In case you haven’t read the last 18 years of gear posts, my goal is to have the best possible gear with the most wide ranging capability in the smallest form factor possible. Yes, I know some of this stuff is expensive and borderline ridiculous, but I travel for at least half the year and the incremental benefits are worth it to me.

They may not be worth it for you, but at least you’ll know what the best possible thing is and can work backwards from there. At the very least, get all wool clothing and shoot for around a 20 liter backpack. I have friends with totally different priorities and gear, but they all stick with around the same backpack size.

Some links are affiliate links. Some aren’t. I promise it has zero bearing on whether or not I recommend things. I also sometimes receive products, and that does make me more likely to try a product, but it won’t affect how I rank them.

As with last year, I will note when things are new and perfect. Perfect doesn’t mean it’s permanent, but it means that there are no obvious improvements that I would hope for with current technology.

The only thing that was removed this year and not replaced with something else was the travel blazer. I still have it, but it’s not in my bag most of the time.

Wool and Prince Merino Henley Perfect

This is my fourth year using the Henley instead of a more traditional button-down. I like both, but the Henley is so soft and comfortable that it makes a big difference when trying to sleep on planes or curl up and read a book. It also has a lot more stretch, so it’s better for active things. It also seems to be totally indestructible. I’ve never replaced it and it looks exactly as it did new. (Wow, I just saw the new colors they have when I clicked to make sure the link worked… maybe I will be an ochre guy if this one ever wears out)

Buy at Wool and Prince

Wool and Prince V-Neck T-Shirt

This might be the longest running item on the gear list, though I’m not sure. Maybe I should start tracking how many years everything makes it and it would be like a competition. As always, I love this shirt but wish it had a pocket for folded up boarding passes.

If you’re new to the gear post, this is probably a good time to say that the only reason I’m able to keep my packing so light is because I wear wool. I routinely wear this shirt 7-14 days in a row without washing it, and it stays fresh. Wool and Prince is my favorite wool company, but there are other good ones out there, too. I damaged my Wool and Prince one this year so it was a good opportunity to try SmartWool again, but I bought another Wool and Prince shortly after.

This is literally the only shirt I wear all year, even when I’m at home, unless I have to go to a wedding. I generally switch colors every year, which shocks the people in my life because they’re so used to seeing me in one color.

When I became the godfather to my friend Noah‘s daughter, he got a Wool and Prince V-Neck embroidered with “El Padrino” for me.

The v-neck is now less deep than previous years. I wish it was the old depth, but overall it’s about the same.

Buy at Wool and Prince

Wool and Prince Stretch Canvas Pants

These pants made it another year! They look like black jeans, have a really good amount of stretch, and are comfortable and durable, but I’ve had issues with the pockets ripping in the past, as have my friends.

But… they have redesigned the pockets and use new material. So far so good. I actually haven’t been wearing these recently because I’m testing the new denim jeans, but I’m not ready to switch my recommendation just yet.

These are 55% merino wool, which is higher than most wool pant blends. You need some material besides wool to keep it durable, but despite these being a higher amount they have been extremely durable. I’ve put them through their paces, worn them every non-warm day, and they’re in perfect shape.

These pants were gone last year, but apparently they were just out of stock. Phew!

Buy at Wool and Prince

Faherty All Day Shorts 9″ New

A year or two ago a reader suggested Faherty shorts, and I was lucky enough to remember the name as I was looking for a new pair. And… WOW are these shorts great!

What makes shorts like these special is that they look good enough to wear every day as shorts, but they dry quickly and have a draw string. The draw string doesn’t serve a huge function if the shorts are the right size, but by tying it together and popping it over the waistband I feel like the shorts look like a bathing suit enough that you don’t look out of place swimming in them. All of the pockets have a mesh portion to drain.

The material is even better than rip curl, they look much less casual, and they seem to dry just as fast (I swam in a cold swimming pool in late November just to give them a full test).

I removed the “perfect” on these because the fabric started pilling after a couple years of moderate use. I still wear them, but it’s annoying that they don’t stay in better shape.

Buy at Faherty

Wool and Prince Boxer Briefs

I decided to try Wool and Prince last year, and have made the switch back to them. I found that the Icebreaker ones would last a year (~180 wears), but no longer. A year later the Wool and Prince ones retain their stretch better and look brand new.

My one complaint is that the waistband wrinkles/folds over, unlike Icebreaker. Wool & Prince is trying to figure it out and thinks it may be due to laundry habits. I had a brand new pair that I was being careful with to try to figure out what causes the waistband to have issues, but I didn’t figure it out.

I switched to trunks because every once in a rare while there’s some reason I need to be wearing my underwear in mixed company. Two years ago I found myself jumping into the ocean in Greenland to swim to an iceberg in front of some bewildered cruise passengers.

Buy at Wool and Prince

TimmerMade Custom SUL .75 New Perfect

The Montbell has been replaced! I’ve worn the lightest montbell jacket available since at least 2012, but no longer! However it’s still the most sane choice probably.

TimmerMade stuff is made by a guy named Dan Timmer. Dan REALLY cares about gear and makes the warmest stuff by weight. Someone who cares even more about outdoor gear than me measured everything and made a spreadsheet to rank it all.

But you can’t just order from TimmerMade. They have so much demand and don’t want to raise prices (I guess?) so they have an insane lottery system. Every month you have to answer a one question quiz about how they make their products. For example:

“If I took the down fill out of a 6″ wide chamber in the footbox of the smallest width Serpentes fetal 20f and I put it into a box that is 6″ long x 12″ wide x 10″ deep, what depth would the down reach?”

So if you want a jacket, you have to learn about how he makes sleeping bags. Then if you answer you’re in a lottery to get a production slot. It took me a few months, but I finally got one.

I explained what I wanted (basically the same specs as a MontBell, but with the benefits of his designs) and he spent a week trying to talk me out of it. He basically hated every choice I made and we essentially went back and forth with him telling me the jacket won’t be good, and me saying I’m already pretty happy with the MontBell, so any improvement is worth it to me.

I even had to justify what I was going to put in the pockets! Anyway, he was very gracious and made the jacket I wanted, and I’m super happy with it.

It’s almost exactly the same weight as the MontBell, but it feels like it packs down a little bit easier. It’s maybe 20% warmer or so (absolute guess), and has a much better collar that keeps your neck super warm. It’s also a denser exterior fabric (he REALLY didn’t want to use the same density as MontBell). It also feels like it is a bit better in the wind without a shell over it than the MontBell.

The only odd thing is that it seems like feathers come out more easily than the MontBell.

If I didn’t write a gear post I probably wouldn’t have upgraded, but I’m glad I did. I really like the jacket a lot.

Buy at TimmerMade

Rab Cinder Phantom

I loved the idea of the windbreaker as a shell until I found myself running through a storm in Riga, soaking wet, desperately trying to find a working ATM so that I could get cash to get to the airport.

What I’ve learned about waterproof shells is that the lightest ones are made for bikers. This makes for a slightly shorter cut (in the photo it’s folded over, not super short), but they look normal enough for regular use. After a ridiculous amount of research I ended up on the Rab Cinder Phantom.

This is the second year I’ve had this, and I’m surprised every time it actually keeps me dry. It’s as light as tissue-paper, but has never worn or ripped despite a lot of use.

Don’t be tempted to get pullovers. You can save a tiny bit of weight but they are really annoying and have fewer options for temperature regulation.

Besides keeping you dry, a shell is critical for the coldest weather, as it traps the heat when worn on top of the Mont Bell plasma. Between the two you have a range of warmth ranging from unzipped plasma in the spring and fall to zipped plasma with shell for winter and snow.

The Rab Cinder is 3.5oz, which is a full 25% lighter than the last one, and it is definitely waterproof. The only thing I don’t like about it is the stuff sack is tricky to use and the hood doesn’t follow your head very well when you turn it.

I’m giving it a perfect score because I already thought MontBell was perfect and it’s better.

Buy at Rab

FarPointe Alpha Wool Beanie

I thought this hat wouldn’t last more than a year, but I still wear it. It weighs 21 grams and actually adds a meaningful amount of warmth, especially with a shell hood over it. The don’t have the exact same hat anymore, but I linked to the closest thing.

Buy at Farpointe

Merrel Hydro Moc Next

These shoes are similar to those I wore in prior years, but they have a real sole made of harder rubber. I tried them on a lark because when the other soles wear out they become very slippery.

I love these shoes and was tempted to label them as perfect, but I’m not sure that label can be applied to shoes that look like this. Then again… I did wear them to a wedding this year and wasn’t kicked out.

The point of wearing shoes like this is that you don’t need to wear/pack/wash socks, which is a hard requirement for me. Most shoes like this (e.g. Crocs) don’t quite have enough ventilation to never smell bad. These do. Unlike normal shoes, they can also be used as water shoes and they dry quickly and easily.

I tried another pair of more normal shoes on a couple trips this year and they didn’t last. I’m trying another one now. I really would like to have shoes that look acceptable to polite society, but I’m just not willing to wear socks or shoes that smell bad.

Buy at Amazon

Roav Eyewear Lennox Sunglasses with Transition Lenses

These are the smallest folding sunglasses you can get. They look really good, weigh almost nothing, and have survived years of use without issues.

The only thing I don’t like about them is that the nose pads flop around too much.

I’ve always hated the case that these came with, since it seemed too big for the small amount of protection it provided. ROAV also sells a fake leather pouch that looked similar. Ever since I got them I wanted to make a custom pouch.

A couple years ago in Madrid some friends organized a leather making workshop where we all got to make our own projects, so I made this little case.

Last year I switched from carrying glasses and sunglasses separately to carrying just one with transition lenses. It’s a compromise, but one I’m happy to make given how infrequently I wear sunglasses. That said, it’s pretty clear when wearing these that they aren’t as good as regular sunglasses.

I chose Transitions XTRActive lenses because they will darken even in a car and they seemed to be the darkest. I’d say in reality they’re just barely dark enough to make a difference. As normal glasses they work perfectly, so having sunglasses in a pinch is a bonus.

Buy at ROAV + Lenses at Lensabl

Seiko Astron GPS Watch Perfect

I wrote an entire article about this watch, but here’s the gist of why I switched from my Breitling mechanical watch:

I used to be enamored with traditional watchmaking (and still am, to an extent), but this watch really shattered some illusions. I believe this is the watch great watchmakers would make today, given that back in the 1800s they were using all available technology.

This watch syncs the time every day via GPS so that it’s always correct, can find your timezone and set the time anywhere in the world, remains charged via solar (and can survive two years in the dark), and looks and feels like a normal analog watch. It’s even titanium, so it’s very light.

I’d consider getting the newest model that has a stopwatch now, but I prefer how mine looks and don’t need a stopwatch badly enough to switch.

I linked to Chrono24 below which has ALL GPS Astron watches. My specific one is an SBXC117.

Buy at Chrono24

Triple Aught Designs Axiom S2 VX Pack

Wow, new backpack! This does not happen often. If you read this post every year, you know that my biggest gripe is that the Minaal Daily doesn’t have enough good organization. Well, the TAD Axiom S2 totally solves that problem!

It has a similar main compartment to the Minaal. It opens up all the way and has roughly the same amount of storage. But then in front of that pocket it has an organizer pocket that zips halfway down. It has so many awesome pockets in it that almost everything I need while I’m traveling is reachable there.

On the top it has a small pocket that’s big enough for a charger, glasses, and headphones, which are the things I’m most likely to grab quickly.

One side has a laptop pocket, and the other side has a water bottle pocket that drains outside. Perfect for the Kanpai water bottle that leaks if you don’t really cinch it down.

The material is pretty cool, though I probably prefer the Minaal material overall. I also wish that the laptop pocket was accessible from the top.

I love the look of the bag and I find it very comfortable. I might make a video or live broadcast to show how I pack this thing.

