Travel Archives - Wandering Jon

Noise Canceling Headphones Are a Must Have for Nomads

November 8, 2019 by Jon Brown Leave a Comment

Silence is golden. On planes, in cafes, in coworking offices, everywhere.

Long ago frequent flyers started fawning all over the Bose Quiet Comfort 35s. They were the first popular ear phones with Active Noise Cancelation (ANC). ANC means that the electronics listen to the background noise and then generate a canceling sound wave pattern. The effect is magic. This is in contract to passive noise cancelation, or more accurately noise isolation. You typically get noise isolation from “big cans” the muffle outside noise, or from air tight ear bud tips (rubber/foam).

I took one look at the Bose QC35s and my take away was simple:

#1 I don’t have room for those beasts in my travel gear.

#2 They’re way to expensive.

First, who wants to carry around a case with big old ear cans in them? I certainly don’t have room in my pockets, nor my carry on, nor my roller bag for the space those would take up.

Second, I’m looking at headphones that are for casual listening, heck mostly for video and phone calls, and I’m looking to attenuate background noises. I’ve never been looking for headphones because I’m an audiophile listening to some obscure experimental Brian Eno album.

If you want to read from someone that cares WAY more about headphones in general, check out my friend Chris Lema’s blog on the topic here: https://bestheadphones.blog/

Me, I just want quiet with a good mic and reasonable sound quality.

That’s not to say I don’t care at all about sound quality. One of the other reasons I pooh-poohed the Bose headphones is I’ve never found Bose audio quality to be good. I did go through an audiophile phase long ago building home theater speakers from parts and stuffing ridiculous amounts of audio gear in a car long gone. One of my take aways from that time long ago was Bose products always being heavily marketed low quality products made to sound reasonably good. They are just like cheap TVs that could be made to look “good” by cranking of the contrast and saturation in store. I digress.

Along the way I found a brand called TaoTronics (Made by Sun Valley Tek who also makes the brand HooToo of my favorite battery powered travel router, and RavPower batteries) who made corded ANC ear buds. The price was right at under $50. The first model I had used an inline AA battery to power the noise cancelation. Later they built in a rechargeable LiOn battery, still corded.

The iPhone’s lost their mic jack 🙁

Thankfully soon after TaoTronics released these, the TaoTronics TT-BH042. I like those a lot, they worked well on planes, didn’t take up too much space. At only $50, I bought a dozen that year and gave them out as gifts to 9seeds staff and a couple clients. If you only have $50 they’re still the ANC earbuds I’d recommend for most travelers.

Somewhere along the way AirPods came out, at $180. I swore I’d never spend that much money on headphones. After hearing from dozens of trusted friends just how awesome they were and being mildly frustrated by bluetooth pairing between my phone, my iPad and my Mac, I bought a pair.

With a day I was in love with my AirPods. They paired seamlessly, they had perfect battery life (I always return them to the case every time I remove them from my head). They ONLY problem was the lack of noise cancelation, heck they barely provided any noise isolation.

I loved them so much that when version 2 came out, I bought them within minuted of them being released. I figured I’d hand down the older ones (only 18 months old) to Elena. She liked them but they never fit her ears well. They fit me perfectly, but they fell out of her ears and never quite pointed correctly into her ear canal. She wanted the PowerBeats Pro.

So I did what too many tech savvy husbands do, I waited a month and bought her the AirPods Pro instead.

Good news, she loves them and they fit great.

Bad news, they are legitimately better at noise cancelation then my TaoTronics TT-BH042. Are they $200 better? No, probably not if evaluating the noise cancelation alone, but add the wireless charging battery case, and the easy connection jumping between devices and they sure as heck are. 50/50 odds on me making it all the way to Christmas without buying them for myself.

Tranquility Videos

February 5, 2017 by Jon Brown 1 Comment

Since the beginning of the year I’ve been trying to take more moments to relax to be present. Sometimes meditate, but not daily like the goal I set for myself. In conjunction I’ve been shooting these little 10, 30 or 60 second videos of the places I choose to do this and sharing them live to Instagram and Facebook.

