In the (very near) future I'm going to write a comprehensive article about why and how to pack light, so make sure you're RSSed up and ready for that in the next week or two.

Consider this the prequel. The most important part of packing light is the bag, and I'm proud to say that I've found the ultimate bag for packing light, the Deuter Futura 28.

I found the Deuter Futura 28 by accident. I was at Whole Earth Provisions in Austin, Texas, getting ready for my 10 month trip around the world. I needed a bag.

I looked at the North Face bags, the Osprey bags, the Arcteryx bags, and all of the other usual suspects. None of them stood out.

As I was about to leave I saw a bag tucked away in the far corner. It was pushed back into the rack so that only someone obsessively evaluating every single bag would find it. That's me.

I had never heard of Deuter, so I assumed they must be some no name budget brand. After just a few minutes of examination, though, I realized just how wrong I was. This was the ultimate bag for the light packer.

Yesterday, I wondered if ABC's I Survived a Japanese Game Show would be really awful or very funny. I had some concern that there would be cultural insensitivity that would make for very bad TV. My teenage daughter, who I corralled to watch with me, and I laughed and laughed.

Hollywood got it right.

Whoever thought of this show likes people and knows something about what it feels like to be thrust into an unfamiliar environment, but wanting to stay open to the experience. This was like Lost In Translation meets The Amazing Race, Average Joe and the game show, Beat the Clock.

Travel health and the emerging specialty of "wilderness medicine" have obvious overlap. Dr. Paul Auerbach is one of the leaders in wilderness medicine: helping found the Wilderness Medical Society, co-author of A Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine and numerous journal articles and serving as faculty to the Stanford Fellowship in Wilderness Medicine.

His blog, Medicine for the Outdoors, is celebrating the two year anniversary. For those who haven't yet had a chance to visit, it is filled with practical information and advice for those exploring their environment and wanting to come back from the experience in good health. Travel and expedition medicine is the focus of my career and I find myself citing Dr. Auerbach's work and information, in my work. He is one of the pioneering physicians who helped elevate this field of medicine to a new and unique specialty.

A visit to his blog will allow the reader to learn about things from jellyfish stings and dislocated shoulders on the trail to malaria medications and outdoor recreation. This is truly an opportunity to read, first hand, the information from a leader in wilderness and expedition medicine. I highly recommend a visit to his blog, if you get a chance. Oh, and don't forget to congratulate him on his two-years of dispensing great advice!

I kind of have a thing for maps -- when I was a kid I either wanted to be a cartographer or a pickle factory (proper) -- so I perked up when I heard that the National Geographic Society had just launched Topo.com, a comprehensive database and guide for topographic maps in the United States.

Inside, users are free to browse around an interactive Google map onto which the NGS's topo database has been integrated. One can browse around updates trail and wilderness maps and ultimately customize a personal map to be printed and shipped to you.

The best part is that users can add their own video, pictures and trip reports to the site, making it incredibly easier to research a trip.

User content is still a bit low on the site, but take the opportunity to tool around your local area and see how the topography of the land around you changes. It's really interesting to see your neighborhood not from the perspective from the roads, proper, but rather from the perspective of elevation and boundaries.

It was a crazy couple of days. We returned from trekking in Yakushima, Japan with just under 18 hours to find a condo for the next month in Taipei, pack, and get on the plane to go there.

And that's how mistakes happen.

My friend and I booked a great little condo in downtown Taipei. I could have sworn that it said there was a bed AND a sleeper sofa in the condo.

After two nights on the 3 foot long sofa, I caved. I'd been eyeing the Luxury Lite cot for years now but just couldn't justify buying it. I didn't do much (any) camping, and I lived downtown.

Time to pull the trigger. My friend was so impressed with the pictures and stats of the cot that he decided to order one as well.

There's a lot to be impressed with. The cot is full length, keeps your entire body off the ground, yet it packs up to a tiny 2 pound 2 ounce package that you can fit in your backpack.

When the packages came (remarkably quickly, especially considering we were on the other side of the globe), we tore into them. We'd been waiting around all day because we knew that if we didn't answer the door for the delivery guy, we may never get the package (this already happened in Panama).

In my excitement I tried to build the cot without the instructions. No dice.