They have a variety of materials. I chose the VX because it was the lightest and is fully waterproof (though I haven’t put that to a very serious test yet).

Recommended to me last year through the comments here by Denis.

Buy at Triple Aught Design

Sea to Summit Ultra-sil Packable Daypack

I had something like this years ago, stopped carrying it, and then went on enough cruises in a row that I really wished I had something I could easily take to the beach or on a hike. The bag is so small and light that it’s really a no-brainer if you ever use it at all. It’s perfect for a towel and for hiding your wallet, or for stuffing jackets into as you hike. Stuffing it back into the sac is very annoying, but given that I use it a dozen times a year or so, I like how compact it is.

Buy at Amazon

Kem Vintage WWII Playing Cards Perfect

These were made during WWII for US soldiers. You can’t tell very well from the picture, but the cards are tiny, maybe 1/3 the size of normal cards. I used to carry these around everywhere when I was practicing memorization, but then I stopped.

Now my wife, friends, and I are obsessed with this three-player Chinese card game called “fight the landlord”, so we carry these around to play.

Finding these cards is impossible now. I have a couple decks, but only one that has the jokers (necessary for our game). A reader once offered me a few decks he had collected, but I didn’t take him up on it. Huge regret!

Can’t buy anywhere… sometimes on ebay or etsy.

Philips One Toothbrush

I like having an electric toothbrush, and this one is good enough. I wish it was more powerful, but this one is a big enough improvement over a non-electric that I’m happy with the compromise.

Now I have the rechargeable one, and it uses a stupid proprietary plug! I really don’t want to carry that around, so I may switch back to battery once it dies.

My toiletry bag is from Swiss Air business class. A pro tip— search ebay for business class amenity kits. A lot of them are stupid, but in general they are the only toiletry bags that are small. I bought five of these on ebay and gave a couple to family members.

Buy at Amazon

Scissors and Nail Clippers Perfect

The nail clippers are my trusty Henckels Ultra-Slim Nail Clippers. This is the same pair I’ve had for six years and they’re still just as sharp and effective as ever.

The scissors are Tweezerman GEAR Scissors. I think that I actually bought some fancier Dovo Solingen ones when I thought I lost these, but to be honest I can’t tell the difference from a practical standpoint, so it’s better to just buy these.

Make sure you get the rounded tips. Most places don’t care, but I went through security three times in Australia recently and they were militant about checking to make sure the tips were rounded.

Keith Titanium Travel Tea Set Perfect

I know the portion of people reading a gear post who actually want tea gear is vanishingly small, but this is maybe my favorite item on the entire list. It’s an absolutely perfect tea set, made of titanium, and the next best alternative is SO much worse that I have a spare set just to make sure I never have to go without. I also bought an extra cup so that I can serve three guests instead of only two.

I modified the set by anodizing the titanium and cutting off the handle of the fairness pitcher. The titanium imparts no flavor and is virtually indestructible. If you love tea and you travel, you should have this.

The cups and gaiwan are double walled so they are never hot to the touch, and the shape and edges are ideal.

Even though I marked it as perfect, I wish there was some way for the interior of the cups and gaiwan to be white to better sea the color of the tea. I think it’s just not possible with titanium, though.

They actually make a new version of this now, but in my opinion it is worse. I bought it and planned to switch, but went back to my old one. I am using the lid from the new one because it has a mesh built in, which is useful for finely cut Japanese teas.

Buy at AliExpress

Kanpai Titanium 350 Thermos and 3D Printed Tea Containers Perfect

This is the lightest double wall water bottle you can get. I love the extra-wide mouth and the no-taper design that makes it easy to clean and to store things inside. It comes with three tops but I just use the hot water one. It’s absolutely perfect for keeping boiled water in. I replaced the noisy rubber seal with an o-ring, and it works perfectly.

As soon as I got my 3D printer I designed and printed a set of stacking tea containers designed to take up about 95% of the interior volume. I can now hold 50% more tea than I could before. They were hard for me to make, especially because they were the first time I tried to make screw threads, which took a lot of trial and error.

The tea containers hold NFC tags and made a script using Tasker so that I can use to electronically label the teas. You can download the files and print your own here.

Buy at Amazon

300W Immersion Water Heater

In case it’s not obvious, I put this in the Kanpai Thermos and use it to boil water. Often I’ll put the top on and wait until I’m in the air before I make my tea. You can also ask for hot water on the airplane, but it’s sometimes not very good because of mineral buildup.

The model with the switch is no longer available, but I might go without it anyway. I once had someone turn on the switch when it wasn’t in water and we almost burnt an airbnb down. Now I unplug it every time.

It’s very important to get a model that can run on 120v or 240v. I suspect that all of them can and that some manufacturers just don’t bother to label it, but I don’t take the risk. In Europe (or on cruises) you can use 240v to boil 4x faster. 300W is a good compromise between size and speed of boiling.

Buy at Amazon

Carbon Fiber Money Clip Perfect

I still have my rather expensive original carbon fiber money clip, but there are cheaper options on Amazon now that seem to be identical, so I’m linking one of those instead. I can’t imagine why someone would use any wallet other than this. It’s super compact and light, doesn’t set off the metal detector, and is very easy to use. Mine has retained its springiness for over a decade now.

Buy at Amazon

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 New Perfect

Folding phones are just so good that I feel bad for all non folders out there. You used to have to deal with a thick phone, but the Z Fold 7 is the same thickness folded as a normal phone. You still have to have to fight against the Apple blue-bubble brainwashing, but once you do you’ll never go back.

I thought that I wanted the bigger screen for watching movies on the plane, and while it is noticeably better than a regular phone for that, it’s not the main draw. My favorite thing to use the big screen for is reading (it’s bigger than a Kindle’s screen) and web browsing. I barely prefer a kindle over it, and read way more while traveling now.

I used to hate browsing the web on my phone, but now I do it all the time because the size and shape feels like a normal screen. If I need to copy information from one app to another I just open them side by side and it’s like having two phones.

Everyone predicts that they will hate the crease in the middle of the phone, but you really don’t notice it. The inner display has a punch-out now, which is the one downgrade from the Z Fold 6.

When the phone is closed it is roughly the same as a normal phone.

I’ve had every Fold from the 3 to the 7, and I tend to upgrade every year because they make it very inexpensive to do so and I’m happy for a brand new screen and battery. The 7 is the biggest upgrade in many years.

I didn’t switch to the Pixel Fold because Samsung DEX is a seriously underrated feature. It’s hard to explain, but it essentially runs a virtual computer and sends it to a screen. It’s not just mirroring your phone— you can use both independently at the same time. I mostly use it to play shows on TVs.

My one wish for this phone is that it would get a better zoom, like 5-10X. Maybe impossible given the other constraints.

I use T-Mobile service with the Global Plus add-on, which gives me free LTE/5G everywhere. I happened to add it on during the <7 days where it offered unlimited LTE rather than a 15GB cap. Project Fi can be a bit cheaper, but T-Mobile includes free voice calls to and from every country with Global Plus, and I’ll definitely get a lot of use out of that.

Buy at Amazon

Lenovo X1 Carbon 13th Generation New Perfect

The main story here is that the X1 Carbon is a perfect laptop. It has the best keyboard of any compact laptop, has a touchpoint (and a trackpad, but once you adjust to the touchpoint it’s SO much better), and has a great screen and other specs.

Despite having a bigger screen, the X1 is 20% lighter than a Macbook Air. I think if more Macbook people saw how good this machine is, they would switch.

The screen I chose was the 2800×1800 OLED that can run at 120hz. I’ve never had a laptop that can run at 120hz before, and it really makes for a buttery-smooth experience. I don’t miss 4k at all.

I run Arch Linux + Hyprland on my machine and all of the hardware works perfectly out of the gate, except for the webcam. I ordered a touch screen by accident (imagine my surprise when I accidentally touched the screen and it moved), and it has a webcam that I can’t get working.

The port selection on the computer is perfect (2 USB A, 2 USB C, HDMI).

I upgraded to the 13th generation this year and it’s the first one in many years that is smaller and lighter (now under 1kg!)

Buy at Lenovo

Mogics Adapter MA1 Perfect

A couple years ago a reader recommended this travel adapter to me and it’s incredible.

It’s just a tiny cylinder that can convert any plug to a US plug. Unlike previous iterations, I don’t think that this could get any smaller.

It is slightly difficult to get. The fastest is to buy a combo pack with a weird travel power strip on Amazon. It’s worth doing just for the adapter. You can also buy it direct at Elvesfactory.com.

Buy at Amazon or Elvesfactory.com

CIO 45W Dual Charger New Perfect

I had the old version of this, but it kept breaking (and I kept buying more). I switched to a slower Anker charger because I liked how small it was. CIO finally came out with a new version that was mostly the same, but… seems to not break! I’ve had this one for almost a year with zero issues, as has my friend Todd.

Buy at Amazon

Nitecore NB10000 Gen III Battery Pack New

I’ve begun accumulating gear to hike part of the Appalachian Trail this year, and that led me to find this awesome battery pack. It has a 38.5Wh capacity (mAh are incredibly deceptive and can’t be compared apples to apples), which charges my phone about once and a half or so. It’s super slim and fits easily into a pocket, it can do pass through charging using its two USB-C ports.

The whole thing weighs 5.3oz, which is light enough that I’m happy to carry it around in my backpack for the rare occasion I need a charge.

They just came out with Gen IV and I haven’t received mine yet, but I’m going to link to it anyway. It’s about the same volume, slightly lighter, and charges 20% faster. It also has a low power mode that can output more total energy at the cost of charging your phone slower, which could be good for overnight charging.

Buy at Nitecore

Two Rokid Max 1.5M USB-C Cables New Perfect

I care enough about gear that I went to Tokyo, went to the electronics stores, and took a caliper so that I could measure every cable and find the thinnest. Turns out the thinnest cable was already at home— the HDMI cable that came with my video glasses I used to travel with is WAY thinner than any other cable I’ve found. It also supports video over USB-C which no normal cables do. This is especially important when you see the next thing on my list.

I have a coupler so that I can combine both cords into one 3M cord (note: the coupler will only work one way. If it doesn’t work, flip one cable around), or I can plug each cable in to the CIO dual port charger and charge my phone and laptop at the same time.

These cables are so thin and light that it’s very easy to stuff two into a tiny pocket along with the coupler. They go in and out of stock. I bought several extras so that I’ll never run out.

Buy at Rokid

1964 Ears Custom IEMs With AliExpress cable

Two years ago I tried to switch to something that’s easier for people to buy (Samsung Bud Pros), but these are just so comfortable that I keep going back to them. Because they are custom molded to my ears they don’t push on my ears at all, so I can wear them for a whole flight and barely notice that they’re there.

The audio quality is predictably excellent and better than I really need. The custom fit blocks a lot of noise.

They were originally wired, but you can buy all sorts of replacement cables on AliExpress that convert them to bluetooth. I like this style, which allows me to drape them over my neck so that they hang there when I have them out.

Buy at 64 Audio (Realistically mine are a totally different model that they don’t make anymore, so you may have to do your own research)

Incharge 6 Keychain XL Cable New

For those who aren’t familiar, this can connect any combination of USB A, USB C, micro USB, and lightning (or USB-C to USB-C). I use it for transferring files and for charging my phone while my laptop is plugged in.

I got a bigger one last year because the small one is just annoying enough to use that I find myself avoiding it. The only thing I don’t like is that the microUSB is shared with lightning, and it’s a little bit finicky. It always works in the end, but I’d rather get rid of lightning and just have a normal microusb.

Buy at Amazon

Vaio Vision+ Portable Monitor New Perfect

I noticed that as I approached certain tasks I’d think, “Nah, I’ll just do it when I’m home and I have my huge monitor”. But what if I could just have a huge monitor while I traveled? I tried using the Rokid video glasses I had in my list a couple years ago, but shifting focus between them and the laptop was too annoying.