Yesterday, I took a little trip south on Ko Lanta to find somewhere out of the way to do some blog writing. It was so out of the way that there was no wifi or cellular data which meant I didn’t get to share this “live” like normal, but figured it was still worth sharing here.

My Favorite Place on Earth

December 19, 2016 by Jon Brown 3 Comments

One question I get asked all the time when talking about my travels is “What’s your favorite place?”

There honestly a lot of favorites, but there is one place I hold above all others. I found it on my very first trip to Asia thanks to my circus/fire friends I met along the way of that first trip. In fact for me, that favorite place is a place within a place, it’s a very specific few square feet at a restaurant on the rocks perched between three idyllic bays.

I’ve returned to that very spot many times over the last 10 years and it’s slowly changed.

No Roads (2007)

On my first visit there in January of 2007 there were two ways to make it to these beaches. One, the one everyone takes, is a 15 minute ride in a long tail boat. When the ocean was calm, this was no problem, but regularly the ocean is not-calm and occasionally it was far too rough for the boats from Haad Rin to even try. The alternative route was a 2 hour hike in the jungle on a un-maintained trail. Very few took the later, unless left no other option and there was no road.

Thailand Long Tail Boat with decorative painting — One of the many long tail boats the ply between Haad Rin and Haad Yuan

Waves picking up and spraying the walkway. In major storms this walkway has been damaged and rebuilt.

After hours of waiting for a lull they went for it… all-hands survived, but everyone was pretty soaked as well. Hope you didn’t have any electronics in those bags…

Walking between the bays on a beautiful day

Typical Thailand Long Tail boat. Some of the bungalow’s have slightly wider boats, but this is usually it.

The third, and smallest bay, Haad Why-nam.

The view towards The Sanctuary Resort on Haad Tian from the ridge between Haad Tian and Haad Why-nam

The view towards Haad Yuan from the ridge between Haad Tian and Haad Why-nam

The mythical road (2013)

Years later a “4×4 only” road started getting cut through the jungle. Motorcycles at first could make it and then very adventurous Jeeps. It wasn’t used regularly though and certainly wasn’t open to the public. Only those that owned the bungalow operations along the beach used it, and even then it was regularly too muddy for any vehicle to make it though. The boats were still how everyone got in and out, and how nearly everything THING from food to building materials got in and out. At this point the road was still half myth and many people hoped it would never become commonly usable.

Bamboo Hut Restaurant on the rocks above Haad Yuan, viewed from the water

The gazebo in front of Bamboo Hut on the rocks above Haad Yuan

Sunrise from my room at Barcelona, Haad Yuan, Ko Pha-Ngan Thailand

The view out my front door. Barcelona, Haad Yuan, Ko Pha-Ngan Thailand

Everything comes in by boat, from cushions to concrete.

Beam Bungalows on Haad Thian, up the hill a bit means they get cellphone signals (the beach doesn’t)

The Road (2014)

Today the steepest and worst parts of the road have been paved, although it’s still only passable by high clearance 4×4 vehicles and not open to the public. There is a 4×4 pickup truck taxi service that operates making daily trips in and out. Perhaps the only good thing is there is at least now competition with the boats which had more than tripled in price over the years. Now it’s 200-300THB for either the boat or the truck, which is a bit lower than the last days of the boats being the only option. The bad is more people, more all-night parties, more trash…

The times they are a-changin…

The location iss on Haad Yuan, Haad Tian and Haad Why-Nam beaches on Ko Pha-Ngan, Thailand. I said there was a specific place there though, and it’s a table (two really) at Bamboo Hut restaurant. It’s a place where I can sit while eat the most delicious pumpkin curry, drinking mocha or mango shakes, work or gaze out onto the beautiful sra for hours. 10 years ago this spot even had “wi-fi”. Wi-fi is in quotes because back then it was a connection grabbed by a 64 Kbps connection grabbed by a dish antenna (find it in the photo). That connection was shared by everyone that could get on, imagine 10 people sharing a single 1980’s dial-up connection that frequently just stopped working for hours at a time. Fun! Now, you can get a decent 3G cellphone signal and tether to your own connection. Some providers I think now even hit the spot with 4G/LTE although that’s spotty. Still my favorite place… but I’m looking for a new place, one like this one was 10 years ago 😀