Worldwide Outdoor Experience

Trip Planning

Planning a trip is an essential part of ultralight hiking. Whoever takes so little material into nature correspondingly has less material at hand to improvise with. Due to this limitation of materials, many are averse to ultralight trekking, but it does not have to be that way. With the proven “Skills statt Gear” principle, this can be balanced out quite well.

Jelly Comb Tri Fold Bluetooth Keyboard

As is well known, I am at odds with typing on touchscreens, so for blogging on the trail I had to find an alternative. It quickly became clear that I needed a real keyboard. For the keyboard I had the following requirements:

2017-01 Hiking in Mallorca

This year in January there was supposed to be a winter tour for Bimbi and me. One week in the Palatinate before I dive fully into my last exams. But the closer the long winter tour came, the greater my need for sun and good weather became. So I spontaneously suggested a trip to the south. After a brief analysis of the weather data three weeks before departure, we decided to go hiking in Mallorca. The current temperatures ranged between 15°C and 20°C, and there was sunshine in abundance. So no time to lose! This time we decided against tents. Bimbi's chosen day tours were spread all over the island, so a rental car was the obvious choice for getting from A to B without hassle. Add a small holiday flat for the night, and the conventional holiday is complete. From experience, our tours are always very chaotic, so why should it be any different this time?

Laufbursche Huckepack

The Laufbursche Huckepack is my oldest pack and still the one I use most. My 2011 model has a volume of a good 45 litres. I have owned this pack since about 2014. It has been around for 6 years now, half of them on my back. High time to write a few words about this pack.

Solar

After many hours, I have written all the articles on the topic of “solar power on multi-day hikes”. I have explicitly separated the solar panel product reviews from the general information on the topic.

As a little bonus, there is a solar calculator with which you can estimate whether your planned combination of devices is promising.

Here I compare my solar panels in tabular form.

Have fun with it!

A5 Notebook 5W Solar Panel

While looking for a solar panel that is as light and compact as possible, I came across this product on AliExpress. At a price of a good 12 USD including shipping, you can’t really go wrong. I was genuinely positively surprised by this panel.

Comparison of Various Solar Panels

To compare the various solar panels at a glance, I have summarized the individual data in a table here.

Kolumb 10.6W Solar Panel

The Kolumb 10.6W solar panel is a particularly light panel. The manufacturer specifies an output of 10.6 watts, compact dimensions of 32x24.5 cm and a weight of just 198g. With these figures, the solar panel is ideal for trekking tours far from power outlets.

XTPower SP13 13-Watt Solar Panel

The XTPower 13-watt solar panel is the first solar panel that actually worked on my trips. The panels I used before were, on the one hand, too small, and on the other hand, the whole system of solar panel, power bank, smartphone and settings wasn’t coordinated.