Travel Light - The How And Why
- on 06.02.09
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I learned how to travel light from lightweight backpacking, then found it was just as useful to keep it light on trips overseas or driving across the country. The last time my wife and I went to Ecuador, I had 10 pounds of luggage, all in one carry-on bag, and Ana had just 8 pounds in her carry-on bag. This wasn’t a short trip. We spent six weeks in Ecuador, at times on glacier-covered mountains, and at other times lounging on Pacific coast beaches.
Travel Simplicity
Why travel light? Travel simplicity. Everything is simpler when you travel light. With only carry-on luggage, we were on our way to a restaurant in Quito, while others were still waiting for their checked luggage. When we took busses our luggage was safely with us, not on the roof or in the hold below being cut open, like one time when I was in Mexico. While others struggled down the street with three heavy bags, we had our hands free and were walking comfortably because we use daypacks or small backpacks. We had less to lose, less to be stolen, less to wait for, less to pack and unpack in hotels, and less to worry about.
Light Travel Issues
There are a couple minor problems when you travel light. First, expect an extra question or two from the customs officials at the airport (Six weeks with only this?). Second, a small bag won’t work if you plan to bring back many souvenirs. In this case, you can still go light. Just plan to buy a second bag at some point during the trip, to carry your acquisitions. As for the seemingly obvious issue of not having enough clothes and other things all in one or two small bags, I’ll explain below why that isn’t as big a problem as you may think.
How To Travel Light
Silk shirts weigh 3 ounces, and travel well if rolled up. Nylon dress socks weigh less than an ounce, and they are cool and comfortable. Poly-cotton blend t-shirts weigh 5 ounces. Supplex or other lightweight travel slacks weigh 9 ounces, and are sufficient for a fine restaurant or a walk in the woods. All of these weigh less than half of the typical travel choices, and take less space, yet function the same. There is no sacrifice involved here. For this exercise in travel simplicity, you even get to go shopping for new clothes.
You don’t have to buy new clothes, however. You don’t have to buy a scale and count ounces to travel light. Just choose the lighter alternative whenever you can. Set aside your lightest jacket, socks and pants for your next trip. Travel simplicity is the goal, not more complicated planning.
More Ways To Travel Light
Money replaces weight, especially in the form of a debit or credit card. Why carry two pounds of your favorite shampoo when you can simply buy small bottles as you travel. It really won’t cost much more to buy things wherever you go, instead of carrying your bathroom and wardrobe with you. Also, you really don’t know exactly what you’ll need, particularly on an overseas trip. Buy what you need as you need it, and you won’t have a pile of useless things in your luggage. Don’t we all regularly unpack things at home that we never once used during the trip?
Take a lesson from long-trail hikers (backpackers who travel a trail for months). They send things, such as new shoes, to a post office on their route, ahead of time, so they’ll be waiting for them. They also send home things they no longer need, such as a winter coat. The latter may be a useful practice for other travelers. If you buy bulky gifts for family or friends, why carry them around for weeks? Put them in the mail.
A Light Travel Example
What I Took For Six weeks in Ecuador:
* 8 pairs of thin nylon socks (less than an ounce per pair)
* 2 silk shirts for restaurants and discos (3 ounces each)
* 4 poly/cotton blend t-shirts (5-6 ounces each)
* 5 pair of light underwear (2-3 ounces each)
* 1 extra pair of lightweight slacks (9 ounces)
* Single layer nylon shorts for hiking or swimming (2 ounces)
* Thin gloves (1 ounce)
* Thin hat (1 ounce - honestly)
* Thin wool sweater (11 ounces)
* Waterproof/breathable rainsuit (14 ounces for the set)
* Light plastic camera (3 ounces)
* Sunglasses (1 ounce)
* Small chess set (3 ounces)
* Bathroom kit (5 ounces)
* Maps, notebook and various small things (3 or 4 pounds)
My pack weighed ten pounds, and my wife’s weighed 8 pounds. We never felt deprived. I’m not suggesting that you start counting the ounces (that comes from my backpacking days), or that you buy all new lightweight things. Without spending money or thinking about it too much, you can just start setting aside your lightest shirts, socks, etc., so you can travel light on your next vacation.