Then I found the Vision+ monitor. It is so thin and light that it feels fake, runs 1920×1080, and is bright enough. It has two USB-C ports, so you can power it from the wall and then power your laptop directly from it (or you can power it from your laptop with no external power). It’s almost exactly the same size as my laptop screen, and almost the exact same height, so when put next to it, it feels like a huge wide screen.

Fun fact… a Macbook Air is 2.7lb. My X1 Carbon AND my monitor combined are 2.89 lb.

The case that comes with the monitor is super bulky, so I just threw it away. All of the ads in Japan for this monitor show them absolutely thrashing it, so I just put the screen against my laptop lid and put them in the backpack together. No problems after almost a year. I do wish the backpack had a separate sleeve like the Minaal did so that I could more easily take my laptop in/out without the monitor (like on a plane where there’s not enough room).

Buy at Vaio

Aurzen Zip Tri-Fold Projector New Perfect

This was an absolute longshot that ended up paying off. I saw it on Kickstarter, ordered it, and expected to use it once or twice and put it in the closet. But now it has a permanent spot in my backpack.

It’s a folding projector that has made every compromise exactly perfectly. It’s just bright enough that it’s pleasant to watch. The sound is just good enough that you don’t really need a speaker. The battery life is just good enough to get you through a short show. The resolution is 720p, just barely good enough. And all of those compromises lead to a super light projector that easily fits in your pocket.

I’ve used it in a rented RV, several cruise cabins, the bulkhead seat of an airplane, the ceilings and walls of hotels that don’t let you hook up to their TVs, the wall of my aunt’s house, an extra piece of chloroplast on the island.

It looks great at 50-70″, and watchable up to about 90-100″.

The case that came with this projector was enormous, so I designed and 3D printed a 2mm thick one. If you want the STL file, let me know.

Buy at Amazon

Western Rise Versa Hat New

I so rarely wear this that I almost didn’t include it, but when I went to take the gear post photos I realized that it was still in my bag, so I might as well. It’s so light that you don’t even notice it’s there.

The handful of times I’ve worn it, though, it’s been great. It keeps the sun out of your eyes and can be stuffed into a pocket if you don’t need to wear it anymore. Great for hikes where you’re walking towards the sun.

Recommended to me by Adam Ruggle.

Buy at Western Rise

Summary

Sorry it took a while to get this one out this year (though actually it was faster than last year). I always end up making last minute changes and am testing a bunch of stuff, and then I have to schedule getting photos taken, etc.

It probably goes without saying, but I’m just so happy about my collection of gear these days. Every year my functionality increases, and weight stays about the same.

At home I have a projector and a nice big monitor, and now when I travel I have those things too. It makes longer stays or cruises feel a bit more seamless. It’s also nice to get a little bit more versatility out of my power cords (and redundancy), and have a warmer jacket in the same footprint.

###

I want to do a Tea Time with Tynan video to show off the new year, but I’m traveling for the next little while and don’t have a clear time to do it. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to get a notification of when I do it.

The author is correct and the despair that generation feels hit me in the gut. But I think there’s more to the story.

Even though I’m 45, I’d argue I lived through the exact same scenario, so I am better equipped than most to give advice.

I found it impossible to work hard and do well at school. These days I’d probably be diagnosed with ADHD, but my experience was that learning in a classroom was too slow and boring and I had zero interest in what it was leading up to. I can’t remember exactly how I came to this conclusion, but even in middle school I knew there was no chance I would have a normal career. It’s hard to articulate thinking from 30+ years ago, but you’ll have to trust me when I say that I never once considered having a normal job long term.

At the same time, I was exposed to levels of wealth above that of my own family. My parents were middle class, but they prioritized education. I went to a private school for middle school and then one of the best public schools for high school. My middle school had families representing a range of wealth levels, but the top was quite high. A friend took me to Taiwan where we stayed in his family’s seven story house, and I remember going to a pool party on a classmate’s family complex that had an indoor pool.

In high school a friend was obsessed with Robb report, which made me obsessed with Robb report. I’ll never forget an advertisement for a private island in the back, which probably at least indirectly led to me getting one with my friends.

And besides all that, I’ve always just loved life and been so curious about what’s out there. I want to see and experience everything, from the low end to the high end.

On the surface, you might argue that I prove the author’s point. I was actually a professional gambler for many years, a good portion of my success has come through crypto, and the rest has come through being an entrepreneur and investing. I think there are some bigger factors at play though, and those same factors would be very useful to someone who finds themselves in the same dilemma.

One persistent factor is that everyone’s view on life is far too narrow. People limit their thoughts and actions to roughly what their peers do. I think it’s true that up until the 1980s if you just did what your peers were doing (go to school, get a job, etc.) you would achieve a greater level of success than your parents. I can skip making the argument that this is true, because I think everyone innately understands this at this point. 

It’s always so strange to me when people complain about housing prices. Yes, they are much higher than before, especially compared to incomes. But… there are so many places that have inexpensive real estate. Everyone is looking at the same ten real estate markets, panicking because they can’t buy a house there. Why not go somewhere that’s not so in demand? You can buy a livable two bedroom in Vegas for $120k. Chicago real estate is extremely cheap. Go rural or to a less glamorous city and I bet you can find even better deals. And who cares if the jobs aren’t there? There’s never in history been a better time for remote jobs or being an entrepreneur.

If you don’t want to follow the beaten path, and you shouldn’t, you have to learn to be creative. There are so many incredible ways you can combine the resources available in this world, especially these days. Broaden your view and consider everything. Move somewhere weird, start a niche business, learn things other people don’t learn, be an interesting individual and create and incredible network of friends.

The higher levels of wealth, at least the parts of them that matter, have also never been more accessible. Physical luxury goods may be expensive, but they’re also so pointless that I don’t really care if people can’t get them. On the other hand, international travel is so cheap now that it’s not that difficult to get yourself into a position where you can truly see the world. Through the internet and AI, quality education is completely free and can be delivered at your own pace in your own time. You can connect with just about anyone in the world if you have a good enough pitch. 

This world is changing so fast that it requires creativity and resourcefulness most of all. Those are skills that you can develop on your own for free. Another skill, one that’s harder than ever to develop, is focus and attention span. That’s a tall order these days.

In addition to the given reasons for why younger people are turning towards gambling, I’d argue that our short attention span requires immediate gains rather than long term gains. No one cares about earning 8-10% a year, even though that growth will lead to wealth. I’ve been trying to get my siblings to invest money for years, and they only finally did it once I made a spreadsheet that showed that those modest gains coupled with meaningful monthly contributions will lead to them becoming millionaires. They had no idea.

The one aspect of gambling that can be positive, and one that I’ve harnessed for my entire life, is understanding risk and expected value, and harnessing asymmetric risks. Betting on a sports game is dumb— you have no advantage there. But spending a month testing out an idea that could lead to a successful startup? That’s worth trying. 

The guaranteed path to success used to be go to school, follow the rules, get a job, buy a house. That worked for most people who did it. That path is gone now. 

Now there are a lot of paths, but here’s the one I’d prescribe because it will always work. Live below your means as long as you can, including going to a low cost of living area. Don’t live where people who made it are living, live where YOU can make it. You can move wherever you want later. Start a business, work remotely, or both. Don’t indulge in dopamine hits like video games, feeds, the news, reels, etc. Build habits that will serve you for life like a long attention span. Find other people who are on a similar path and help each other. Don’t follow what other people are doing. By the time they’re crowing about it, it’s already too late.

Contrary to what the news says, I think there’s actually no better time to be trying to make your fortune and find your place in this world. The resources available to everyone are better than ever, and leverage through AI is unprecedented. The standard American path is dead, but we don’t have to mourn that. Let’s just move on to better things.

###

Photo is the Colorado river just below the Hoover dam. There’s an amazing place you can hike to down there to camp and bathe in amazing hot springs!

Nature

Halfway through the year or so I felt like I was spending too much time in front of screens and decided to spend more time in nature. I decided I’d hike a small part of the Appalachian trail in 2026 and started researching lightweight gear (no one is surprised here…). I was worried I wouldn’t use the year very much but I’ve already gone camping a few times and have absolutely loved it. Believe it or not, Vegas has a couple really great camping spots. In the summer you can go up to the mountains where it’s cool, and in the winter you can hike to some amazing hot springs next to the Colorado river.

My wife and I also got into RV trips. We went from Vegas to Seattle and then did an RV trip through Banff a few months later. We were going to buy an RV and probably still will, but we’ve had too much going on to deal with it right now.

The boat also works again (I said it worked last year, but it ended up breaking for most of this year) and we’ve been out on it a ton. When we’re in Vegas we probably go camp across the lake on it once per week. I also did some fun upgrades so that we have good internet and tons of power while we’re out there. I’m probably going to write a blog post about boats because I don’t think people understand how awesome they are. Everyone knows they break a lot and are expensive, but they never realize that boat owners know this better than anyone and they still have boats.

Cruises

Speaking of boats, I went on 6 cruises for a total of around 66 days. Sort of crazy that 18% of my year is on a cruise ship! Abstractly it felt like borderline too many cruises, but as I look back at the photos, each one was such an amazing time that I couldn’t choose one to have cut out. The best cruise by far was one where I had already planned on going with a bunch of friends, and then invited family members, thinking they probably wouldn’t come. It ended up being 50/50 family and friends and was such an awesome memorable time.

(Photo is a cool cliff view from Funchal, Madeira)

CruiseSheet

And… I’m in the business of cruises! AI programming became amazing in 2025 so I finally nailed down some features I’ve always wanted. Mainly the cruise ship tracker and the port guides. The port guides are so good that they’re basically the only thing I check when I go to a new port. I didn’t work a ton of hours, but AI helped me get some great leverage and get good results. The business has grown a little bit YoY, but not tremendously. That’s ok— I’m happy to have the site I like instead of the most profitable site.

Island Progress

Speaking of places I go that are totally surrounded by water… 2025 was an amazing year for the island. We had some really memorable and fun trips and got a lot done. We now have indoor running hot and cold water, power, and internet (internet may have been last year, can’t remember). My cabin has also come along nicely and is 100% waterproof and has two decks, one screened in and one open. I love spending time there and already can’t wait to get back there this spring.

Photo is my cabin

Art

I was on a tear ten years ago buying art, but I hadn’t bought too much since then. This year I got two art pieces that I had been hunting for for years. The first is a ceramic piece by Yu Tanaka. Todd waited outside at her show in Tokyo so that he could be the first in and we could buy sculptures before she sold out. I also got an oil panting by Károly Lotz, who is my favorite Hungarian artist.

Photo is the Yu Tanaka sculpture. It’s ceramic, not cloth.

Art of Watchmaking

My Rolex had started to be a bit fast (10 seconds a day). I was about to take it in to get it fixed and then I thought… why don’t I try to fix it first? If I break it more, I was going to get it fixed anyway. I had to buy this wrench that’s so small that you can’t see the jaws with the naked eye, and used it to adjust the two weights on the balance wheel. It worked! I honestly couldn’t believe it.

Photo is me working on it. I couldn’t get a picture of me with the wrench because the slightest tremor could break the watch.

Family

This was an awesome year for family. I spent a ton of time with my nephew, and every year he’s more fun to interact with. Family members came on a cruise with me, came to the island, and met me in Japan. Since covid I had fallen out of visiting my dad’s side of the family, but I spent some great time with them this year and am already planning to see them again this summer.

My grandfather loves hearing about my travels and random real estate purchases, but he’s 95 and doesn’t travel anymore. This year I had the idea to buy a Quest 3 to record my spaces and then let him put it on and look around. He was absolutely blown away and can’t wait to see more. So much for extra space in my backpack.

