Some people can stay firm, keeping their college backpack and eschewing all unnecessary, overly designed items. Shopping at a travel-goods store with Betty was a hoot; she looked at the piles of neatly stacked organizers and rolled her eyes. I wanted all of them.

So, with that disclaimer out of the way, here are the items I can either vouch for (because they are a recent gift) or want want want.

Luggage and Bags

1. 19″ Jelly Bean Hideo Wakamatsu rolling suitcase, Flight 001, $185

I have already waxed rhapsodic about my love of my bright yellow rolling suitcase from Japan–how every time I’m in line, people cheerfully pipe up about how much they love it; how I get better service from the in-flight crew because they, too, love and covet it; and how it miraculously seems to carry everything I need for every trip.

Well, to cut a long story short: It comes in orange.

2. Sackville Shop Sack, Rivendell Bikes, $40

If orange is a little over the top for you, consider this cargo tote–good for long weekends and–if you’re slightly obsessed with your bike, like me–can be used once you’re back home, as well.

3. MUJI Folding Travel Case, MOMA, $16

I love a no-frills-ish travel case, which is why I love this one from MUJI. To be honest, I like the aesthetic of all their stuff, and picked up a small purse insert at the MUJI mothership when I was there last month.

More non-luggage recommendations after the jump!

Gear and Tech Goodies

4. Grid-It, Flight 001, $17 (small)  and $22 (medium)

I’ve wanted one of these for a while. I’m always paranoid about leaving behind chargers and other cords. A tidy system like this means that I’m more likely to notice, since there’d be a blank spot in the grid. Want.

5. iPhone 4 Hard Cover, Kate Spade, $40

Ever since I dropped my previous iPhone on the unforgiving floors of this unpleasant motel (cough–I mean hotel), I’ve wanted a nice case. This Mad Men-era homage/cutie totally fits the bill, and the bright green means I won’t accidentally leave it on a mini-bar somewhere.

6. P5 Mobile Headphones, Bowers & Wilkins, $300 

These are pricey, I admit. I got a pair for my birthday, when I sat in close proximity to a co-worker with a barky laugh. They drowned her out, just as they blissfully drown out the unpleasant noise that is modern air travel. And while I’m not an audiophile, the sound they deliver is amazing, and they fold up flat to fit in a cozy pouch. They are winners.

Travel Books and Apps

7. The Cities Book, Lonely Planet, $50

What could be better than a five-pound tome on the cities of the world? Newelty is firmly in the urban archipelago camp, where most of our travel itineraries include at least one major metropolis, which is why this book is so appealing as a coffee-table read between trips.

8. A Week at the Airport and The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton, $15 and $9

I mentioned the first book in my fall reading list, and it strikes me as a perfect stocking stuffer for anyone who appreciated a meditative approach to travel. The second is simply a classic by an author who appears regularly in this blog.

9. Time Out City Apps, $4.99

A long time ago, I was excited about some of the first e-travel books. That time is clouded in foggy memory, though, since I never made much use of them. These city apps have the one must-have feature that makes me willing to try them: that you yourself can be located on their in-app maps. I’m so used to traveling with my iPhone map as my GPS that I’m cranky when I’m abroad, shaking my fist at the absurdly high roaming charges. These apps seem like a nice way to bridge the distance from our current fee-heavy reality to the future, when social media replaces our guidebooks entirely.

Bonus: The London and Sydney apps are currently free! Go check them out.

10. Camerabag, $2 (for iPhone) and $19 (for Mac and PC)

For some reason, Hipstamatic gets all the attention when it comes to a good iPhone photography app. I have both, but I use Camerabag ten times as much, and with much better end result. Most of the photos on this blog have a version that’s been rendered in Camerabag, in fact, which is why it’s one of my top 8 apps for traveling with your iPhone.