Thirty seconds after reading the one page instructions, my light-as-a-feather cot was fully assembled.

Wan Lee is not someone you easily forget.

This 26-year-old native of Seoul, Korea, has spent the last nine months circling the United States aboard a Honda Ruckus, a 50 cc scooter with a maximum speed of 40 miles per hour.

Over the course of his trip, Wan has become a Ruckus legend thanks to the website TotalRuckus, a forum for owners of the Honda scooter. When Wan's camera fell off a bridge into Georgia's Savannah River, it was TotalRuckus members who pooled some funds to buy Wan a new one. When Wan updates the site with his newest travel plans, it's TotalRuckus members who volunteer to open their homes to him, offering him a warm bed or couch in place of Wan's usual resting place, the Great Outdoors.

After initially arriving in North Carolina, where his aunt lives, Wan wanted to purchase a motorcycle to make the trip. But eventually he opted for the Ruckus because (in most states) the 50cc vehicle doesn't require a license plate. Wan also didn't need to buy insurance for his $2,000 scooter because-- Wan says, and who am I to argue-- it's not required by law.

Rachel Atkinson hops like a Darwin finch from one volcanic outcropping to the next, then plunges into ankle-deep mud. Squishing as she walks, the botanist with the Charles Darwin Research Station homes in on the ailing invaders: blackberry, passion fruit, and quinine bushes clustered near Santa Cruz Island's last shrubby stands of Scalesia trees. Atkinson smiles in approval. One more blast of herbicide ought to prevent the aliens from regrowing and give the Scalesia a shot at survival after all.

We were on the front-line of an epic war being waged on all sorts of invasive species in the Galápagos Islands. Surprisingly, the culprit seems to be global warming, which is usually associated with polar bears and other sorts of cold things-not an archipelago situated one degree south of the equator.

It all started in the late 1980s, when the periodic El Niños became more frequent and severe. Of course, we do have to give some credit to the pirates and whalers who began visiting the Galápagos in the 1700s and leaving behind goats, pigs, and other animals as a living larder for future visits. That couldn't have helped.

Is this a PR strategy to get more tourists to visit Lesbos Island or do they really care?

Three islanders from Lesbos - Greek island and home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women - have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name, Newsweek reports. One of the plaintiffs said that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

The three plaintiffs are seeking to have the group barred from using "lesbian" in its name.

Lesbos should just use the term lesbian to advertise the island: "Lesbos: where Lesbians love men." Tell me that wouldn't work.

This is the second post of a 2-part series. Read the first part here.

The swamp here could be the stuff of nightmares. Because this happens to be the rainy season, which lasts from October to March, the trails are meant to be waded, not walked. Yet I am utterly stuck, knee-deep in pungent red mud with stagnant water up to my waist. Ellen Meulman, a PhD student from the University of Zurich, doubles back to pull me out of the quagmire. It takes a few hard yanks. "Be careful," she says. "You can disappear in these waters." Thoughts of leeches and king cobras vanish, replaced by a more immediate fear.

We've been slogging and hacking through the jungle for nearly three hours, on our way to rendezvous with today's observation team. The field staff hustles day in and out to arrive at the nest-site before dawn and do not return until after dark. In between, they track the individual behaviors of the orangutan in excruciating detail: Is the subject playing with a neighbor? Eating, and if so, what? Vocalizing? Using a tool?

The orangutans here already know some remarkable tricks. They've learned how to fashion a seed-extraction stick to crack open the prickly shell of the Neesia fruit. The theory goes that this rather complicated skill developed from simpler abilities to use tools to dig for honey, fish for termites, and scoop for water. Yet primatologists know little more than that these smarter-than-we-thought apes possess culture; the pressing question now is to figure out how it's acquired and transferred.

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 Benitoite

What is it? Benitoite is an electric blue gem considered rare.

Location: California State Gem Mine. Between Hollister and Coalinga, California. The mine, first opened in 1907, has been active at various times, depending on who owned it and world events. It was closed during World War I, for example. It opened to the public in 2005.

Digging details: If you're going to find benitoite, the best time to find it seems to be at night using a black-light headlamp. "Oh, my goodness. It looks like a full constellation on the ground," said Gum when she switched on her light to look around.