John Pawlett
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/travel-light-the-how-and-why-88562.html
Hypothetically, could something travel faster than the speed of light if it’s traveling in a different medium?
My Optics lecturer said something about how since light travels in a vacuum, you could, potentially, have something travel faster in a different medium, one other than a vacuum.
True or false?
true
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theres always something new to find out so i wouldnt say false.
besides humans dont know everything.
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If that medium bends time then yes
but u wouldnt need to with artificial gravity field
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http://www.ndparking.com/papertroubles.com
true a simple thought in your brain can travel faster than the speed of light
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knowledge
I would have to say false. Light is known to slow down anytime it enters a medium other than a vacuum. A vacuum offers no resistance to light.
But here's a concept. Light is traveling toward you at the speed of light. You are traveling toward the light source at the speed of light. Therefore, you are traveling at twice the speed of light relative to the light traveling in the opposite direction you are traveling - relativity theory.
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I find this extremely difficult to swallow, honestly. As any entity's density increases as it approaches light-speed, it's hard to believe anything could (given our current understanding) possibly travel any faster. As you approach this cosmological speed limit, an INFINITE amount of energy becomes necessary to shatter this barrier because, as you become increasingly heavier as your size contracts (Lorenz Factor), increasingly more energy is needed to push you, first, to the barrier and, then, past it.
I may perhaps be ignorant of some critical information but what I've provided above is, in a nutshell, the very problem most physicists quote in rebuke of the possibility of Warp Speed, as it were.
Hope it helps.
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It has been done. Get something traveling in a vacuum just below the speed of light, and then whack it into a medium where it is now traveling at faster thant he speed of light in that medium. The particles that have had this done to them, slow down dramatically, and radiate their previous energy - its called Cerenkov radiation. So , yes - particles can exceed the speed of light, if they are in some medium other than a vacuum, but not for very long.
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Old teacher
They've played some interesting games in the past 10 years with materials that have bizarre dispersion relations (a fancy way of saying how much the medium slows down any given frequency of light). One of the most surprising results was the demonstration of a wave traveling BACKWARDS at 300 times the normal speed of light. It turns out there was no contradiction; no information ever traveled faster than c. Rather it was just a feature of a wave moving that fast; not a real "object" at all.
A more easily visualized example: If you shine a hypothetical perfectly focused laser pointer on a distant planet, in principal you could get the spot to move over the surface faster than the speed of light. But no single bit of information–no single photon–ever moved faster than c. Relativity allows what you might call "apparent" objects (like the spot where a laser pointer hits a surface) to move faster than c, but anything that carries actual information (like a photon, or a baseball) can't.
At least, not by any means that we're yet aware of.
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Seven Hundred years ago, It was a well known fact that the world was flat.
Some time ago it was also a well known fact that the earth was the center of the universe.
Not 100 years ago It was a well known fact that black people were inferior.
Bottom line, It is a current fact that the speed of light is the fastest speed anything in our universe can achieve. Years from now, this may change, and anything and any discovery is possible, but you're speculating on what we currently have not discovered how to prove and or discover. Your answer is false… for now.
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A vacuum is supposedly space with no matter in it. Adding matter, such as air, slows light rather than speeding it up. You would have to put something other than matter in the space to get a different medium. So what else is there besides matter and no matter?
However, in my Fractal Foam Model of Universes, space has substance (ether), and light propagates thru that substance like an acoustic shear wave in a solid. In most solids, pressure waves propagate faster than shear waves. I believe pressure waves propagate thru the ether at the speed of gravity, which is at least 20 billion times faster than light. It is not a different medium, but a different mode of wave motion.
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http://blog.360.yahoo.com/phlp_janes