11. Universal power adapter, Thinkgeek, $17

Truth be told, I have a giant bag of power adapters, including for places I haven’t been to yet. (Travel dreams!) I love the simplicity of the One Adapter to Rule Them All. And as I read the list of countries covered by this adapter I thought: Tajikistan takes the Australasian style plug? I can’t locate that on a map–and I’d never heard of that style before–but you never know…I might end up there someday…and really want to charge up my laptop.

Practical Luxuries

12. Blazing Trench, nau, $350

OK, this coat isn’t cheap. But that’s kind of the point. We don’t buy fugly reversible “travel” dresses that we wouldn’t wear at home. (Or, for that matter, onesies to camp in, no matter what the Guardian says.) This coat is a great coat, and that it would serve you well for winter travel is a secondary part of the appeal.

If you’re interested, we have a recommendation for a men’s coat, as well.

13. A pre-paid chip and PIN card

Sure, the days of traveler’s checks are far behind us, but we haven’t completely moved into a friction-free future when it comes to accessing your cash. When I was in Holland this summer, for example, I had to constantly remember to keep cash on me because the groceries stores only take “chip and PIN” cards, not my foreign-born bank cards. 

At long last you can buy a pre-paid one of these, and it seems like a fantastic idea for those annoying small purchases. It sounds like you need to buy one at a Travelex booth (most likely at the airport) for now, rather than online.

14. Zipcar membership

Zipcar beats traditional car rental, hands down. If you have a road-trip-loving friend who’s based in or heading to the cities that Zipcar covers, a membership would be a great gift. Read my full Zipcar trip review.

Plus One More

15. Wake Me Up Button, $7 CAD

Next time I go to London (and decide to take public transportation in to the city after that sleepless 9-hour flight from Seattle), I’m pinning one of these on. (No direct link–go to http://uptoyoutoronto.com/ and search on “wake me up button.”)

Happy holiday shopping!

And in the spirit of random, pleasing objects from all over the world, check out kioskkiosk. I sent this site to myself, and can’t remember where I came across it, which seems oddly appropriate–it’s such a motley, excited collection of stuff. Juniper baby rattle from France? Check. Futon beater from Japan? Check check.

The product descriptions are like haiku, like this one:

Candied yuzu peel
made by the best maker of Japanese sweets
in Tokyo
Higashiya
This is my opinion only of course
but many seem to agree.
Sadly, the soft sweets,
are only good for one day
the day of the purchase
But luckily, the yuzu can last so we brought it here
to New York for all of us to enjoy

For novelty alone, I’ll have to buy some items from there soon.

And speaking of things I want to buy–I want to get a Bold & Noble map print. I just can’t decide which one.

Did you click through to see all the placenames written?

Sigh. I love maps.

Mr. Lee’s makes me want to be a dude. Or, to be precise, not a dude, but the kind of anti-hipster that has never, ever worn a pair of skinny jeans. A guy that could be a beat poet in another life, or maybe grew up down the street from the Great Gatsby. Because if I was that guy, Mr. Lee’s would trick me out with great stuff.

The shop is super-tiny. Like, 10 feet long at most. But it’s got such great, well-designed stuff, including Moscot glasses. I own a pair that were sold to me by Sol Moscot himself. I went into the store, located on the Lower East Side, with the idea of picking up a pair of Gingers. Sol put me straight.

Evidently, I’m more of a Zelig. But I digress.

Mr. Lee’s has Moscots, among what feels like hundreds of other awesome boy treats. And, as was explained to me, the exact sunglasses Don Draper wears on Mad Men. How great is it that someone actually bothered to track those down?

I’ve loved this shop since it was named Egg Merchantile a few years ago. I asked the owners–Americans, although the shop is in the tourist heart of Amsterdam–why they changed the name. People thought it was a literal egg merchantile, ignoring the beautiful displays of jewelry and oddities. That funny story just makes it better, to me.

And speaking of jewelry, here’s what I picked up last time I was there.

I get more compliments on this necklace than anything else I wear. Often, I forget I have it on, and people will spontaneously start talking to me about how they love old typewriters, how they still have one, how they wish they had one, and then I remember–I’m wearing the Otherist necklace. Right.

