Every once in awhile, when the writers over at Gadling get tired of the same old motorcycle rides across Asia and space flights, we just want to travel "simple." And that's when a camping trip can be great. Most of us, no matter how large or small the city we live in, are within a few hours' drive of some great unspoiled wilderness where we can pitch a tent, get a nice fire going and spend the night gazing up at the stars.

With that instinct in mind I set out on a camping trip of my own last month to the great New England state of Vermont. But it also goes without saying that I am not really the camping type – leave me alone in the woods for a day or so and I would probably end up squatting in a ditch with nothing but a few strategically-placed leaves to wear as underwear. It soon became clear that I would need some good camping gear for my trip. But how does one pick appropriate gear for camping? If you work for a travel site, you just make a few calls. Soon I was chatting with Dawn at Coleman, who generously provided me with a few products to test out during my trip.

How did these products hold up in the wilderness of Vermont? Would my camping trip end with me trapped up to my neck in a sleeping back unable to get out? Read on to see what happened...

If you kept up with Gadling this week, you've probably gathered some tips to help you plan your next trip whether you're looking for the practical or the extravagant. For example,

1. Aaron says that almonds make perfect travel snacks, something he knew about even before he read about it at the Happiness Project website that recently offered up vacation tips.
2. Jerry found out from Mark Jolly, editor of globorati, that train travel is one way to go to travel green, and that train travel is having a comeback. There are other travel tidbits besides. If you missed this post, check it out.
3. Scott pointed us towards a High Sierra luggage deal at Amazon.com
4. Meg told us how to have the ultimate diamond and jewelry shopping experience in Manhattan
5. And Anna pointed us towards environmentally friendly cities for a vacation. It may surprise you that Bangkok is on the list. It has a well-deserved spot.

Have a great weekend and enjoy watching the rest of the Olympics. I'm loving learning more about China from all of the side stories.

Scottevest (SeV) was featured here several weeks ago as my daily deal, so some of you may be familiar with their products.

This morning, they announced the pre-order availability of the newest garment in their lineup; the SeV Fleece 5.0. This jacket comes with most of the goodies found on their other products, including a record 24 pockets, the patented Personal Area Network, and an improved weight management system which allows you to carry tons of stuff in your pockets, without the jacket pushing down on your too much or being out of balance.

The new fleece also has special clear touch pockets, which allow you to store your iPod or Blackberry inside the jacket, and still have full access to the controls.

The inside of the fleece is covered in a fine mesh material, which should help keep you from overheating, as well as reducing the overall weight of the jacket.

The new Fleece 5.0 won't be out till September 30th, but if you pre-order now, SeV will take $20 off the regular price of $140. Shipping is just $5, and they won't charge your credit card until the item actually ships.

The jacket has already proven to be quite popular, as it was chosen by Blackberry as the official gear for the 2008 Blackberry developers conference. To learn more about SeV products, or to place an order for the new Fleece 5.0, click here.

Our friends over at Engadget just let the world know that the mobile version of their site is now "iPhone friendler".

In addition to the existing m.enagdget.com link, iPhone and iPod Touch users can view the site in an optimized version for their device by pointing Safari to i.engadget.com. The good news is, that this works for any site in our family, including Gadling!

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, and you'd like to keep up to date with the news posted on your favorite travel site when you are on the road (or in the bathroom), you can browse to i.gadling.com.

While this may seem a little unfair to all the other mobile users out there, Engadget posted the statistics of visitors to the current mobile site, and it turns out that a whopping 95.9% of all mobile browsers came to the site using an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Now you have no excuse for not keeping up to date with the latest articles posted here!

Now that the TSA has come to its senses, and has relaxed the rules for getting your laptop through security, we are seeing more and more bag manufacturers introduce a line of luggage to help ease the process.

Previously, I had reported on new TSA friendly bags from Mobile Edge, and the newest contender is Travelon Bags.

The Travelon checkpoint friendly bag lineup includes 6 bags; a laptop protector, a laptop sleeve (in three sizes), a briefcase, a wheeled case, a backpack and a ladies brief.

The laptop protector is a one-size-fits-all sling with a carrying handle, for placing your laptop in an existing bag. The sleeve is a neoprene case available from small (for laptops up to 10.5") all the way up to a large (for laptops up to 17"). The computer briefcase looks like most average laptop bags, but has a pull-out laptop sling which brings your laptop out of the bag ready for inspection, a similar feature is found on the laptop backpack.

The bags start at just $24.99 for the laptop protector, up to $189.99 for the wheeled laptop bag. The first of these bags should be available in early September.

Our buddies over at Engadget are reporting on the availability of a portable fuel cell designed to recharge your gadgets. The Medis 24-7 Power Pack was first announced back in 2005, but it has taken them some time to get the technology to a stage where it is reliable enough to sell commercially.

The 24-7 power pack contains a fuel cell using "a direct liquid borohydride technology". I have no idea what that means, but it delivers enough power to keep your iPod playing for up to three and a half days, and that is really all I need to know.

The 24-7 Power Pack is currently available online for $39.95 which includes the Power Pack itself, a variety of charger cords and a user manual. The Power Pack is not rechargeable (or reusable), so once it is empty, you'll need to spend $22.95 for the replacement pack. The Power Pack is scheduled to appear in Best Buy stores soon.

