Willy wrote a post about the Smiley toothbrush holder, a worthy travel pal. Here's another addition to the how to take your toothbrush with you when you travel, and the how to take care of it when you get to your destination question. The Flipper toothbrush holder brings a zoo and good hygiene to any bathroom or suitcase depending how many people are your traveling cohorts.

Although there are holders available in non-animal designs, what's the fun in that? The neat thing about the Flipper toothbrush holder is that it can fasten onto a bathroom mirror so you don't need to worry about your toothbrush dropping onto a dirty carpet or into a questionable sink, or whether the sink counter is clean enough.

The holder is also designed to let moisture evaporate so you're less likely to get that crud build up. As you move from one place to another, the holder can be taken off and refastened with the bristle end of your toothbrush safely protected all the while.

I like that the holder is in one piece so the top or the bottom won't go missing. The company also makes razor holders that fasten to a mirror or shower stall using the same concept.

Yikes! I promised to write, by last week, about my favorite MP3 player to travel with, and then I didn't.

In the span of 8 days I visited the island of Miyajima off the coast of Hiroshima, went back to Tokyo, stayed on an island called Yakushima off the southern coast of Japan for four days, and then moved to Taipei, Taiwan. Not much time to write.

However, I'm now settled in the Da-an district of Taipei with a couch and an internet connection, so it's back to business.

And today's business is a gem of an MP3 player, the Creative ZEN.

There are two things that make this the best current MP3 player for a serious traveler, as well as a few nice touches that seal the deal. Let's focus on the big ones first.

As if there were not enough Europeans mobbing US stores for incredibly good deals, here comes yet enother reason for them to keep coming.

Steve & Barry's, a store that sells stylish celebrity-branded clothes at prices for less than $10 and makes Wall-Mart look like a ripoff for the bourgeoisie, opened a store on Broadway in New York City. Steve & Barry's offers an assortment of flowery sundresses designed by Sarah Jessica Parker, like the one pictured here for $8.98, heart-printed hoodies by the Nickelodeon alumna Amanda Bynes ($8.98) and basketball shoes by the New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury ($8.98), NY Times reports.

The only drawback? Lines at the registers are often 20 deep.
That's OK, Britons say. We invented queue-forming.

Cash and Treasures, as mentioned in a previous post, is a Travel Channel show that features kid friendly places. Host Kirsten Gum, an engaging sort, heads to where you can dig up treasure with or without kids.

Episode: Digging for antique bottles

What are they? Antique bottles. As in bottles. As in antiques. As in old.

Location: Gum headed to the Sacramento Valley in California, however, you can dig for antique bottles anywhere people lived years and years ago. You have to promise not to go all shovel happy, though. There are rules involved for where and how you go rooting around.

The Sacramento Valley offers promise for good digs because of the influx of people who settled here after gold was discovered in 1848. To find bottles, you have to find an outhouse. People used to throw out their trash down the holes. These days, the holes are often buried, and in this case, under a parking lot outside a store.

When I went on trek in Ladakh, India, most people who went along were outfitted to the gills in the latest, greatest, newest hiking clothes and shoes for such an occasion. One person, however, wore a pair of Converse All-Stars--the basic low cut version. Nothing fancy and he didn't even lace them. I can't remember if he wore socks. Probably not.

He walked unhurriedly for nine days along the trail that lead up the mountains through the Markha Valley. As he walked, he chewed tobacco and cheerfully shot the breeze. His shirts, by the way, were very nice cotton, pin-stripped button down Oxford cloth. His pants-- blue jeans. He tied a red bandana, pirate-style around his head and was never without his Ray Bans. I was proud he was in my group that lolly-gagged behind the rest. We took in the scenery and each others company, while the over-achievers sped ahead for who knows what reason except for wanting to be first. (It was hard not to delight in the gasping heaves and moans when altitude sickness kicked in for some of them.)

The Converse All-Stars said, "Kick back. Don't worry." I was happy to follow their pace. None of the five of us in the pack that brought up the rear suffered from altitude sickness. We were walking too slow for that, and my friend never got a blister that I can recall.

Converse All-Stars, also called Chuck Taylors or "Chucks," first made their appearance as basketball shoes in 1917. The company, though, is celebrating its 100th year. It was founded in 1908.

The Great White Shark attack off the coast of San Diego yesterday (and Mark Shaw's insightful comments about it) got me thinking about wetsuits. Doesn't it seem that most shark attacks happen because sharks confuse swimmers or surfers with seals? (See photo to get an idea of what such lovely encounters might look like.)

