Advantages: Collapsable , double as playpen , sturdy
Disadvantages: Are you kidding !

...Little Tykes Pack 'n' Play travel cot. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why , from where and how much ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cerys , our Grand-daughter is now five months old , and a few months ago became too big to use her moses basket when sleeping over . Wanting to continue with the babysitting sleep-over it was decided to purchase a cot , however space is a premium , and having a cot erected full time was not an option . Erecting and dismantling a cot for every sleep-over is also inpractical . Therefore the only other option was a travel cot . There are many such devices on the market , and dependent on manufacturer , the prices vary quite considerably . The wife and I shopped around , and eventually opted for the Little Tykes ' Pack 'n' Play ' travel cot , available at Mothercare at around £40... Read review

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Advantages: The more planning you do, the easier your whole trip will be
Disadvantages: None

...I've done a small amount of travel - once to South America, twice to GB, six times to the continent, once to Mexico, once to Turkey, and innumerable trips within the US - and each time, manage to mispack. Not in major ways - I've never left my camera behind, or taken a bikini to the Antarctic - but it just seems that each time I get where I'm going, I discover another goof. So I started taking notes, and keeping lists, and finally - FINALLY! - got it right on my last trip. So I want to share some of my hard-gotten wisdom with you, so maybe you can avoid some of my silly mistakes. Here are a few ideas that will make your travel easier and more comfortable. THINGS TO TAKE ALONG • An extra small suitcase, empty, or a foldable exit bag that you can pack into your suitcase. (The extra wheelie suitcase is handy only if you... Read review

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Advantages: Crease free travel friends
Disadvantages: I keep losing the boards.

...Travel is a great educator and a source of experiences that last a lifetime. But it's not all fun and frolics. There are many things to dislike about travel. Getting to the airport, standing in lines, then more lines, getting delayed, sitting with your knees in your ears for hours on end, eating flavourless plastic airline food. All can get you down. But my personal greatest hate is packing. For most of the 15 years since I started work I have been on the road or in the air. From office to airport to customer to airport and back again. My suitcases have more air-miles than the vegetables in Tesco's fresh produce section. But for now I am, so to speak, grounded by forthcoming redundancy and taking time to think about what I've been doing all this time and where I want to go next (both geographically and career wise). A typical... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to get around with, loads of space, all-round winner.
Disadvantages: Don't pack breakable items.

...How many of us have packed our dinosaur suitcases (the one that Aunty Molly left when she visited three years ago, the one that has no wheelies, that is usually bright orange and weighs an absolute ton when you’re done packing?) and triumphantly sat on the lid, happy in the knowledge that you have EVERYTHING (perhaps the kitchen sink too) you are possibly going to need in a foreign country? Come on, everyone who travelled for the first time is guilty of this, and I see all of you hiding shamed faces behind your monitors… Now then, how many of you have seen the intrepid foreign travellers to the UK humping backpacks on their shoulders? You have probably thought: wow, it looks heavy, and you would be right, but there is my point. These people WALK all over town, with their houses on their backs, much like snails... Read review

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Advantages: Tidy way to pack
Disadvantages: none that I know of

...OK, I wasn't sure how you'd all react to the Pack-It Folder I reviewed recently but it looks like I've struck a rich seam of travel angst in Ciaoland. We love our holidays - we don't like packing. So here is the follow up to the Eagle Creek Pack-it Folder - drum roll………. the Eagle Creek Pack-it Cube. A product so simple you'll wonder why you don't already have half a dozen (or if you do, you'll wonder why your friends and family didn't steal them all). The Principle of Pack-It ******************** The basic idea of the Pack-it system is that you can squeeze more into your luggage if you are loading regularly shaped blocks. And because the blocks are soft, they'll squidge a bit to maximise your space utilisation and they'll also compress your gear gently without messing it all up. What's a Pack-It Cube... Read review

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Advantages: Compact, light weight, easy to assemble
Disadvantages: Best as a cot rather than a play pen