Friends

I made a couple of new friends this year, including one who introduced me to the world of board game conventions. I could write a whole blog post about that. I spent a lot of quality time with my existing friends, both in Vegas and on trips all over the place. I also went to a middle school reunion and reconnected with a few of my favorite people from then. My middle school was a really special place with special people, and it’s been so fun to see who they’ve become. I met one of them and his family in Chicago after the reunion, and another and her family came to visit in Vegas.

Chicago

My wife and I bought a place in Chicago. I thought i was done with more home bases but I spent a week in Chicago and was just blown away by how awesome it is. I’ve been enjoying the museum, the ballet, the symphony, kayaking on the river, the food, the architecture, and just walking around a beautiful city. Of course I mainly like that it’s an opportunity for me to do projects. Now I am really done buying new places… It’s already too hard for me to visit all of the places I have as much as I’d like to.

Photo is me kayaking in the Chicago river.

Travel

Other than cruises, it was a pretty normal travel year. I went to all of our properties 2-3 times and went to some new places. My favorite new place was Poland. Both Krakow and Warsaw were amazing, and I look forward to spending more time there. We visited the salt mine outside of Krakow and I thought that was one of the more unique things I had seen all year. I’m now up to 99 countries visited, which is the most annoying number to be at. It’s such a pointless achievement and yet when you’re at 99, all you think of is going to one more country so you can never think about the number of countries you’ve been to again. 

Photo is a church inside the salt mine.

The Future

I have very few goals these days, especially stuff that won’t happen automatically. I’ll visit at least one new country and get to 100. I’d like to do more cool trips with family members and friends. The Chicago apartment needs a lot of work… The bulk of it is done, but a big bathroom remodel will come some time this year. I’d like to write more blog posts than last year. I think a lot about becoming more active on X, starting a podcast or youtube channel, etc. I’ve spent the past year trying to deprogram myself from being so frugal with some success. Hopefully I’ll continue down that path. Other than that… more of the same would be great. I’m a lucky guy with a great life and great people in my life.

How was your year? Every year I ask for people to send me a recap of their year. I’d love to hear how you did with your goals, what you did this year, what you hope to do next year. I read all of them and if you send me one I search to see if you sent me one the year before and I re-read it. Also if you want me to blog more, tell me what you’d like me to write about.

Hope you have an amazing 2026!

###

Main photo is a view of our campsite near the hot springs. You can see the tents in the bottom left. The title is Bye 2025 in Polish.

A lot of my complaints about Tesla are still true. I really hate that the interiors use fake leather everywhere. The touchscreen isn’t as bad as I expected, but I would love to have more physical buttons. And if it weren’t for one factor, I’d say that the cars are overpriced.

That one factor is Full Self Driving. Less than a year ago I predicted that in ten years self driving wouldn’t be good enough to do point to point. I am already totally wrong!

If you haven’t driven a Tesla on FSD 12 or later, you have no idea how amazing it is. A friend of mine in Vegas is a proud Tesla owner, and every time there is a new version of FSD, he insists that I try it. Up until version 12, it terrified me. I borrowed his car for a road trip to Utah once and my family was so scared by its driving on version 11 that they kept asking me to turn it off. Then I borrowed it on version 12 and it drove me all the way across Vegas, through construction, with zero scary moments.

My new car was on 13, not the newest version 14 (because the car dealership didn’t have it on wifi to get updates), but from the dealership in Arizona I typed in my address in Vegas and it just started driving. I cannot believe how competent and confident FSD is. In a busy dealership parking lot with cars and people moving everywhere it gracefully wiggled its way out, made some unprotected left turns, and got onto the highway. Other than choosing higher speeds than I’d choose (I adjusted later), it drove so perfectly that I actually forgot that I had to look at the road. I felt like a passenger in my own car, and felt safer than when most Uber drivers drive. Truly astounding.

It added a stop for a supercharger on the way. It pulled off the highway, drove to the supercharger, and backed into the spot! I didn’t tell it to do that, it just did it. Then I just plugged the plug in (it figured out my account and payment) and it started charging. It charges at a rate of 1000 miles per hour! So in five minutes I got another 85 miles of range, which was enough to get home. The supercharger experience is honestly one of the best commercial interactions I’ve ever had.

My wife’s car was at the airport and it couldn’t quite figure out how to get to the random parking lot it was parked at, but other than that it drove the rest of the trip perfectly.

I bought a 2023 Model S with AI Hardware 4. I did a lot of research and considered every model, but I chose this one for a few reasons. It has the best interior of all of the Teslas. I’d still say the seats are well below a BMW or Mercedes in terms of comfort and feel, but the wood trim looks nice and the minimal interior where everything is controlled from the screen isn’t as bad as I expected. The glass moonroof is cool. I got the cream interior and even though I don’t like the material, it looks good.

It’s all wheel drive, which is sometimes required to go up the mountain to go skiing in Vegas.

The car is absurdly fast. I didn’t get a Plaid version, but it’s still faster than most Ferraris. That’s pretty wild. Cargo space is great.

I like that the car looks totally unimpressive and you’d never guess it is (trying to be) fancy or fast. In that regard it reminds me a bit of the VW Phaeton, which I’ve always thought is one of the coolest cars ever made.

The 2023 model S has a range of about 400 miles! Even with some miles and wear on the battery, it still has much more range than the newest Model Y.

The phone key works incredibly well. You walk close to the car and it unlocks and the handles pop out. Walk away and it locks.

Really though, all I care about is that it can drive itself. No hands on the wheel, just looking out the front most of the time, and it feels like you have a chauffer. As I finished my five hour road trip last night (with zero fatigue), I realized that it doesn’t feel like a car to me— it feels like a totally new product. At the risk of a bit of hyperbole, it feels something like going from a horse and buggy to a car.

Part of what convinced me to buy the car is that the robotaxis use the same AI hardware. That means that within a year there’s a good chance I’ll be able to send the car from my house to the airport to pick me up, which is really the dream.

Anyway, now I’m one of those annoying people who may not be able to stop talking about Teslas. At the very least, ask to sit in the driver’s seat of a friend’s Tesla who has FSD 12 or later. Experiencing it as a passenger is cool, but it feels totally different when you’re sitting in the driver’s seat. The self driving is so good now that I think it’s insane to choose any other car. And there are also some pretty good deals to be had.

FSD 12 can run on Hardware 3 (HW3) and is absolutely good enough to be worth an upgrade from a normal car. FSD 14 requires HW4, and I think it’s worth paying the extra money for it if you can afford it. I’d rather have the worst HW4 car than the best HW3.

###

Photo is someone else’s Model S but mine looks exactly the same.

Gear post IS coming. I meant to take the photos at Thanksgiving but didn’t have the chance so now I have to schedule a trip to get them taken properly. It’s going to be a good one!

—

I have now probably finished the first half of my life, so I thought I would try to condense the most important lessons I’ve learned so far into a format that may be useful to you as you grow up. My fear is that you’ll make the same mistake that I sometimes made, which is that you will hear advice, believe it doesn’t apply to you, and then a decade or two later realize it actually did apply to you. Maybe ignoring advice like that is part of growing up, though.

The reason I believe that my advice will be useful to you is primarily because I arrived at most of these conclusions by myself through experimentation and trial and error, and have also been able to successfully translate that advice to other people through coaching. Also, anecdotally, I think I have the best life I could possibly imagine, largely because of the lessons I’ve learned. Your ideal life will look different from mine, but I think the underlying principles will hold true regardless.

My first piece of advice, which will undermine all of the following advice, is that you should listen to a large number of people and make your own decisions based on all of the information you learn. So even though I’ll be happiest if you just do everything I say to do, and I’m completely convinced that I’m correct, the truth is that no one is completely correct and you’ll benefit most by exposing yourself to the best ideas of many people and analyzing them yourself.

At your core, your goal should be to be the best version of yourself and to share that person with the world. Almost everyone, at some point or another, makes the mistake of trying to conform to a generic ideal of what a person should be. This isn’t just a difficult game, but it’s a game that’s impossible to win. No matter how hard you work towards reaching someone else’s goals for you, you will never reach your own. Discover what is important to you and work towards that.

Maybe the most direct piece of advice I’ll give in this letter is to never drink, use drugs, or smoke. This is also the piece of advice I’m most scared you’ll ignore, because most kids will experiment with it, and without the benefit of decades of life experience and seeing different paths people take, it’s very hard to understand why it’s bad. In school you’ll be given many reasons not to do these things, but they miss the most important reason not to, in my opinion.

You shouldn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, because these things give you results that you haven’t earned. In the short term this is great, but in the long run it makes you lazy and incomplete. For example, drinking can make you act more confidently. When you act more confidently, you will almost always get better results. But alcohol doesn’t actually make you confident. And, in fact, it can make you less confident because you never build the skill of confidence. Every effect of these drugs is to receive a feeling that you haven’t “earned”, and every time you do it you become less able to create that feeling naturally. When you are young you can’t tell the difference because someone who just starts drinking hasn’t missed out on a lifetime of learning actual social skills, confidence, etc., but over decades the effect compounds and people who casually use these substances often become unable to function normally without them.

The counterargument would be that some people use these things in moderation and receive some of the benefits with none of the downsides. This is true. My response would be that you are still better off not needing them and that it’s very risky to assume that you’ll just happen to nail that compromise. All of the substances I mentioned are fundamentally addictive and there’s just no point in taking that risk. You should take risks in your life, but they should always be risks with very high payoffs and manageable risks. Alcohol, smoking, and drugs are the opposite— they offer very limited upside with nearly unlimited downside.

On the subject of risks, you should take a lot of risks when you are young. In particular, if you’re inclined to start a business you should do so. If you put all of your money into a business and fail, it’s very easy to just start again. Try ten of them with enough diligence and you’ll have one be successful. You’ll also find a lot of peers in the same position, so it’s fun to learn and try things together. As you get older you have more to lose and less time to recover, so you’ll be more reluctant to put it all on the line. When I was in my twenties I assumed I’d have the same attitude in my forties, but I definitely don’t.

I’d like to convince you to invest money young and let it compound, but I’ve found it’s almost impossible to understand why this is important and how well it works until you’ve seen it work for other people. And even more difficult is to convince you that when you’re old enough to enjoy the money that it will still matter. When I was a teenager I remember being totally unable to fathom being forty, and not really caring very much about my forty-year-old self. But time flies and I’m incredibly grateful for the sacrifices I made when I was younger that have paid off in the meantime.

The argument, though, is this: any money you invest at 20, will be worth about 4.5x when you’re 40 and about 32x when you’re 65. It can feel like those ages don’t matter or that you’re so disconnected from them that there’s no point in considering them, but when you reach those ages and the sum of your decisions has shaped your life, you’ll either be very glad or regretful for the decisions you made.

You will find competing pressures to impress different people. You want to seem cool to your friends, attractive to girls, like a good son to your parents, etc. Sometimes these pressures compete with each other. Your friends may think it’s cool for you to sneak out, but your parents may be disappointed if they catch you. It’s best to seek to impress only yourself, mostly because you have to live with yourself 24/7 and it’s hard to fake things to yourself. In the meantime, you’ll probably find that by impressing yourself you end up impressing everyone else by accident, because it’s rare to find someone who seeks only their own validation. This is especially impressive to people who are busy trying to impress other people, which is almost everybody.

It’s hard to imagine what the world will be like when you read this advice. Technological change has been the defining factor of my generation, and with AI just now becoming mainstream, it seems that this change will only accelerate. In a world where technology dominates it’s good to be involved in it and to understand it, but outsized results will be had by focusing on universal skills that others have forgotten. Learn social skills, learn to be an interested and interesting person, learn to have empathy and kindness. Learn technology too, but you’ll find that both in your personal and professional life, these soft skills are rarer and therefore more valuable.

