impact of extracting the fossil fuels used to produce plastic, to the health effects of the toxins it releases into the environment when it is burned, to the devastating impact on sea life.

There is something you can do about it. Reducing the amount of plastic you use might seem difficult, but it's simpler than you think. You can make a difference by many ways, from simple actions like bringing your own bag to the grocery store, to avoiding plastic cutlery and products containing microbeads. What is important is to be conscious about what you are consuming and how it is affecting not only your life and your surroundings, but the whole planet and its many magnificent species, large and small.