...when travelling with babies and small children is where do they sleep? An adult bed is out of the question until they're at least 18 months old - preferably two years. Once past 4 months they are really too big for moses baskets and the bottom drawer of the hotel wardrobe. There was a time, many years ago now, when if I wanted to take off on a leisurely trip to some little explored corner of the West Midlands, all I had to do was pack an overnight bag and top the car up with petrol. Now, with young baby in tow and 7yr old son dragging his heels, taking a trip into town has become a major expedition requiring meticulous planning and 20 lbs worth of assorted equipment. +++++++++ SOLUTION? +++++++++ Well, no, I can't relieve you of this heavy burden or the aching shoulders, but I can tell you about one of my more useful baby... Read review

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Advantages: “I’m out here a thousand miles from my home….
Disadvantages: “….walking a road other men have gone down.”

...Yet another challenge from MALU, but travel like literature is dear to my heart, so why should I grumble? Perhaps because it’s also dear – my wife and I spend more on travel than on food or housing or entertainment or even drink – but that’s just a function of the way we go about it. We could certainly travel much more cheaply than we do, and in our impecunious youth made a virtue of doing so. Now we have more time and money, and there is nothing that we would rather spend it on. There is an ongoing debate in our family about the distinction between travel and tourism. My elder son, who has back-packed around places like Mongolia, Guatemala and Tanzania, is rather dismissive of his parents’ timid choice of destinations and reliance on conventional modes of transport. We even take package holidays occasionally, something... Read review

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Advantages: *
Disadvantages: -

...with Amtrack crossing the States and some more in Australia, South Africa, Japan and China. WHAT KIND OF LUGGAGE DO YOU TAKE WITH YOU? DO YOU HAVE PROBLEMS PACKING? DO YOU TEND TO TAKE TOO MANY/TOO FEW THINGS WITH YOU? My travel set includes two large aluminium suitcases (I take one for one/two days trip, two for the others) where I pack my garments, folders as well as samples, my laptop and one aluminium bag, similar to the one used by aircraft pilot, where I keep passport, tickets and reading materials (books, newspaper, magazines). The total weight of my travel set is a little bit over 40 kilos. Sometime, if I do some shopping or I visit a country or a city for the very first time, on the way back to home the suitcases become three DO YOU SEND PICTURE POSTCARDS TO FAMILY & FRIENDS. No, not anymore. In my travelling life I... Read review

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Advantages: Extremely small, lightweight and easy to use
Disadvantages: Nothing that can not be overcome easily

...This is the first of two products in the Samsonite Travel Cot range and it leads on to the Samsonite Pop Up Bubble Travel Cot (which I have also reviewed). It is a brilliant, pioneering product and was the first of its kind on the market when I bought it while still pregnant with my first child in 2003/04. The Samsonite Pop Up Travel Cot is available in three colours - pink and blue in the standard model and stone in the deluxe model. The standard models are made of cotton and nylon, although the baby only lies on cotton, with the main outer body being made of the easily cleaned nylon while the deluxe model is all cotton except the nylon mosquito net - this does seem to make it slightly cooler but more difficult to clean any stains. I chose this travel cot over more traditional ones based purely on it's size when folded up... Read review

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Advantages: -
Disadvantages: -

...UPDATE 3/11/04 - as party of my "Membership Renewal" I'm modifying all ops, that includes updating content and also changing the structure and even views(!) in places. What I define by travelling is frankly a bit strange. Frequently I go to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Halifax, as there are members of the family there. But I don’t count that as travelling. But to me, any time I leave the country or go for a short break somewhere different counts as travelling. Q: How many times a year do you travel? A: There was once a time when we would travel once a year, in the summer, fot two weeks. But, with cheaper holidays, my 2 brothers at university and a general need for my parents and myself to get away from the stresses of work, we now tend to get away a lot more often. Although I admit, at the time of writing, I have not actually left... Read review

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