The people you are around will end up being one of the biggest factors in the quality of your life. This is less obvious when you’re young because you’re just around people all the time. As you get older you have to be a good friend for people to want to be around you. Being a good friend and having good friends are the biggest assets you can possibly have in your life. The easiest way to be a good friend is to be interested in your friends lives and to be there for your friends even when it isn’t convenient for you. If you say you are going to be somewhere or do something, follow up and do it. If a friend entrusts you with a secret, don’t share it. If a friend needs your help, offer it without expecting anything back.

I’m the kind of person who can rattle off advice all day, but I think if you just do these things you’re guaranteed to have a great life and to make the lives of those around you better. I’m excited to see the person you become!

###

Picture is me and my favorite little guy on his first island trip!

The gear post should come in December this year… I think it’s the best one in many years, with tons of new stuff most people have never heard of!

On the last day of the convention one of Michael’s friends picked us up to show us around the city. I had no real impression of Chicago prior to this. I had been a few times in the past, but only in the winter which didn’t lend itself towards exploring the city. The way he talked about Chicago was how I talk about Las Vegas. He loved his city and was excited to tell us about all of the hidden sides to it that we weren’t aware of.

He took us to Pequod’s pizza. I love pizza, but am generally not a huge deep dish fan. Pequod’s was amazing. I had never had deep dish that good before, and I literally thought about the pizza about five times a week for the next six months. 

After talking about this pizza for half a year, my wife and I finally found some time to go to the city together on a one day layover before another trip. We ubered to Pequod’s (it was good, but not quite as good as I remembered), walked around the city and went to an amazing pinball arcade.

Chicago is a strange city. It’s the third biggest city in the US and no one I know has ever mentioned it. Everyone talks about SF, LA, New York, Miami, Austin, etc… but none of my friends ever seem to go to Chicago. And yet… I think it’s a lot nicer than those cities. The river runs through downtown, with bridges every block or so. The skyline is incredible. The food is great. It’s in an interesting geographic location, not that far from the east or west coast, with great flights to Europe and Asia.

And… the real estate is absurdly cheap. If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s real estate that is underpriced. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually buy a place there, but either way my wife and I wanted to spend more time so we booked a week-long trip and contacted a real estate agent.

We had a great week in Chicago. The Art Institute is one of the best museums I’ve been to, and the only one that elicited an audible “oh my god”, by both me and my friend as we walked into the Monet room. Qiao Lin was the best hotpot I’ve ever had (and I spend a lot of time in China), and Au Cheval is perhaps tied for best burger. We saw the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia Festival, which is an amazing outdoor symphony hall. The architecture was, to me, more interesting than that of any other US city, especially when seen from the river on an architectural tour. I even met up with a reader (hi Noah!) at Living Water, a surprisingly good tea house that appears to be a boba place when you look it up online.

All of our condo showings were at the end of the week. The night before I started doing the math on it and realized that it doesn’t actually make sense to buy a place there. The taxes and HOA fees are so high that financially it makes a lot more sense to go visit several times a year and stay in a nice hotel. I didn’t want to cancel the showings, but I went into them thinking, “Too bad… I wish the numbers made more sense so that I could actually buy a place in good conscience.” My wife was campaigning for just staying in hotels and said if I wanted to buy an apartment I could do it by myself.

The first three units were okay. If I were actually moving to Chicago I’d be happy in any of them, but in each case I had to admit that staying at a hotel would probably be just as good, if not better. The fourth was better and I felt like maybe I could convince myself it would be better than a hotel, but I knew I was stretching.

The last was a wildcard. The images online made it look terrible, but the location was amazing and so was the price. As soon as we walked in, we saw something that you couldn’t see from the listing— the view. My wife, previously quite uninterested in buying, turned to me and said, “I think we should buy this one together”. I went out on the balcony and realized there was no way I could avoid buying the condo. It was just too good, and with the view it was much better than any hotel room we could get. 

As we returned the keys to the front desk I took a glance at the visitor log. Other units for sale in the building had maybe one visitor, but this one had five. We put in an offer immediately, and were told that there was a competing offer. In my estimation the unit was actually worth about 20-25% more than the list price, so I was worried that we were about to get into a bidding war. I don’t quite know how he pulled it off, but our realtor managed to get it for us for under asking. I looked up historic prices in the building and couldn’t find a single one of this size that went for this price.

The next day I went to do the inspection myself. At first glance many of the systems like the fridge and AC seemed to be broken, but it turned out that they actually all worked fine. I was totally prepared for a major renovation, but it turned out it only needed cosmetic fixes. It was being sold by a trustee of an estate, who I believe never had it inspected or even cleaned, so my theory is that the seller and any other buyer assumed it was much worse than it was.

We closed a few days ago and in a couple days I’ll go to the condo for the first time and start getting to work.

The best part of having properties all around the world is getting to know places in a much deeper way than I could if I just visited. I went to the island twice in the past month and was reflecting on what a unique privilege it is to get to know the community there. When we arrived our neighbors gave us a basket of homemade baked goods and vegetables from their garden. When we went to dinner the waitresses remembered my name and asked what projects we were doing this trip. The lady at the hardware store told me about her trip to Vegas because she knows I live there. 

I’m really looking forward to getting to know Chicago. It feels like a massively underrated city with a ton to offer, and its strengths and weaknesses complement Vegas perfectly. Vegas’ biggest weakness is the lack of fine arts, but Chicago has that in spades. It’s freezing in Chicago in the winter, but Vegas has great winter weather. Vegas has a brand new powerhouse hockey team, Chicago has one of the original six teams and is rebuilding with one of the hottest rookies in almost a decade. Vegas has a very small walkable downtown, Chicago goes on forever. It’s also a ~3.5 hour flight between the two cities, which is just under my threshold of long flights. If I look a month out, round trip flights are mostly under $100, with several days in the $39-50 range. 

I know I’ve said it before… but I think this must be my last real estate purchase. Between Hawaii, Vegas, Chicago, Budapest, Tokyo, and the island… I’m going to need longer years.

Any Chicago recommendations? Do you live in Chicago? I may do a meetup there at some point.

###

Photo is the skyline from the First Lady architectural tour. It’s rare that I’d say a tourist thing is a must-do, but that tour definitely is.

My next sentence was originally, “now is one of those times for business”, but the opportunity is actually much broader than that. Now is one of those times for… almost anything.

Right now you can multiply your individual effort by at least 10X in many different fields, and very few people actually realize this or are doing it. You can get ahead right now, but that window will close over the next year as everyone one else catches on (or hires/subcontracts people who have caught on).

A few months ago when cohesive good quality video generation first made it to my feeds (and I assume I was late to it since I don’t really care about video generation), I called a friend in a panic. In high school he made a pretty awesome documentary about us camping out for Star Wars, he went to USC to study film, got an internship at a major TV show, etc. Then… nothing, even though he always wanted to make movies.

Hey, I said, you can make your own movie now! He’s technical, so he could easily figure out how to make an entire movie, or at least a short. Invest a little bit of money and a lot of time, and he could have made the first AI movie! The bar for making a movie now is ostensibly pretty high… but the bar for making an AI movie is probably pretty low. I’d make a movie, release it everywhere online for free, hype up the fact that it’s the first fully AI movie… and now you are a famous filmmaker. What doors does that open?

Almost exactly one month ago I tried Claude Code for the first time. It’s software that can interact with your computer and your codebase to complete tasks for you all on its own. I typed in something like, “Make a visualization of a cruise ship’s path over the year”. I figured it would ask me some questions and then make a table that showed what port the ship was in each day. Instead it found the credentials to my database, went in and looked at my data, and built a site where you could choose one of the ships and it displayed its path on a map with a color-coded trail and detailed information below. My jaw literally dropped and I just kept saying, “Oh my god…”. Even being technically savvy and already using AI for some coding, I had no idea it was this good.

Since then I have made the same amount of progress that a dedicated Tynan would have made in 1-2 years, and probably more progress than I’ve actually made in the past 8 years. 

One month ago, CruiseSheet was still running on bootstrap and jquery. I had been wanting to move to tailwind and native javascript, but it was a daunting task. If you don’t understand what that means, the gist is recoding every single part of the site that the user sees. The few times I started ended up being so frustrating that I tabled the project. With Claude I completed it in a week and also redesigned almost every single page in the process. Oh, and while I was at it I optimized every aspect of the site for both SEO and speed. 

Not only would that one job take me months… I just didn’t want to do it. It’s a slog, won’t immediately improve the business, and frankly I don’t have to do it so I didn’t. That’s one of the magic parts of AI— it does the parts that you really don’t want to do, so work feels like only doing the parts that you enjoy. I’ve worked 12-16 hours most days over the past month but my memory of that is mostly watching YouTube videos, browsing the web, hanging out with my friend on a cruise, and checking in on Claude every 5-10 minutes. I’ve also spent hours just thinking about what I want to build, rather than worrying about how difficult it would be.

Work is also much more satisfying because every single day CruiseSheet can really become whatever I want it to be. I’ve always wanted to have a port guide that I would actually use… three days later I had one. I wanted to make a cool visualizer to see where all of the cruise ships were at any given time. Done. I can’t even remember all of the things I’ve done in the past month because I’m moving so fast. Maybe more than anything— I’m proud of the site again. I’ve always been proud of making a site that shows the best deals, but the look and feel and performance of the site had become dated and atrophied over the years. Not any more!

I’m not too focused on competition or even on making money, but… has any other cruise site made this much progress in the past month? I doubt it. And I’m going to keep working on it every day because there’s really nothing I’d rather do. By the time other companies figure out that they could be doing this too… I think I will have lapped them. As I write this post Claude is working on generating deck plans for every single deck on every single cruise ship. 

I use coding as an example because it’s what I’m doing, but there are opportunities in really every field. You can generate images, video, text, and automations using n8n. You can have ChatGPT or Claude come up with strategies to use those tools. You could literally go from having an idea to making your first sale in a day.

My guess is that people reading this will fall mostly into two groups: people who are already doing it who will think, “Yeah, obviously… I’ve already been doing this for months” and people who aren’t doing it who will think, “Yeah, but its probably not actually that good”. I was in the latter camp a month ago. If you’re there, you should at least spend a day and see what’s out there. It’s wild.

Not only are these tools powerful, but they’re actually usable by normal people now. Up until a month ago every line of CruiseSheet was hand coded by me. In the past month I have maybe coded 50 lines total out of thousands of lines that have been made. Some technical understanding has been helpful, but you really don’t even need to know the code anymore. There are other tools like Lovable and Replit that require zero knowledge.

There are very few moments in a lifetime with opportunity this extraordinary. The last one was Bitcoin/crypto (which I also happened to write about very early https://tynan.com/bitcoin/), and the one before that was probably the internet boom, which also changed my life. Even if you don’t think AI can help you… you should look into it because I bet you have no idea what it’s capable of.

###

Photo is Shoshone falls in Idaho. My wife and I did a road trip from Vegas to Seattle a couple weeks ago. First time in an RV since I sold mine!

I made a bunch of blog-like posts on my X account with the idea that I might post blog posts there instead of on the blog. My first post got a ton of traction and I was encouraged… subsequent ones got less. We’ll see. Follow me there just in case.

If you’re new to my annual gear post, I travel indefinitely (often 30+ days at a time) with a small backpack, and I maintain a list of everything I travel with every year. I’ve been doing it since about 2008, and people on onebag have said that I was the first one to make this format.

A lot of my items are tea related, which is a specific hobby I have. However, almost everything else (maybe not the shoes…) is something I think you’re crazy not to have if you’re a frequent lightweight traveler. Many of these items have been refined and tested for 5-15 years and represent a lot of experience and consideration.

A quick word about how I choose my items. My criteria are generally the best possible item that is as light and compact as possible, with little regard for price. I carry so few things and each one is important enough to me that I find it’s easy to get the value from them. When I look at other peoples’ gear posts, I’m often surprised at how many slots are filled with items that have obvious superior alternatives. If you find one of those in mine, please let me know! Every year or two someone finds something that is a real improvement

I do get affiliate commissions from some of the products here, but it does not affect my recommendations. If you look year over year you’ll see that I often replace commission items with non commission items. Sometimes companies give me things for free, but that also doesn’t affect my evaluation. I think integrity is important and my reputation is far more valuable to me than free products.

