We are sorry to say that Mac is not very well, but he is
still e-mailing strong and recently sent the Beetle a
collection of travel tips based on several trawls of travel
websites. Here are some of the tips Mac has garnered:

• 1. Put wallet in breast pocket of shirt and then put
  another shirt over it. Me: might want to have a
  second more accessible wallet to hand to any potential
  robber
• 2. One traveller wrote that he kept two thirds of his cash
  in a pouch by his underwear
• 3. Another person wrote in to suggest this: you get old
  white undies, create a fake crap stain in the appropriate
  place and lay over your valuables

And here are some items that travellers have listed as being
most glad they took: Gortex jacket, universal sink plug,
nalgene bottle, toilet bag, pocket knife and camera, hiking
type boots, backpack with pull-up handles and wheels, travel
pillow, toothfloss, Pitzi headlight (a couple mentioned
this), Ortlied folding bucket (a laundry bucket, bearing
service bucket, and hat all in one).

Nick O Neill writes in BootsNall.com some good advice.
Mac says that he stole his name Travel Nutter from
Nick. He evidently has travelled for years. Some
ideas I gained from Nick: when you shower pin your money belt
with a safety pin to your towel. (I don’t know
about that, I am so forgetful, I would probably leave the
shower room without my towel or the money belt attached to
it!)

On the subject of backpacks, Nick says he prefers a simple
pack without 75 pockets and straps. He takes a medium
sized pack that doesn’t encourage me to pack too much.
Beetle: I have a side zipped Lowe Alpine pack that
doubles up as a holdall that looks a bit less back packer-ish
for those odd occasions when checking into somewhere a little
more up market. Whatever backpack you use, try to get
one with a zip cover that hides away all of the handles as
these can get stuck in airport conveyor belts etc.

Nick says he has used an extra long North Face sleeping bag
for over a decade. Mac asks, does he own
stock? Mac says he uses a hollow filled bag while
heavier than a down bag, it will retain heat when wet.

Nick says that he carries three $l00 bills in his money belt
(the one fastened to a towel). He says he has even been
able to use them in a shack in the Himalayas.

Back to Mac: travellers who have had some military service
might want to check out the overseas military clubs that are
equivalent to the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign
Wars etc. In Australia and New Zealand and Western
Samoa they are RSL Clubs. I checked in at Cairns, told
them a little bit about myself, where I had travelled etc and
asked if they knew where the Catholic Church was, the time of
Mass etc. and if they knew any reasonable place to stay and
eat, asked about local bus transportation, what I should see
etc. They made me an honorary member of their organization
for the time of my stay in Australia.

In South Africa they are MOTH clubs (military order of tin
hats which started in WWI) and Comrade Clubs (British
oriented.) Again, I was made an honorary member and
even invited to some of the members’ homes. They like
to learn about you and you like to learn about them. In
the MOTH clubs the commander is always called Old Bill no
matter what his actual name is.

In Western Samoa, the commander of their RSL was an American
working in Western Samoa. I asked how he got to be commander
of this foreign club. He laughed and said he was about
the only one of its members that had been in the service, the
rest were associate members. Sometimes these clubs in some
places to keep them going take associate members without any
military service. Most of them are very hospitable and
good sources of information and kind of a security blanket.
Mac

The Athletic Clubs and other clubs in some of the countries
when you show them your passport will let you eat there and
use their facilities.

If you would like to contact Mac, he is happy to answer
e-mails: macsan400@yahoo.com