Eagle Creek Load Hauler Expandable Carry-On Duffle

Eagle Creek Load Hauler Review

As my 4-country, 1-month trip is approaching fast, I was looking for a hybrid convertible carry-on that could serve me for one month traveling without any other bulky luggage. Whenever I travel, I do not check any luggage. So my carry-on has to be a versatile piece that can work as a backpack, briefcase, or something that can be carried over the shoulder.

After searching frantically online and watching many reviews on convertible carry-on bags, I decided on the Eagle Creek Load Hauler Expandable for these reasons:

- Ultra lightweight & water-repellent Geo Ripstop ballistic fabric. Weighs only 1 lb 13 oz or 0.83 kg

- Regular capacity is 49 L, but can be expanded to 57 L

- Quick access pockets that makes airport security checking a breeze

- Good looking and attractive price point. I have seen similar luggage at $300 - $400, but at $150 the Load Hauler is fairly priced.

Now my challenge is to fit everything for my one-month Australia-New Zealand-Singapore-Malaysia trip in this Eagle Creek travel hybrid bag. I will be carrying a Chromebook and 2 or 3 cameras for my YouTube Channel Travel Videos  

I will make several videos on how I pack everything and how comfortable or not so comfortable it is carrying my gear in this travel bag. You can also track my full trip on my channel. There will be business class flight reviews, airport lounge reviews, and travel videos. If you haven’t subscribed already, please subscribe now to track this trip.

I have made a review video on the Eagle Creek Load Hauler Expandable, which you can view by following the highlighted link.

Dubai - The World Most Dividing City

Dubai – City of Choice

The city of Dubai has become one of the world’s favourite topics of conversation, in a way that no-one could possibly have foreseen a decade or two ago. This remarkable part of the world has surely caught the attention of us all at one time or another, for reasons that may be considered good or bad, but which nonetheless provoke debate. It has to be asked – is Dubai the world’s most dividing city in terms of opinion?

To begin with, it is worth looking at a reason why people love Dubai. There are many reasons, and among them is the blatant ostentation of the city. Although liable to turn off as many people as it attracts, the immediacy of Dubai as an attention-grabbing city cannot be denied. Huge towers like the Burj al-Arab and the soon to be completed Burj Dubai are not, to put a fine point on it, necessary. But then, the same could be said of a lot of smaller, less opulent buildings. These towers astound, and captivate, a great number of people. They make us talk about Dubai, so they serve a hugely important purpose.

However, there are many who complain about the processes that get buildings like these built. Dubai was not a busy, glittering metropolis in the middle of the 20th century. This has happened at very short notice, and the way it has been done is always going to raise a question or two. A lot of people who visit Dubai for a holiday come back and say “well, the room was comfortable, the food was great and the entertainment was marvellous – but that construction noise spoiled the whole thing!”. Dubai is still building – and that is not without its problems for those who enjoy the quiet life. Murmurs about the working conditions on these sites also abound.

However, if working practices in a construction industry are now reason enough to hate a city, you might say that London, New York and other major destinations should be boycotted. There are very few places in the world that were built using altruistic processes by benevolent construction companies. That there are questions about Dubai even today is not encouraging, without question, but there is also justification in the claims of the people of Dubai who consider much of the criticism to be due to envy.

At the heels of the hunt, you are either going to love Dubai or hate it. There are clear reasons for both conclusions, including the fact that ostentation is something that draws strong reactions. If you like glitter, a buzz and an experience that will astound you, Dubai is a place to go. If you want peace and quiet in a centre of cultured gentility, then it may be best avoided. Either way, people are not going to stop talking about this fascinating city any time soon. Any city, after all, which makes it snow inside when the temperatures outdoors are shooting to uncomfortable levels, as seen at Ski Dubai, is worth taking notice of.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Travelnowsimply.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to ahmeddawn.com. This article originally published on the above website on June 13, 2009.

Why Decluttering Makes Perfect Financial Sense

How Hoarding Can Be Your Enemy

First Published: October 1, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

Many of us find that the key to being financially secure is to ensure that we always have one eye on what is coming in and one on what’s going out. Making sure that there is more coming in than going out is, in most opinions, absolutely essential. But hoarding money is one thing, while hoarding possessions is quite another. Many people become quite attached to their possessions, and will keep the old ones no matter how many new they add. The reasons for this are perfectly understandable – when we bought them, these possessions represented something useful to us. It is often quite a wrench to part with them.

However, the time will come when you cannot move because your house is so full of the many things you have collected without even really noticing, and after a period of time just squeezing things in wherever they will go starts to be both difficult and pointless. In this case it is really worth thinking long and hard about whether you actually need half of the stuff you have accumulated over the years. Of course you wanted it at the time, but the fact is that you have probably got by without it for some time now. Maybe someone else could get some use out of it. This is where online auction sites like eBay come in extremely useful for you, and for others.