Wool and Prince Merino Henley Perfect

This is my third year using the Henley instead of a more traditional button-down. I like both, but the Henley is so soft and comfortable that it makes a big difference when trying to sleep on planes or curl up and read a book. It also has a lot more stretch, so it’s better for active things. It also seems to be totally indestructible. I’ve never replaced it and it looks exactly as it did new.

Buy at Wool and Prince

Wool and Prince V-Neck T-Shirt

New year, back to gray! This might be the longest running item on the gear list, though I’m not sure. Maybe I should start tracking how many years everything makes it and it would be like a competition. As always, I love this shirt but wish it had a pocket for folded up boarding passes.

If you’re new to the gear post, this is probably a good time to say that the only reason I’m able to keep my packing so light is because I wear wool. I routinely wear this shirt 7-14 days in a row without washing it, and it stays fresh. Wool and Prince is my favorite wool company, but there are other good ones out there, too.

This is literally the only shirt I wear all year, even when I’m at home, unless I have to go to a wedding. I generally switch colors every year, which shocks the people in my life because they’re so used to seeing me in one color.

When I became the godfather to my friend Noah‘s daughter, he got a Wool and Prince V-Neck embroidered with “El Padrino” for me.

The v-neck is now less deep than previous years. I wish it was the old depth, but overall it’s about the same.

Buy at Wool and Prince

Wool and Prince Stretch Canvas Pants

These pants made it another year! They look like black jeans, have a really good amount of stretch, and are comfortable and durable… except the pockets!

I got a beta pair with redesigned pockets, and a few months later they started to break too. I’ve been going back and forth with Wool & Prince and they are going to replace the material next year. I have a large phone with much pointier corners than average, and those corners start wearing out the pocket material. That said, Wool & Prince has never had another complaint about them. Do I use pockets wrong?

These are 55% merino wool, which is higher than most wool pant blends. You need some material besides wool to keep it durable, but despite these being a higher amount they have been extremely durable. I’ve put them through their paces, worn them every non-warm day, and they’re in perfect shape.

These pants were gone last year, but apparently they were just out of stock. Phew!

Buy at Wool and Prince

Faherty All Day Shorts 9″ New

A year or two ago a reader (email me for credit if this was you) suggested Faherty shorts, and I was lucky enough to remember the name as I was looking for a new pair. And… WOW are these shorts great!

What makes shorts like these special is that they look good enough to wear every day as shorts, but they dry quickly and have a draw string. The draw string doesn’t serve a huge function if the shorts are the right size, but by tying it together and popping it over the waistband I feel like the shorts look like a bathing suit enough that you don’t look out of place swimming in them. All of the pockets have a mesh portion to drain.

The material is even better than rip curl, they look much less casual, and they seem to dry just as fast (I swam in a cold swimming pool in late November just to give them a full test).

I removed the “perfect” on these because the fabric started pilling after a couple years of moderate use. I still wear them, but it’s annoying that they don’t stay in better shape.

Buy at Faherty

Wool and Prince Boxer Briefs

The Icebreaker merino briefs are finally gone! I decided to try Wool and Prince again last year, and have made the switch back to them. I found that the Icebreaker ones would last a year (~180 wears), but no longer. A year later the Wool and Prince ones retain their stretch better and look brand new.

My one complaint is that the waistband wrinkles/folds over, unlike Icebreaker. Wool & Prince is trying to figure it out and thinks it may be due to laundry habits. I have a brand new pair that I’m being careful with and will figure out what causes the waistband to have issues.

I switched to trunks because every once in a rare while there’s some reason I need to be wearing my underwear in mixed company. This year I found myself jumping into the ocean in Greenland to swim to an iceberg in front of some bewildered cruise passengers.

Buy at Wool and Prince

Montbell Plasma 1000 Jacket (Japanese Version) Perfect

Earlier I said that my t-shirt might be the longest running gear item in the list, but this has been around for longer if you don’t count upgrading from the 800 fill count to 1000 fill count years ago when they started making it.

This is simply the lightest and most compact jacket that will actually keep you warm in any normal situation. Don’t be fooled by all of the marketing hype for synthetic down— they just don’t work as well. Neither does lower fill power down. Having a small jacket is such a key piece of being able to travel with a tiny bag, and this is the only one that I consider to be good enough.

This jacket has lasted for many years now, is nice and warm, and looks decent. If you buy it in Japan it will have pockets, but if you buy it in the US it won’t.

Adam Ruggle let me know that you can order it from the Japanese webshop (linked below) and it’s even cheaper than buying the US one at current rates.

Buy at Montbell or in Japan

Rab Cinder Phantom

I loved the idea of the windbreaker as a shell until I found myself running through a storm in Riga, soaking wet, desperately trying to find a working ATM so that I could get cash to get to the airport.

What I’ve learned about waterproof shells is that the lightest ones are made for bikers. This makes for a slightly shorter cut (in the photo it’s folded over, not super short), but they look normal enough for regular use. After a ridiculous amount of research I ended up on the Rab Cinder Phantom.

This is the second year I’ve had this, and I’m surprised every time it actually keeps me dry. It’s as light as tissue-paper, but has never worn or ripped despite a lot of use.

Don’t be tempted to get pullovers. You can save a tiny bit of weight but they are really annoying and have fewer options for temperature regulation.

Besides keeping you dry, a shell is critical for the coldest weather, as it traps the heat when worn on top of the Mont Bell plasma. Between the two you have a range of warmth ranging from unzipped plasma in the spring and fall to zipped plasma with shell for winter and snow.

The Rab Cinder is 3.5oz, which is a full 25% lighter than the last one, and it is definitely waterproof. The only thing I don’t like about it is the stuff sack is tricky to use and the hood doesn’t follow your head very well when you turn it.

Buy at Rab

FarPointe Alpha Wool Beanie New

I bought this because last year readers tried to convince me that Polartec Alpha is better than down. I did the research and it’s nowhere close, but I thought it might work as a hat. And… we’ll see how long this hat lasts in the gear post.

I keep it in my bag now because it truly weighs almost nothing (21g) and underneath my rain shell hood it provides a reasonable amount of warmth. I’m not convinced that the warmth/weight ratio is actually better than just getting a thin wool hat, but I do find myself putting it on all the time when it’s cold.

Buy at Farpointe

Relwen Flyweight Flex Blazer New

A European airline offered me an upgrade… and then took it away when they saw my t-shirt and shoes. I asked what exactly I needed to wear to get an upgrade, ran back through customs and security, bought the cheapest blazer and shoes that I could find, and then got on the flight.

And then something funny happened. I landed in Chicago and a Nigerian family struck up a conversation with me on the tram. No one ever randomly talks to me. I checked into my hotel and asked if I could borrow a phone charger (mine was broken), and then check-in guy said, “You know what… I trust you. I’ll just give you mine.”

I had a wedding coming up in Japan and I thought, “maybe I’ll buy the lightest blazer in the world”. Sure enough, people do treat me better when I wear the blazer, and it looks good enough that the bride didn’t complain about me officiating in it.

I like that it’s lightweight, looks good rumpled, and if the buttons are all buttoned it looks like a hunting jacket, not a blazer. It’s just bulky enough that I can carry it in my fully-loaded bag, but it makes things pretty cramped. My guess is that it will end up only coming with me when it’s either cold enough that I can just wear it all the time, or when I need to have a blazer.

Buy from Huckberry

Merrel Hydro Moc Next New

These shoes are similar to those I wore in prior years, but they have a real sole made of harder rubber. I tried them on a lark because when the other soles wear out they become very slippery. Unfortunately they’re already discontinued, so I guess other people don’t think they’re as great as I do.

I love these shoes and was tempted to label them as perfect, but I’m not sure that label can be applied to shoes that look like this. Then again… I did wear them to a wedding this year and wasn’t kicked out.

The point of wearing shoes like this is that you don’t need to wear/pack/wash socks, which is a hard requirement for me. Most shoes like this (e.g. Crocs) don’t quite have enough ventilation to never smell bad. These do. Unlike normal shoes, they can also be used as water shoes and they dry quickly and easily.

Buy at Amazon

Roav Eyewear Lennox Sunglasses with Transition Lenses New

These are the smallest folding sunglasses you can get. They look really good, weigh almost nothing, and have survived years of use without issues.

The only thing I don’t like about them is that the nose pads flop around too much.

I’ve always hated the case that these came with, since it seemed too big for the small amount of protection it provided. ROAV also sells a fake leather pouch that looked similar. Ever since I got them I wanted to make a custom pouch.

A couple years ago in Madrid some friends organized a leather making workshop where we all got to make our own projects, so I made this little case.

This year I switched from carrying glasses and sunglasses separately to carrying just one with transition lenses. It’s a compromise, but one I’m happy to make given how infrequently I wear sunglasses. If I was more of a sunglasses guy, I’d probably carry both.

I chose Transitions XTRActive lenses because they will darken even in a car and they seemed to be the darkest. I’d say in reality they’re just barely dark enough to make a difference. As normal glasses they work perfectly, so having sunglasses in a pinch is a bonus.

Buy at ROAV + Lenses at Lensabl

Seiko Astron GPS Watch Perfect New

Wow, the Breitling mechanical watch is gone after eight years of horological dominance! I wrote an entire article about this watch, but here’s the gist of why I switched:

I used to be enamored with traditional watchmaking (and still am, to an extent), but this watch really shattered some illusions. I believe this is the watch great watchmakers would make today, given that back in the 1800s they were using all current technology.

This watch syncs the time every day via GPS so that it’s always correct, can find your timezone and set the time anywhere in the world, remains charged via solar (and can survive two years in the dark), and looks and feels like a normal analog watch. It’s even titanium, so it’s very light.

I’d consider getting the newest model that has a stopwatch now, but I prefer how mine looks and don’t need a stopwatch badly enough to switch.

I linked to Chrono24 below which has ALL GPS Astron watches. My specific one is an SBXC117.

Buy on Chrono24

Minaal Daily Backpack

I’ve been back on the Minaal back for a couple years now, and the pros and cons still remain. The quality is a step better than you can find anywhere else, it’s light, and it looks great and unimposing. On the downside, it has truly terrible organization and despite everyone telling me the same thing and being close friends with the founders, I can’t get them to change it.

Buy at Minaal

Sea to Summit Ultra-sil Packable Daypack New

I had something like this years ago, stopped carrying it, and then went on enough cruises in a row that I really wished I had something I could easily take to the beach or on a hike. The bag is so small and light that it’s really a no-brainer if you ever use it at all. It’s perfect for a towel and for hiding your wallet, or for stuffing jackets into as you hike. Stuffing it back into the sac is very annoying, but given that I use it a dozen times a year or so, I like how compact it is.

Kem Vintage WWII Playing Cards New Perfect

These were made during WWII for US soldiers. You can’t tell very well from the picture, but the cards are tiny, maybe 1/3 the size of normal cards. I used to carry these around everywhere when I was practicing memorization, but then I stopped.

Now my wife, friends, and I are obsessed with this three-player Chinese card game called “fight the landlord”, so we carry these around to play.

Finding these cards is impossible now. I have a couple decks, but only one that has the jokers (necessary for our game). A reader once offered me a few decks he had collected, but I didn’t take him up on it. Huge regret!

Can’t buy anywhere…

Philips One Toothbrush

I like having an electric toothbrush, and this one is good enough. I wish it was more powerful, but this one is a big enough improvement over a non-electric that I’m happy with the compromise. Get the rechargeable one. I got the one that uses batteries but it’s very hard to replace them, so it sort of defeats the purpose.