Here is my question. Why are most wetsuits black then? The majority of the all wetsuits I have ever rented and worn for diving have been black; hence they make you look like a seal. They might have a few color accents, but I am not sure the vision of sharks is good enough to fully appreciate them.

The guy who died in 2004 after a shark attack in Northern California was wearing an olive camouflage wetsuit that made him blend into the rocks (and possibly look more like a dolphin than a seal. Sharks like dolphins, too.) This page has a lot of interesting information about that attack.

Some sources, the surfing handbook being one of them, say the wetsuits with big color contrasts make you look like a fish, which is apparently not helpful, either. I have to say, I have never seen a 6-foot fish of crazy colors though.

Is it difficult to dye neoprene, say, all white or all orange? Would that help or is that wishful thinking?

A trip to Africa requires some serious preparation. Guidebooks. Vaccinations. Maps. Tourist visas. Mosquito nets. Hiring guides. For many people, the very idea of the African continent conjures images of huge steamer trunks, pith helmets and mountains of travel gear. But for the technology-inclined, the mysterious continent author Paul Theroux once dubbed "the dark star" is becoming just a little bit more accessible, thanks to Tracks4Africa.

Essentially a giant community mapping project, Tracks4Africa is a non-profit organization that maintains user-generated GPS maps of some of the more remote and "eco-sensitive" areas of Africa. Although the project originally started as a way for outdoor enthusiasts to preserve some of Africa's most unique plant and animal life, it has since blossomed into a full blown database of "off the beaten path" sights in Africa. More than 1,400 adventure travelers have contributed data on everything from recent elephant attacks to ghost towns and covered countries ranging from Ethiopia to Mozambique. And because it's entirely user-created, there's a good chance users will also have access to the most current information on the ground. Take this in contrast to an Africa guidebook from Lonely Planet, which might not get updated for several years (if at all).

All you need to get started with Tracks4Africa is a compatible GPS unit and a sense of adventure. Armchair adventurers take heart - the Tracks4Africa database is also viewable through Google Earth. Now get out there and find me a nice date plantation to check out in Namibia.

Happy Earth Day! In honor of America's greenest day of the year, we at Gadling are giving away free copies of Green Travel: The World's Best Eco-Lodges & Earth-Friendly Hotels, a new guide by Fodors.

Coming out on April 29th (you get a pre-release!), Green Travel is a comprehensive guide to traveling with a light carbon footprint, complete with beautiful sprawling pictures as well as up to date guide and destination information. It's a must-own for any environmentally conscious traveler out there, and you can get a copy free from your friends at Gadling.

• To enter, simply leave a comment below.
  
• The comment must be left before Friday, April 25 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Five winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Five Grand Prize Winner will receive a copy of Green Travel (valued at $21.95)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.
• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.

One of my favorite ways to pass time on my regular 6AM flights out of New York City is by boarding early, cashing out and sleeping until touchdown in Detroit. I've even got a favorite hoodie for the occasion, this brown zipup I bought in Sweden that I can stuff my hands into, pull up the hood and promptly start snoring in. What a waste of a first class seat.

Looks like the folks at Burton smell what I'm cooking and have designed a sweatshirt specifically for this task. We covered last year's model with all of it's nifty features, including a built-in inflatable pillow, ear plug and passport pockets and light shield over the hood. This year, they've also integrated a travel toothbrush into the mix. It looks like the total package for anyone wanting to integrate comfort and efficiency into one piece of drool-friendly apparel.

Good lucking finding one of these gems on the white market though. Burton and all of their distributors have sold out completely and they're going on Ebay for upwards of 200$.

Meantime you can check out specs and some images of the hoodie directly from Burton.com.

I'm a gadget junkie by any definition. When I planned my year long trip around the world, I literally spent more time considering the gear I brought with me than I did planning which countries I'd go to.

But hey... if you're well prepared, you're ready for anything, right?

For the first ever episode of Gadling Gear, I thought it only appropriate that I cover one of the most useful and perfect gadgets in my travel bag: Etymotic Research ER-4P headphones.

Let's get the obvious out of the way - these things have incredible sound quality. They reproduce sound nearly perfectly, a feat that would literally cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars with a home stereo system.

So, if you like hearing your music at higher quality than you've ever heard before, these are your headphones.

But beyond that, these just happen to be totally perfect for us traveling folk. Why? Because they block sound way better than the competition.