The fennel soap they sell is nice. I keep mine in my linen closet and can’t bear to use it, even though I know I could buy another one. I want all the necklaces they have, including an anatomically correct heart, tiny frog, etc.

They have a very fun blog that introduces all their letterpressy, insecty, otherwordly novelties.

It’s good to know yourself. And to own your own oddities. For me, that means that I proudly declare my obsessions with luggage, Dutch bikes, and–let’s be honest–the Dutch overall. Another item for that list? Paper products.

Notebooks, file folders, calendars…I have stacks of them and they all make me absurdly happy. Which is why every time I visit Vancouver, British Columbia, I swing by the Regional Assembly of Text.

TRAOT–yes, I’m going to shorten it like that–is fantastic in a few ways: It’s a DIY-type shop with letterpressed cards surrounded by typewriters, but it’s more than that. I love all the aspects of it–how they silkscreen ships and bicycles onto wooden boxes, T-shirts, calendars. Every single time I’ve been in the store, they’re listening to This American Life. You can make your own buttons. I just find it completely charming, and always pick up something when I’m there. Every single time.

A friend of mine–who shares my obsession–was so tickled by her visit that she held a letter-writing club on her front porch last summer, after visiting. (If you decide to try this yourself, remember to bring stamps and addresses. Otherwise, the letter sits for two months and you never send it, because you’ve emailed that person 400 times since you wrote the letter.)

TRAOT is located on this fantastic strip out of the downtown heart of Vancouver (South Main, inevitably referred to as SoMa in articles, but mostly known as Mount Pleasant). Another favorite shop is down the street, Eugene Choo, which is definitely on the spendier side, but has a wonderfully well-edited collection of sweaters, dresses, and blouses, along with some inventive stuff for guys.

Also walkable nearby are the yummy Zipaing Sushi (a tiny shop with posters from the Bauhaus movement on the walls), Smoking Lily (where Betty picked up a smoking-hot asymmetrical jacket on a previous visit), and Umeboshi Footwear (which often doesn’t have my size, but I keep visiting anyway).

Even though the new Elliott Bay isn’t finished yet, it might be just that bookstore.

Take, as evidence, this view from the second story:

It has several elements that remind me of other bookstores I love. Wooden shelves and creaky floorboards, similar to the Book Mill in Montague, Mass. Tables of unusual choices, good for making new discoveries, like Paris’ Red Wheelbarrow.

Elliott Bay used to be located in Pioneer Square, a historic (but run-down) district in Seattle, and plenty of people were unhappy when they moved to their new location on Capitol Hill. But I don’t begrudge a bookstore doing what it needs to do to find clientele in this economy.

That said, their cafe is missing (and their old location had a great one). Their travel section is fine, but feels equally unfinished (and has a few too many copies of guides from the Travel Company That Shall Not Be Named, and not enough from non-US publishers). Even so, there were some gems to be found.

I’ve just started At Home in Japan, which I found on an endcap in the store. It’s the story of an American woman who married a Japanese man and moved into his family’s 350-year-old farmhouse (more on the book on the Japan Times Online). It’s the start of my June reading list.

So far, Elliott Bay, so good.

]]> http://www.newelty.com/2010/06/08/shop-talk-favorite-bookstores-part-vi/feed/ 2 http://www.newelty.com/2010/05/13/shop-talk-favorite-bookstores-v/ http://www.newelty.com/2010/05/13/shop-talk-favorite-bookstores-v/#comments Thu, 13 May 2010 16:00:58 +0000 newelty http://www.newelty.com/?p=2135 One of the most depressing things about the slow, sad demise of publishing is the closings of independent bookstores.

So it amazes me when I’m in a small town and I walk into an indy that has managed to stay open…and has serious soul.

Just like countless small towns around the country, Livingston, Montana has been hit by the economic meltdown. You’d think that a tiny book business like Sax & Fryer would be recession road kill, but it’s open, and when I was there on a sunny and brisk Friday in April, it was hopping.