My toiletry bag is from Swiss Air business class. A pro tip— search ebay for business class amenity kits. A lot of them are stupid, but in general they are the only toiletry bags that are small. I bought five of these on ebay and gave a couple to family members.

Buy at Amazon

Scissors and Nail Clippers Perfect

The nail clippers are my trusty Henckels Ultra-Slim Nail Clippers. This is the same pair I’ve had for six years and they’re still just as sharp and effective as ever.

The scissors are Tweezerman GEAR Scissors. I think that I actually bought some fancier Dovo Solingen ones when I thought I lost these, but to be honest I can’t tell the difference from a practical standpoint, so it’s better to just buy these.

Make sure you get the rounded tips. Most places don’t care, but I went through security three times in Australia recently and they were militant about checking to make sure the tips were rounded.

Keith Titanium Travel Tea Set Perfect

I know the portion of people reading a gear post who actually want tea gear is vanishingly small, but this is maybe my favorite item on the entire list. It’s an absolutely perfect tea set, made of titanium, and the next best alternative is SO much worse that I have a spare set just to make sure I never have to go without. I also bought an extra cup so that I can serve three guests instead of only two.

I modified the set by anodizing the titanium and cutting off the handle of the fairness pitcher. The titanium imparts no flavor and is virtually indestructible. If you love tea and you travel, you should have this.

The cups and gaiwan are double walled so they are never hot to the touch, and the shape and edges are ideal.

Even though I marked it as perfect, I wish there was some way for the interior of the cups and gaiwan to be white to better sea the color of the tea. I think it’s just not possible with titanium, though.

Buy at AliExpress

Kanpai Titanium 350 Thermos and 3D Printed Tea Containers Perfect

This is the lightest double wall water bottle you can get. I love the extra-wide mouth and the no-taper design that makes it easy to clean and to store things inside. It comes with three tops but I just use the hot water one. It’s absolutely perfect for keeping boiled water in. I replaced the noisy rubber seal with an o-ring, and it works perfectly.

As soon as I got my 3D printer I designed and printed a set of stacking tea containers designed to take up about 95% of the interior volume. I can now hold 50% more tea than I could before. They were hard for me to make, especially because they were the first time I tried to make screw threads, which took a lot of trial and error.

The tea containers hold NFC tags and made a script using Tasker so that I can use to electronically label the teas. You can download the files and print your own here.

Buy at Amazon

300W Immersion Water Heater

In case it’s not obvious, I put this in the Kanpai Thermos and use it to boil water. Often I’ll put the top on and wait until I’m in the air before I make my tea. You can also ask for hot water on the airplane, but it’s sometimes not very good because of mineral buildup.

The model with the switch is no longer available, but I might go without it anyway. I once had someone turn on the switch when it wasn’t in water and we almost burnt an airbnb down. Now I unplug it every time anyway.

It’s very important to get a model that can run on 120v or 240v. I suspect that all of them can and that some manufacturers just don’t bother to label it, but I don’t take the risk. In Europe (or on cruises) you can use 240v to boil 4x faster. 300W is a good compromise between size and speed of boiling.

Buy at Amazon

Carbon Fiber Money Clip Perfect

I still have my rather expensive Koolstof carbon fiber money clip, but there are cheaper options on Amazon now that seem to be identical, so I’m linking one of those instead. I can’t imagine why someone would use any wallet other than this. It’s super compact and light, doesn’t set off the metal detector, and is very easy to use. Mine has retained its springiness for over a decade now.

Buy at Amazon

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 NEW

Folding phones are just so good that I feel bad for all non folders out there. You have to get over the “but it’s thicker” factor, and have to fight against the Apple blue-bubble brainwashing, but once you do you’ll never go back.

I thought that I wanted the bigger screen for watching movies on the plane, and while it is noticeably better than a regular phone for that, it’s not the main draw. My favorite thing to use the big screen for is reading (it’s bigger than a Kindle’s screen) and web browsing. I barely prefer a kindle over it, and read way more while traveling now.

I used to hate browsing the web on my phone, but now I do it all the time because the size and shape feels like a normal screen. If I need to copy information from one app to another I just open them side by side and it’s like having two phones.

Everyone predicts that they will hate the crease in the middle of the phone, but you really don’t notice it. The inner display has no notch or even a punch-out (or, *cough*, a dynamic island), but instead has a mini screen that covers the camera when it’s not in use. If you look directly at it you can tell that it’s not like the rest of the screen, but when you’re watching a movie or something you forget it’s there.

When the phone is closed it is narrower than a normal phone but thicker. While I would obviously prefer a thinner phone, it’s a very manageable size and fits easily in tight jean pockets.

I’ve had every Fold from the 3 to the 6, and I tend to upgrade every year because they make it very inexpensive to do so and I’m happy for a brand new screen and battery. That said, there’s not much improvement in the 6 vs the 4, except that it’s a little bit smaller.

I didn’t switch to the Pixel Fold because Samsung DEX is a seriously underrated feature. It’s hard to explain, but it essentially runs a virtual computer and sends it to a screen. It’s not just mirroring your phone— you can use both independently at the same time. I mostly use it to play shows on TVs.

The only reason I didn’t label this as perfect is because I wish it had a 5-10X zoom. It’s close, though.

I use T-Mobile service with the Global Plus add-on, which gives me free LTE/5G everywhere. I happened to add it on during the <7 days where it offered unlimited LTE rather than a 15GB cap. Project Fi can be a bit cheaper, but T-Mobile includes free voice calls to and from every country with Global Plus, and I’ll definitely get a lot of use out of that.

Buy at Amazon

Lenovo X1 Carbon 11th Generation Perfect

The main story here is that the X1 Carbon is a perfect laptop. It has the best keyboard of any compact laptop, has a touchpoint (and a trackpad, but once you adjust to the touchpoint it’s SO much better), and has a great screen and other specs.

The X1 is very high performance, has a trackpoint, an excellent screen, the best keyboard, and plenty of other benefits.

Despite having a bigger screen, the X1 is 15% lighter than a Macbook Air. It can also have twice the RAM and a better OLED screen. I think if more Macbook people saw how good this machine is, they would switch.

The screen I chose was the 2800×1800 OLED that can run at 90hz. I’ve never had a laptop that can run at 90hz before, and it really makes for a buttery-smooth experience. I don’t miss 4k at all.

I run Arch Linux on my machine and all of the hardware works perfectly out of the gate. I stopped getting a laptop with a built in modem because It never worked perfectly with Linux and it’s easy enough to hotspot these days.

The port selection on the computer is perfect (2 USB A, 2 USB C, HDMI).

If I were buying today, I’d certainly buy the newest one (13th generation). It’s the first one in many years that is smaller and lighter (now under 1kg!)

Buy at Lenovo

Mogics Adapter MA1 Perfect

A couple years ago a reader recommended this travel adapter to me and it’s incredible.

It’s just a tiny cylinder that can convert any plug to a US plug. Unlike previous iterations, I don’t think that this could get any smaller.

It is slightly difficult to get. The only reasonable way is to buy a combo pack with a weird travel power strip on Amazon. It’s worth doing just for the adapter.

Buy at Amazon

Anker 30W Charger New

The new charger I got last year was amazing… until it just randomly stopped working. I bought another one, same problem. Then they came out with a newer model, which I assumed must have been to correct this issue… and it broke too.

The problem seems to be that when used on 240v it sometimes just stops working for a while (but then may later start working). I’m not sure if it’s overheating or shoddily made, but I need for my power source to be reliable.

Now I carry around two of these. I find 30w to be plenty for laptop and phone, and the second one just rattles around in the bottom of the backpack in case I lose the main one. I’m generally not big into redundancy, but I had just one too many issues this year.

I ordered a bunch of USB C cables and the best one by far was the Anker Powerline II. The newer III is worse. The II was the least bulky and easiest to coil. I would love recommendations on thin and easy to coil 2M cables. I have bought so many of them and don’t think any are great.

Buy on Amazon

1964 Ears Custom IEMs With AliExpress cable

Last year I tried to switch to something that’s easier for people to buy (Samsung Bud Pros), but these are just so comfortable that I keep going back to them. Because they are custom molded to my ears they don’t push on my ears at all, so I can wear them for a whole flight and barely notice that they’re there.

The audio quality is predictably excellent and better than I really need. The custom fit blocks a lot of noise.

They were originally wired, but you can buy all sorts of replacement cables on AliExpress that convert them to bluetooth. I like this style, which allows me to drape them over my neck so that they hang there when I have them out.

Buy at 64 Audio (Realistically mine are a totally different model that they don’t make anymore, so you may have to do your own research)

Incharge 6 Keychain XL Cable New

For those who aren’t familiar, this can connect any combination of USB A, USB C, micro USB, and lightning (or USB-C to USB-C). I use it for transferring files and for charging my phone while my laptop is plugged in.

I got a bigger one this year because the small one is just annoying enough to use that I find myself avoiding it. The only thing I don’t like is that the microUSB is shared with lightning, and it’s a little bit finicky. It always works in the end, but I’d rather get rid of lightning and just have a normal microusb.

Buy on Amazon

Summary

The only thing I got rid of this year was the Rokid Max. I loved it, but it felt like my vision was getting worse from wearing it. I actually assume this is not true and it’s just that dry air on planes + eye strain + being tired compound to give that effect, but it’s enough that I stopped wearing them.

The point of optimizing gear isn’t to nerd out about all of the items, but to enable me to have a small and light backpack that never gets in the way of doing the important stuff— traveling and having experiences with people who are important to me. It’s never a burden to carry, even if I have to hike up a mountain with it, and I’m prepared for anything.

As always, I’d love to hear if you have any suggestions. One thing that I strongly suspect exists is a good USB C-C cable. My favorite is the Apple 1m cable because it is very thin and easy to coil, but the 2m isn’t as good.

###

Keep an eye on my YouTube. I’m in China now, but will try to do a Tea Time with Tynan soon! I can’t believe the last time I did one was a year ago.

I store my tea in identical metal tins. Years ago I went down a rabbit hole of designing custom labels for each one, which I would apply to a flexible magnet. A bought two label makers, calculated the perfect size, and made a template. The result was great, but making the labels was just one or two steps too annoying for me. I couldn’t type in the information directly on the label maker, so I had to find it, plug it into my computer, load up the template, change the data, and print.

Then I had to precisely lay the label on top of the magnet. I always felt bad about wasting old magnets, so usually I would peel the old label off and reuse it.

But because this process was a bit cumbersome, half of my tea just stayed in bags. This was especially true if I had some tea that I knew I probably wouldn’t restock, and even more so if it was a small amount. So the little counter in my tea room was always littered with bags of tea.

Then one day I thought— this is exactly what e-ink is for. There must be some way to make e-ink labels. Around the same time I was partitioning half of the space I used for tea for a pinball arcade. What if I put in a bookcase that held all of my tea, had e-ink labels, and was also the secret door into the pinball arcade?

The door itself was much easier than I expected. I bought an IKEA bookcase, some lift-off hinges, some casters to support the weight, and it basically worked the first try thanks to very careful measuring. I trimmed out the bookcase and it looked like it was just part of the wall.

Now for the hard part.

After a lot of frustrating conversations with commercial eink vendors, I found a project called Openepaperlink which repurposes old e-ink price tags from stores. I bought a hub and just enough tags to make the project work, and brought them on a month-long cruise with me. By the time the cruise was over I had designed nice labels, made software to manage them, and had the hub sending them to the labels. I also designed some 3D printed mounts to put the labels in front of each tea tin on the shelf.

Project done, right? It could have been, but I realized that if I ever accidentally swapped two tins, or took two down and brought them to the tea table, I would have no idea which is which and wouldn’t know where to put them back. I needed to have a way to have the labels follow the tea tins. I tried to think of some clever way to do it without putting a sensor in every single space, but couldn’t come up with anything that made sense.

