Travel gadgets that could save your life
I was hiking in a wadi in Petra and there came a moment that I realized I was completely and utterly alone.
OK, it was my fault. I’d violated one of those fundamental rules of hiking-the buddy system (and this applies even more so to women). But I’d entered the wadi not too far behind a couple of Spanish backpackers and I’d figured as long as I could hear them, they could probably hear me shouting “ayudame, ayudame, por favor!” if need be.
But I could no longer hear them-the only sounds were the crunch of my footsteps on the pebble-lined river bed and my short panicked breaths.
It occurred to me that maybe I couldn’t hear them because I’d somehow gotten lost. How could I have gotten lost? It’s a dried riverbed in a gorge-there are no turn offs. Or was there a turn off? Did I miss some crucial fork in the road?
I stopped walking and held my breath for a moment, hoping to hear a snippet of their conversation. Nada.
I made a mental inventory of my meager supplies. It had been an impromptu hike and so all I had was a hat, a 1.5 liter bottle of water (half empty), some toilet paper, a notebook, a pen, and a pair of sunglasses.
What will I eat? What will I drink? Will I freeze when the sun goes down?
Maybe I can use the paper in the notebook to write SOS notes-Help! Lost in the wadi!-and fold them into paper airplanes… maybe the wind will pick up one of them and fly it into the path of some tourist.
I hope it’s an English-reading tourist.
Just as I was going to tuck myself behind some low-lying scrub-I figured it best to stay out of the sun as I didn’t have very much water-I heard footsteps coming from behind me.
I turned to face my attacker… and found an American couple from the Midwest instead. “Hey,” they greeted me. “Want to tag along with us?” And just like that, I was saved from certain death.
Later that night, safe and sound in my hotel room in Wadi Musa, the village nearest to Petra, I got to thinking about what I would have really done if I’d been lost in the wilderness by myself. I tend to travel both light and spontaneously…
So maybe carrying these nifty, compact travel gadgets with me might be a good way to avert disaster (and a panic attack):
The SteriPen, a hand held water purifer that is, you guessed it… pen sized. If I could just find a water sourse, I’d be set. No, wait, I’d need something to put the water in. I couldn’t just stick the SteriPEN into the river and sterilize the whole river. And what if I was without a water bottle?
It would be good to have the Carabiner Mug. I could attach it to the outside of my backpack-it wouldn’t even have to take up any precious room that could go to other survival equipment. 
OK. Water? Check. But what about food? If I could find a water source, I could probably do some fishing. But how? And with what? And what-I’m supposed to go hiking shlepping a huge fishing rod along with me?
Luckily, there is the Pen Fishing Rod-not only is it compact, it’s cheap.
But once I catch the fish, how will I eat it? Should I fillet it and make some impromptu sushi? Hmmm, it might be smarter to cook it-I mean, how awful would that be to be lost and sick with food-poisoning from improperly made sushi?
So, I’d better bring the Grilliput with me. The Grilliput is a portable grill that, when broken down, can fit inside a small 0.875″ x 11.25″ tube. Brilliant.
And when the sun goes down, I can snuggle up with myself, cup of clean water in hand, inside the Lippi Selk Bag-a wearable sleeping bag. It’s not very compact, so I wouldn’t want to carry it in my backpack, but I could just wear it all the time-as a travel uniform of sorts. OK, so I’d look like a geek or a B-list rapper (especially in the yellow one, like in the picture above) but fashion doesn’t matter-this is survival we’re talking about!
But if I was really smart-which I never claimed to be-I would buy the Voltaic solar-powered backpack. I could throw a GPS in that bad boy, charge it up, and never find myself in the almost-harrowing situation I was in for a few minutes in the wadi in Petra.