Specializing in western fiction, it has creaky wood floors and is the oldest store in town. Black and white photographs taken by the owner lined the walls, and when we remarked about them he got out some of his old fashioned cameras to demonstrate.

In the basement of the shop is an amazing collection of old saddles that he’s willing to show you as well. They’re all being donated to a local museum, and the one that struck me the most was one used by a member of a nearby Indian tribe a hundred years ago.

When I decided it was time to buy my books, I walked up to the counter. The owner rang up my order on an old school cash register.

“Sorry, ma’am, no credit cards here.”

Oh, and no website either. I loved every single thing about this place.

• Books piled high on square wooden tables, just calling out to you to browse.
• An owner on-site, recommending books with careful consideration.
• An enticing front door and window display (and extra points if it’s the perfect shade of red):

Welcome to the Red Wheelbarrow, a little treat of an English-language bookstore in the Marais, my favorite shopping district in Paris. (And yours, too, if your pocketbook skews more to funky finds than haute couture.)

Their website is pretty minimal–a commonality I noticed with Cloud & Leaf in Manzanita (one of the recommended stops on the Oregon Coast), although maybe not as severe. I like the Luddite spirit of these book shops, where the creaky shelves of books feel hand-selected.

During my visit to the store, the owner was trying to track down every last copy of the final Harry Potter book to satiate the demand of the English-speaking populace of Paris. She had enough time, though, to heartily recommend The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which allowed me to revisit Paris via its pages even after I left.

While discussing English-language bookstores in the heart of Paris, it’s also worth mentioning Shakespeare & Company. Personally, I find the best thing about this place is the (formidable) history, not the shopping experience. Every time I’ve been in there, it’s seemed overrun with tourists (of which, of course, I’m one).

Still, as a fan of Djuna Barnes and the other Left Bank writers of the black-and-white era of Paris, I had to make the pilgrimage. My suggestion for if you do buy a book there: Ask them to stamp it. The stamp makes even a cheap paperback seem infused with literary history.

But if you want to seriously browse and find books you didn’t know you needed, stick with the Red Wheelbarrow. And if you want to read the store’s namesake poem by William Carlos Williams, go right ahead.

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to buy novelty chocolates–the Chocolate Line had a Coke-flavored dark chocolate–and ship them home to myself, my mom, and friends, It can take weeks, but anticipation is the fun, right?

It’s also fun to enjoy a few chocolates while in Bruges, home of the shop above, while enjoying this view:

Yum.

Also, here’s what the title of this blog post is referencing, in case you’re curious.

Best bookstore slogan ever: Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.

Back when I was a starving student, I’d camp out in the coffee shop of the Book Mill, located in Montague, Mass. During one particularly broke period, I would longingly visit a book I wanted on a regular basis. The owner noticed–and gave it to me.

How awesome is that? The Book Mill was the place that instilled in me a love of great old book shops and an endearing respect for any bookshop owner who can make it work.

Have you ever revisited a  book or movie you loved when you were young…and then had it  slowly dawn on you that it’s not quite the wonderful thing you remember? That you had remembered it through a sentimental haze?

I revisited the Book Mill a couple of years ago, and it was just as good as it was in my memory.

A bookstore in a creaky grist mill from the 1800s, located right above a river, filled with dusty chairs that you could spend a day in. Coffee shop filled with sunlight, located down a twisting road just outside a tiny New England town. Great books. What’s better than that?

P.S. The photos above are from an excellent photo tour on Publishers Weekly’s site by Allison Morris. Go check it out.

P.P.S. I love the set of driving directions on their website, explaining why your GPS will not help you find the Book Mill:

How to Find Us - Wander up county roads and you will find the Bookmill… but the chances are infinitely better if you do not use your GPS or even accept directions from the usual online sources. “They” don’t know that there’s a bridge out near here (a bridge that will never be repaired) and they send you by crazy routes anyway.

And it’s absolutely true.