The manufacturer does not mention whether the fuel cell is approved for taking on a commercial flight, and knowing the TSA, I'm not sure they know either. I asked Medis about taking their Power Pack on a commerical flight, and they got back to me right away letting me know that it is fully approved by the DOT, each package even contains the DOT permit number and is clearly marked "approved for carriage in aircraft"

I have to say I'm quite happy to see this technology finally appear in a commercial product, companies have been showing off their fuel cell products for years, but until now, none of them were actually made available for us mere consumers. I'm sure that the price will scare some people away, but being able to carry a 6.5 ounce backup power pack with the capacity to keep my iPod playing for 3 days is worth $23 to me. As the technology matures, I'm convinced that prices will drop.

For some time now, Gadling has been following Transportation Security Administration plans to begin allowing laptops to be screened while remaining in special so-called "checkpoint-friendly" laptop bags.

This past Saturday, TSA began allowing certain bags to go through screenings with laptops still in them. The TSA has a helpful information manual up on its Web site right now, cautioning that this apparent relaxation in security procedures does not cover every laptop bag on the market.

In other words, not all laptop bags are checkpoint-friendly.

Only "butterfly-," "trifold-" and "sleeve-style" laptop carriers are acceptable.

What the TSA is after is a clear view of your laptop. Since security officers are looking for evidence that electronics have been tampered with, they need a clear line of sight to note any irregularities in your laptop.

The TSA is quick to emphasize that just because you have an ostensibly checkpoint-friendly laptop bag, TSOs may still ask you to remove your computer if they cannot see it clear enough through the bag.

The TSA also has these useful tips:

• Your laptop bag has a designated laptop-only section that you can lay flat on the X-ray belt. There are no metal snaps, zippers or buckles inside, underneath or on-top of the laptop-only section
• There are no pockets on the inside or outside of the laptop-only section
• There is nothing in the laptop compartment other than the laptop
• You have completely unfolded your bag so that there is nothing above or below the laptop-only section, allowing the bag to lie flat on the X-ray belt
  

Check out Scott's post of one TSA-endorsed line of laptop bags currently on the market.

Nokia has teamed up with Lonely Planet to bring their travel guides to select Nokia Mobile Phones.

Nokia phones with support for the free "Maps 2.0" application can purchase and download Lonely Planet guides directly to their phone. Each guide costs $13.99 which is slightly cheaper than their paper versions, which normally sell for around $18 each.

Lonely Planet currently has 100 different guides available for mobile use, with more on the way. By combining the GPS receiver built into many current Nokia phones, you can make the move from paper guides, to an advanced guide with turn by turn directions. Of course, for some people there is no replacement for a good old paper guide full of scribbled notes and bookmarks.

This is the second phone Lonely Planet has added mobile support for. Previously, they introduced a lineup of spoken phrase guides for the iPhone, it is however the first time they have made their popular guides available for a smartphone.

With more and more phones adding GPS receivers, it is probably only a matter of time until other phones get access to the guides, location based services are taking off in a huge way, and within the next few years it is expected that 50% of all new phones will have GPS built in.

To get Lonely Planet guides on your Nokia phone, you will have to install Maps 2.0, you can check whether your phone supports this here. To download a guide, simply open your maps application, click "extras", then "guides". Alternatively, you can download the Nokia maps loader program to your PC and install the guides locally. If you are traveling abroad, I highly recommend purchasing the guides you need on your PC, to save the insanely high data charges when you roam on an international network.

Source: Nokia press release

Forget GPS, Google Maps, Mappoint and the new iPhone; this is how navigation was done back in 1920. Drivers would insert the tiny scroll maps into the watch, and turn a little dial as they progressed.

Sadly, back in 1920 there were not enough drivers to make this a successful product, and it would take 80 years for personal navigation units to become popular, though clearly not as fascinating as this watch.

The watch is part of a large collection of 19th and early 20th century gadgets on display at the British Library business and intellectual property center in London. The gadgets come from the private collection of Maurice Collins OBE, author of Eccentric Contraptions and Ingenious Gadgets.

Other gadgets on display include the first automatic food processor and a cup specially designed to let mustached men drink their soup without getting bits of soup stuck in their stache.

The exhibition opened last Thursday, and will be open until Thursday November 10th 2008.

(Photo courtesy of British Library Business and Intellectual Centre/PA Wire)

Yesterday afternoon I was on a WiFi quest with no luck, so here's the
Take FIVE a day later.

While I was on my WiFi quest with no luck, Gadling welcomed a new blogger. Meg Massie has an interesting way to get around the world. Her husband is a professional bridge player. Meg travels for other reasons too. Bridge is just one of them.

Along with the welcome addition of Meg, there have been a mix of culture related posts from entertainment to food, plus, there is a new feature thread called Gadling Covers the Olympics.

From the humor angle: If you missed Jerry's post on Stephen Colbert's tour of the Cantons of America, here it is. Along with poking fun at Canton, Ohio (on the list of the top five cities that are dying in the United States), Colbert also pokes fun at other towns called Canton.

• From the gastronomic angle:Jefferey lamented the absence of his beloved döner, Turkish kebabs from Concierge.com's list of the world's best street foods
• From the cinematical angle: Josh pointed out the popularity of Indian musical movies in Africa and wonders how much Bollywood will take over Hollywood's place here.
• From the musical angle: Aaron pointed us in the direction of Asian music that has gained a following
• And, from a capturing an aspect of culture yourself angle: Scott posted on great price on a Fuji camera.