If you have got to the point where you have so many hoarded possessions that they are beginning to bulge out from every available corner, then it really is time to de-clutter, and one way of doing this is to sell some of the things that you have collected it. If you are a hoarder by nature it is probably still in fairly good condition anyway, so why not have a look and see what people might pay for it? You might actually find that you benefit from having your own policy of only buying something new when you have cleared some space to put it into. Rather than just throwing it all into a dumpster – which a surprising number of people will do when it comes to the time to rearrange things – you could put it up for sale and make some money – allowing you to budget better for anything new that you buy.

You will find that if you use online auction sites, people will pay more for an item that has some rarity value, or that comes as part of a pair. The more things you have that are like this, the better when it comes to trying to raise some cash. Of course, you may find that some of the possessions have sentimental value to you. It is perhaps a good idea to hold on to some of this if you feel that you would be negatively affected by selling it on. The best advice in this situation is to ask yourself whether it is something that is preventing you from moving on, or something that helps you remember. This will help you decide.

The Power Of Change

Changing Why for Why Not Can Change Your Life

The most frequent complaint that many people have about the way their life is going just has to be “nothing ever changes”. People are sick and tired of their lives going the same way day after day. Most of us have probably had the feeling that we are living out the film “Groundhog Day” with ourselves in the Bill Murray role. Get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, with little changing in between. And the effect of this is, all too often, to make us discontented and fed up with our lot in life. And what do we do? Well, we get up, go to work, come home and go to bed. As a wise man once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

If we want our lives to change, it is we ourselves who need to take the first step in changing them. Life is not easy. Nor is it always exciting. And changing things is certainly not something that will happen overnight. But one thing that is undeniable is that too many of us shy away from changing things because we are concerned about how a change will affect our lives. Often the suggestion of doing something new is met by a response of “Why?”. “I could look for a new job, but why? I already have one!” “I could take up a hobby, but why? I have little enough time to myself as it is!” These same people will then complain about boredom at least once a day. The responsibility for changing things lies with individuals, not with anyone else.

When the idea of doing something different is floated, don’t just think “Why  should I?”. This just makes it easy to back out of changing your life. Not having enough reasons to do something is not an excuse – why not do it because it’s different? If it turns out you don’t like it, well, you live and learn. If it turns out that you love it, then you have added a new string to your bow, a new colour to your spectrum. In short, it makes your life a great deal richer. You could sit around for ever waiting for someone to convince you of the worthiness of an idea – or you could test it for yourself. You could go on forever asking “Why?” and all the person will be able to give you are their own reasons. Asking “Why not?” means finding out for yourself.

Sometimes people are scared of change – that’s normal. There is no guarantee that a change is going to bring all the joy you hoped it would. But opening yourself up to the possibilities out there is the only way you are going to experience the things you feel you are missing out on right now. It may sound like a naïve and wide-eyed interpretation of the world, but unless you give yourself the chance to do something different, you will carry on cursing the status quo. Better to light an candle than curse the darkness.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Entrepreneur Journey site. This article originally published on the above website on Mar 24, 2009.

Why Different People Qualify For Different Mortgage Lending Rates?

Special Mortgage Rates, Special Terms and Conditions

First Published: September 28, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

In an ideal world, everyone would have an absolutely equal share of money, opportunity and health, and what they would have would be adequate to live on comfortably. However, the world is not ideal, and through one reason or another some people find themselves having to be satisfied with what they have. In order to equalise things somewhat, there has to be a range of different options which can be applied in situations that require them. What this means in practice is that individuals will be treated differently according to their situation – with the proviso that it must be sustainable. This is why we see different people qualifying for different rates in terms of mortgage lending.

To take a hypothetical situation, an individual – let’s call him Mr. X – may have been living happily for many years in a comfortable job which entitled him to a carefree life, with a credit card bill which he paid in full every month allowing him to avoid interest fees. Suddenly, one day, a company moved into his area doing the same thing that his company was doing, but for a considerable amount less, and business migrated to the newer company. Mr. X found himself earning less commission, and was unable to keep up payments on his credit card, forcing him into a situation where his credit record was less positive than it would have been three years prior. Three years ago he qualified for an excellent mortgage interest rate. Now, he has to accept a higher rate.

This is clearly far from an ideal situation. Through no real fault of his own, Mr. X finds himself in a negative position. Is his bank wrong to approach things this way? From a business point of view, the answer is “no”. His situation created a position whereby he was considered to be more of a credit risk. Banks need to judge risk based on the facts that they have available to them, and quantifiable data. Although Mr X was generally a good payer, he has found himself in the same position as other people who may have been less responsible with credit payments. If the bank were to make an exception for him, though, they would have to do it in other situations and their margin would be reduced.

The price we pay for having a system of credit and borrowing in our economy is that it will sometimes “unfairly” penalise people who have conducted their accounts generally rather well. This system may be imperfect, but as we mentioned at the start of the article, this is not an ideal world. In order to make the best of your situation, particularly if you are one of the many people whose credit record has suffered from circumstances beyond your control, it becomes all the more necessary to look at ways of getting the best deal. This entails shopping around, saving for a deposit and in some cases waiting for your continued efforts to make payments to your credit accounts to be reflected in your credit score. And in the meantime, realize that positive behaviour is, eventually, rewarded.