So I bought some pn532 NFC sensors, and designed a little “mount” for each tea tin to slot into. Metal interferes with NFC, but luckily I had some “on metal” NFC tags from a previous project, and after 4 or five revisions to get the tags the exact right distance from the sensor they worked.

My shelf could comfortably hold three rows of eight tags, so I did a small run of 4 to test and they worked perfectly. I didn’t have any software written yet, but if I hooked an ESP32 up to the NFC sensors (and a multiplexer), I could read each tag reliably. I ordered more tags to make more tins, since I only had a few from my previous project.

And… none of the new tags worked consistently. They would sometimes read, but not usually. I ordered 5 other similar ones from different companies and they didn’t work either. I found my 5+ year old order and reached out to the company where I bought the original tags and they told me they sold “very similar ones”. I bought them and they also didn’t work. When I peeled off the backing and held the tags up to the light I could see that none had the exact same antenna layout as the original ones.

After an infuriating stretch of weeks trying to fix this, I finally came across a solution. I could 3D print an insert that fits into the recess under each tea tin and put the tag on it. That gave me just enough separation from the metal that some of the new ones worked. I probably printed 10 different thicknesses as well as 5+ new mounts for the tins to get the positioning to where it would work every time.

I printed out another four mounts and completed my first row of automatic tea tin scanning. It worked most of the time. If I left it running overnight it often wouldn’t scan properly the next day, but rebooting it would work. I switched to a raspberry pi zero and then to a full sized raspberry pi, and I that finally fixed it. I made new fronts out of black plastic for the e-ink labels (so that they didn’t look like price tags), made mounts for different angles depending on the height of the shelf, and assembled the whole thing.

Three rows of fully automated tea labels! It seemed like it would crash more with the three rows, but generally if I just set the raspberry pi up to reboot every morning, there wasn’t a problem. I was pretty happy with myself and loved moving tins around to watch the labels change automatically.

Where I sit when I pour tea for people, I face the tea shelf. And one day while we were having tea I looked at my labels and thought, “All of these little e-ink labels run on batteries. They last for years, but at some point I’m going to have to replace them all. The batteries are also most of the thickness. I have power running to the NFC reader behind each tag, why don’t I just power them directly and make a super thin new mount for the label so that it actually looks like paper?”

I had no idea the pain I was signing myself up for. Each NFC reader has four small wires running to it. That’s eight soldering points (not counting the interconnects behind the shelf). I was adding another four to add the two power wires, bringing my total up to 288 soldering points. I actually like soldering, but it’s very awkward doing it inside of a shelf or with wires dangling from behind a bookcase. At one point I unsoldered everything behind the bookcase and crimped on connectors so that I could move sensors around to test whether it was the board or sensor that wasn’t working.

I did my first one as a test and it worked great. I did another few and it worked as well. I finished up the whole row and… nothing worked anymore.

One of the problems I had run into months prior was that one poor soldering joint on a multiplexer seemed to throw off the whole row. I assumed this was the problem again, so I resoldered the whole thing. It still didn’t work.

Then I thought that maybe it was a power issue, so I got a separate power supply for the NFC reader / eink tags instead of running it from the raspberry pi. That worked! I took down the other rows of the old style and put in the new style and… it didn’t work again. Oddly the multiplexers seemed to sometimes randomly disappear or show up empty.

The NFC reader and multiplexers can run off 3.3v or 5v, so I decided to try 5v instead. You might be thinking, “do the eink tags run off 5v?”, which is not at all what I was thinking. It sort of worked, I left it on, and by the next morning I noticed that several of the eink panels were fried.

The guy who sold the panels didn’t have any more, so I started using a heat gun to salvage panels from units with bad boards and putting them on fried ones. This was a very annoying process and got me 1-2 more working panels, but still not enough to finish the project.

I considered a different brand of panels (which would mean I’d have to redesign all of my mounts), but my will to live, let alone continue this project was waning. I finally found someone on discord who, in a very hush-hush way, offered to sell me all the panels I need. I bought way more than I needed.

I got the new panels, installed them, and… I was back where I was before I fried the panels. Then I thought, “I have no idea how much power these are even pulling. Let me put an ammeter on them and check”. I did the math and my power supply was definitely enough. At this point I was really about ready to give up and switch to coffee.

Then on a lark I thought that maybe the wires I was running power with weren’t thick enough to power all 24 tags initializing at once. And sure enough… they weren’t. I ran thicker power lines to each shelf and it immediately solved all of my problems in life. Now the tags can be on for months without every crashing.

I honestly couldn’t believe that I had gotten it working. There were several other home projects I wanted to start, but I wasn’t letting myself start another one until I finished this one. I was free again! I looked through my photos to see how long I had been working on the project and the first photo I had taken of a test rig on my desk was almost exactly a year prior.

In reflection I realize that for some reason my favorite things to do are things where I don’t actually enjoy a single step of the process very much. I don’t really like soldering hundreds of points inside shelves, I hate debugging things when I have almost no insight into what’s going on, waiting hours print new batches of mounts / sensors isn’t very fun, etc. And yet… I’d do the whole thing again. The island is sort of the same… I absolutely love when we’re just sitting around drinking tea or walking through the woods, but I don’t actually enjoy most steps of construction/building. And yet… every day as we’re drinking tea I can’t wait to get to work.

Maybe it’s just that I love the results in the end. It’s hard to resist moving a couple tea tins as I walk past to play pinball, just to see that it still works.

There’s also something very satisfying about knowing that I certainly have the absolute best tea labeling system in the entire world. And that’s not because I’m a genius, it’s because I’m willing to dedicate extraordinary amounts of time and effort into very small things that I care about. The only real way this could exist is by me building it. And as a result I’ve gotten better at a lot of things and learned a lot.

###

Top photo is the tea shelf in the context of the tea room.

In case it’s not clear… I worked on this over a year but in spurts. It wasn’t actually a year of work, obviously.

You can see in the final one that some of the e-ink labels don’t have the best contrast/red color anymore. That’s because some of the “fried” ones still worked. I replaced the worst of them. I may solder in new ones at some point but for now… I need a break.

Anyway, life is amazing. On most days I think, at least once, “I can’t believe how good my life is”. I really can’t believe it. I didn’t write my gratitude post this year because I feel like I’m just a broken record and it’s a bit awkward going on and on about how good my life is. I’m so grateful for the people, places, and things in my life, and grateful to be healthy enough to enjoy it all to its fullest.

I feel a little bit bad about not blogging more. I imagine the impression is that I don’t care anymore, but actually just about every day I feel a little bit of guilt that I haven’t written recently. I also think a lot about why I don’t write more, and sometimes I think about writing a blog post about that, but what’s more disappointing than a post about why I don’t post?

I’ll just write a bit about it here instead. I’ve been blogging for twenty years. When I started, it was novel and unusual to put oneself on the internet. That was part of the appeal, I think. I also like that I had a lot of ideas that were controversial or at least very unconventional, and I was confident enough that they would work that I wanted people to be able to follow and see. I think there’s something a lot more appealing about “hey, I’m figuring this stuff out, come along!” versus “look how great my life is!”.

Anyway, maybe there will be some other phase of my life where I’ll write more. For now, here are some highlights of my year:

Trips with my wife

Most of my trips end up not being with my wife, but her schedule was much more flexible this year, so we got to do more together. We went to Yellowstone, which really exceeded all expectations except that there’s no good food anywhere in the park. My wife wanted to see “one baby buffalo, a herd of 30, or 40 individuals”. We went on a quest and saw hundreds. Mostly it was just really great quality time. We also did a great trip through Yunnan in China and a Hawaii trip. Her first trip to Hawaii was 24/7 rain and she almost died scuba diving on the second, so it was good to have a third that really turned around her impression of the place.

Island progress

Our first trip to the island this year was absolutely brutal work that left me in pretty serious pain, but boy was it satisfying. And then our second trip was like a victory lap where we got to finish up the details and reap all of the rewards. I really enjoyed working with my friend Brian on a tough project, and having my friends Ben, Mai, and Todd come on the second trip and get involved too. We also got internet on the island thanks to our incredible neighbors, so now I’m counting down the days until I can go back and build on our progress.

Finishing projects

I finished some big projects! The sauna and steam room are basically done (still finishing up the ceiling in the changing area) and the tea label system is totally done (and I need to write a blog post about it). Both of those projects dragged on way too long, so it felt good to wrap them up. I also did some other cool projects like rebuilding a 150″ electric projector screen and creating a mount for it, learning to use a table saw (I was terrified for years), rebuilding my virtual pinball machine, and rebuilding my desk.

Japan trip with my dad

I took my dad to Japan! He’d never been to Asia before and I honestly had no idea what to expect. Would he be interested in eating Japanese food? I’d never seen him eat sushi before. Would he be okay walking all over the place? Would he be jet lagged? The trip went as well as it possibly could have. He loved it, probably wanted to walk around even more than I did, and ate everything. It was so much fun to get to show him one of my favorite places to visit. I go on so many trips, but this is one that I will always remember.

I spent more money

This is a weird one, but I read Die With Zero and it was one of the most influential books I’ve ever read. A lot of why I’m successful is because I’m incredibly frugal. I lived on essentially poverty level income for many years (and had a great life and even bought an island). Die With Zero made me realize that this isn’t always the best way to be. Some examples: I bought a $6500 pinball machine I really wanted, I bought a $2200 projector that I didn’t need but really wanted, and I helped a family member financially. I think I’m actually still way too averse to spending money, but I’m proud to make some progress here.

Lots of cruises

I went on a bunch of cruises, mostly with my friend Michael. On one of them we got upgraded to a huge suite for no reason. It happened to be a Norwegian Fjord cruise (amazing itinerary), so it was awesome to hang out on our couch and work while we looked out at the fjords. I’m obsessed with Virgin cruises now and went on five of them in 2024. My Kazakh friends who showed me all around Central Asia came on one, too!

CruiseSheet

I made some big progress on CruiseSheet (more on the business side than the technical side), and removed about 95% of the stress of it. I also really became settled on just keeping it as a lifestyle business where I can tinker and make the site I want versus the one that is the most profitable and the best business. That realization has made me enjoy working on it more.

Quality Time

When I really think about what I care about, it’s quality time with people I care about. In some ways that feels like a small life— I have friends and see public people who have huge goals and want to change the world, and I respect that… but what moves the needle for me is quality time with people I care about. I feel so lucky to have such great family and friends, so spending time with them is what’s most important to me.

I was scrolling through this year’s photos to remind myself what happened this year, and it brought back so many happy memories to see all of the cool things I did with my friends and family.

Random Highlights

• A friend had a wedding in Japan, which brought a bunch of friends who don’t normally travel that way to Tokyo. It was fun to share that experience with them.
• We did a trip to Seoul, and I really liked it there. I hope to spend more time
• Lots of family members visited in Vegas. I loved that
• I continued to do steam/sauna/cold plunge most days
• The boat finally got fixed and it was nice to be able to go out on the lake whenever we wanted
• I did one Superhuman event and it was great! I should do more

2025

I don’t have any huge goals for 2025. I have a few house projects I’d like to do, some CruiseSheet stuff I’d like to implement, people I’d like to spend more time with, etc., but it’s all things that are fairly certain to happen. I have two pretty wild ideas of things to do, but I haven’t researched them well enough yet so I’ll save them for if I decide to do them. I also toy with the idea of doing Youtube or a podcast but I haven’t quite figured out whether I actually want to do it or not and what format I could do that would create something that isn’t already out there.

Every year I ask my readers to send me recaps of their years along with their goals. If you wrote me last year, just reply to the email so I can see what your goals were. You can also leave it here in the comments if you want to share with everyone. Otherwise email 2024 at my name dot net. If there’s anything you’d like me to write about in 2025, let me know. It’s a good way to get me to post more!

###

Title is goodbye in Bosnian! Bosnia was probably the coolest new country I visited in 2024. Photo is from Yellowstone.