• Home
  • About Evelyn Kanter
  • Evelyn Kanter’s Books & Apps
  • In The News
  • Workshops
  • NYC on the Cheap

Evelyn Kanter ecoXplorer

smarter traveling, driving and spending

  • Green Hotels
  • Green Cars
    • Best Cars under $20,000
    • Test Drives
    • Diesel Cars
    • Electric Cars
    • Hybrid Cars
    • Hydrogen Fuel Cell
    • Luxury Drives
  • Travel Deals
    • Free
    • Budget Travel
    • Discount Tickets
  • Xplore More
    • Safety and Health
    • How To
    • Five Best
    • Travel Pioneers
    • Motorcycles
    • Vintage Cars
  • Scam Alert
  • Where to Go Next
    • Historic Travel
    • Epic Adventures
    • National Parks
You are here: Home / Five Best / 5 Best Free & Cheap Travel Gadgets

5 Best Free & Cheap Travel Gadgets

2 Comments

cheap travel gadgets There’s no reason to spend lots of money on travel gadgets and gear to lighten the load and keep you organized on the road.

It’s easy to find free and cheap alternatives in your kitchen, bathroom, hardware store or office supply store.

You’ll save money, and save the planet because you are recycling, re-using and re-purposing things you already have.

These are my top travel hacks for free and cheap travel gadgets:

free and cheap travel gadgetsTravel hack: bathroom scale

Forget paying as much as $25 for a digital luggage scale. You can avoid paying overweight charges by weighing your bag on the bathroom scale.

Here’s the trick –

Stand on the scale holding the packed bag, then put the bag down and weigh yourself without moving the scale.

The difference in the two numbers is what your bag weighs. This is much more accurate than simply placing the bag on the scale, and the bonus is you find out how much you weigh, too.

free and cheap travel gearTravel hack: zip top bags

Forget spending up to $10 apiece for fancy, colored packing pouches or compression bags, when you can do the same thing with re-sealable zip-top bags from the supermarket for pennies.

Use sturdy freezer bags in various sizes for everything from socks to sweaters.

They make it easy to pack and unpack, easy to separate the clean from the dirty, easy to squeeze out the last bit of air before sealing for a space-saving vacuum pack.

When my kids were little, I packed one entire day’s outfit in a plastic zippie, and at the end of the day the soiled clothing went right back in the bag

Use smaller zippies for carrying some bathroom tissue in your travel handbag, and avoid flushing your budget away with pricey “travel-size” TP packages.

  • ecoXplorer Tip – Pack extras for wet bathing suits, and other needs on the road.

free and cheap travel gadgetsTravel hack: duct tape

Forget spending $10 for a tiny travel-size roll of tape from a travel gear website. Ridiculous, when you can purchase yards of the stuff for a couple of bucks from a hardware or home improvement store.

I always have a few strips taped inside my bag, because you never know.

Over the years, I’ve taped split seams on a bag, wrapped a piece around zipper pulls for security after my luggage lock went missing, even used a piece to smooth a spot inside a pair of shoes that was giving me a world-class blister on a hike in the Grand Canyon.

  • ecoXplorer Tip – If you don’t want to pack an entire roll, tear off a few strips and tape them inside your bag, or roll a strip of tape around a paper tube that formerly held paper towels or toilet paper.

free and cheap travel gearTravel hack: 35mm film canisters

What, you didn’t save any plastic film canisters when you switched to digital?  Foolish you, since these freebies replace the need to purchase travel-specific small containers costing as much as $5 each.

I use my old, coveted and reusable 35mm film canisters from Kodak and Fujifilm for vitamins, antacid tablets, earrings, even spare batteries.

They click closed into tightly sealed waterproof containers, which means you can also use them for liquids like shampoo and conditioner, hair gels and body lotions.  Perfect travel size!

Sadly, I’ve never seen anything as good as these 35mm canisters in any sporting goods store or travel gear website.

  • ecoXplorer Tip – Prescription drug containers work equally well.  Just be sure to remove the label, for reasons of personal security.

free and cheap travel gearTravel hack: bungee cord

A $2 bungee cord from the hardware store or housewares department is a lot cheaper than a $10 “flex-line” to string up in the hotel bathroom to hang your clothes to dry.

Also cheaper than a $20 luggage strap to attach a second bag to your larger one, and works just as well, although it doesn’t look as good.

What are your favorite cheap tricks for travel?

Thanks for visiting ecoXplorer. Stay up to date with the latest news about green travel, green cars, smart spending and frugal living by subscribing. It's free. RSS feed.
Welcome back to exoXplorer. Stay up to date with the latest news about green travel, green cars and smart spending by subscribing. It's free. RSS feed.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Five Best, Going Green, Green Travel, How To Tagged With: 35mm film canisters, bungee cord, duct tape, overweight bags, travel gadgets, travel tips, zip-close bags

Comments

  1. Irene S. Levine says

    July 27, 2013 at 11:48 pm

    These are great tips! I especially love the suggestion of bringing along strips of duct paper for repairs. When my power card came apart, I made do with a band-aid~:-)

    Reply

What do you think? We value your comments and love hearing from you. Cancel reply

Most Popular Recent Posts

  • Scam Alert: Kars4Kids Car Donation Charity
    Scam Alert: Kars4Kids Car Donation Charity
  • 2 Reasons to Avoid Jimmy John's
    2 Reasons to Avoid Jimmy John's
  • Scam Alert: Mideast Peace Charities
    Scam Alert: Mideast Peace Charities
  • Best Used Car Buys: 2005-2010 models
    Best Used Car Buys: 2005-2010 models
  • Lamborghini Stretch Limousine for Rent
    Lamborghini Stretch Limousine for Rent
  • About ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter
    About ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter
  • Best 2020 Green Cars & SUVs
    Best 2020 Green Cars & SUVs
  • Free Hotel Rooms for Cancer Patients
    Free Hotel Rooms for Cancer Patients
  • Electric Cars You Can Buy Now: Wheego LiFe
    Electric Cars You Can Buy Now: Wheego LiFe
  • Vintage Model T Vehicles Travel Coast to Coast
    Vintage Model T Vehicles Travel Coast to Coast

ecoXplorer is your guide to smart spending and eco-friendly living

ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter is a journalist with 20+ years of experience as a newspaper and magazine writer, radio & TV news producer & reporter, and guidebook and smartphone app author – all focusing on travel, automotive, the environment and your rights as a consumer.

Contact me at evelyn@ecoxplorer.com.

Also follow my NYC website, www.nyconthecheap.com.

Search ecoXplorer by category

Translate ecoXplorer

© 2010-2020 EcoXplorer by Evelyn Kanter. All the stories and photos on our site are protected by US Copyright laws. Any unauthorized copying is strictly prohibited. Plus, it’s just not nice.

  • Home
  • About Evelyn Kanter
  • Evelyn Kanter’s Books & Apps
  • In The News
  • Workshops
  • NYC on the Cheap

ecoXplorer.com is an independent information service which is compensated by advertisers and sponsors. This site includes some links to other websites which are compensated for by our sponsors when you click them.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.