I don’t often get excited about travel backpacks, in fact, never might be nearer the mark, unless of course it’s the surfy small Roxy backpacks, they are to die for.

I used to find backpacks cumbersome and aesthetically unpleasing, on a par with the duffle - until now. I found one called the adventure hydro sports backpack. Those into adventure travelling and extreme sports, this is one for you!

It’s a multi layered, water-resistant fabric with heat welded seams and inverted, waterproof zippers. Available in three colours - silver, black and orange - it looks smooth and has a magnetic appeal to touch it and stroke it, a lot. Gone too far … thought so!

There is a top carry handle, so you don’t always have to have it resting on your back and you can have a quick glance down every now and then to admire it. Two small pockets on the shoulder strap are perfect for storing lift passes etc and d-rings for your keys and id cards.

Its ergonomic design means that it meets the comfort factor too. You won’t have to worry about back ache or the cumbersome factor, it fits perfectly to your body allowing plenty of flexibility in movement, perfect for climbing mountains, hills or skiing back down.

Alternatively, if you want something a little more contemporary and well, fashionable, the Roxy praise me beige rucksack is just plain delicious. It pips the boring, block colour extreme sports varieties any day and it almost certainly won’t break the bank.

The trouble with hiking backpacks is that it’s always easier and more pleasant to walk without them. The freedom of hiking sometimes feels hampered by all the equipment we deem necessary to take with us nowadays. For ease of walking, freedom of movement and simplicity, it’s better to hit the trail without a backpack.

But if you’re going for a walk longer than a few hours, a rucksack starts to become a necessity. As well as carrying food and drink, waterproofs and a map, a backpack becomes a safety item for long walks into isolated areas. It enables you to carry first aid kits and warm clothes in case of accidents, and GPS devices to ensure you don’t get lost.

And now there are some very comfortable, lightweight backpacks on the market, you can enjoy the best of both worlds and retain manoeuvrability while carrying essential items. As long as you don’t pack anything excessively heavy, you might even forget it is there.

Hiking backpacks serve their purpose well. They’re built for serious walking and tend to be compact and lightweight. Travel packs on the hand are designed for longer excursions to far-flung places and are generally harder-wearing, larger and heavier. The best travel packs tend to be sturdy front-loading bags with a detachable day backpack. The Karrimor Global Gapper is a versatile and durable travel bag. This large pack and daypack combination has lockable zips, a side carry handle and a removable shoulder strap. This ideal travel companion retails at £100.

The Lifeventure Baku is a big, 70-litre travel pack suitable for long-haul journeys. But it’s also designed to cross over as a trekking backpack. It has many of the features of other travel packs but is constructed with lightweight materials, has an adjustable padded back system and boasts straps and loops for walking poles and trekking hardwear. The versatility of this backpack makes it a pricey £140.

The Berghaus Jalan is similar to the above but has the addition of a set of small wheels, making it easy to cart around airports and city streets. At 4.2kg this one is far too heavy to take on the trail but the detachable 15L backpack means you can get out for a day hike while travelling. This bag will set you back around £125.

Rucksack, backpack, knap sack, hiking bag call me what you want, but never call me useless. Since my existence started as an aid to help hunter gatherers bring his kill home, I have evolved many times over until I was christened a backpack in 1910. I’ve travelled continents, mountains, rivers and seas. A man on his own could never carry the weights he does over long distances without the aid of a backpack. I started as a cloth sack that slung across a man’s shoulders and hung down his back. Then I sprung a frame that helped to carry weightier loads until technology allowed the frame to be inserted within my fabric. Now I come with amazingly ergonomic harnesses and hip belts that enable my carrier to walk for miles without his shoulders feeling like they are going to snap, or that his hip joints are sinking into his femurs. I can carry tools with my range of straps. I’ll hold litres of water in my mesh pockets. I can carry anything from children to computers.
Without me, Hillary and Tensing would never have reached the top of Everest. Without me several Pole attempts would never have happened. As a backpack I share the glory of some of the greatest adventure feats of our age. Don’t ever forget that I, the humble backpack, deserve a place in history too.

Every now and then and I am sure you have all done this too, you read something and you read it incorrectly and boy does it make you laugh!

I was looking at more of Jay G’s gadgets on idleparis.co.uk and found a little article about wifi sniffing luggage, only I saw, Wife sniffing luggage and I thought, “Golly, how far will someone go?!”

Ahem. So … wifi sniffing luggage. A marvellous invention designed to hunt down wifi connections. Now I’m not much of a techie, but I spoke to some of my IT geek friends and they said it was sensational, seeing as they don’t leave the house without their laptops firmly padded in a black backpack.

Basically, it’s a laptop courier-style bag with compartments for your mobile phone, mp3 and mp4 players as well as an integrated clock, so you will never be late for the start of the Star Trek re-runs. And obviously, the reason people will buy it is the integrated wifi finder which at the press of a button locates and advises you of the strength of nearby wifi signals.

I think I have stumbled on a great concept that to me, being the technophobe I am, is way more useful than finding an internet cafe when I’m out shopping. As “luggage reviews” go, this one gets a definite thumbs-up.

Once upon a time, when I had a sensible day job, I met and became friends with some Australians. The topics of travelling and luggage came up quite regularly but a slightly different take on the subject got us all talking and researching the options.

Basically, one of the bonza sheilas in my gang is now heading back down under as her v visa is about to expire. In the year she has been here she has accumulated all sorts of rubbish, as well as a smattering of useful products that she wants to take home. As it stands, it’s far too much crap to shove into a few travel backpacks.

I showed a site called iwishtravel.co.uk which helpfully publishes a blog dedicated to shipping goods across the continents. It’s a really slick site, very easy to navigate.

The blog recommends a company called Green Room Internet who specialise in sending items backwards and forwards across the globe, by sea, or air etc. The review was really informative, and it’s given my mate a recommendation that could well come in handy if she can’t bring herself to chuck out her three zillion boxes of ticket stubs, boarding passes and other assorted rubbish!

I have never been a huge fan of Paris (the city not the socialite – not that I’m too fond of her either). I blame my parents: Paris is where they had their honeymoon and frankly, it doesn’t matter how romantic a place was supposed to be, it most certainly didn’t rub off on them. So when I was asked to review a site called idleparis.co.uk, it was with much trepidation.

However, the site has nothing to do with “Les Overpriced Francais” at all. Rather intriguingly it is a website put together by a guy called Jay Garrett and he utilises the space to blog about gadgets and technical news.

Exciting, especially as the front page showed the future of the electric black cab for the big smoke. Quite strangely, it made me curious enough to read the whole post. Who would have thought that at 3p a mile it’s cheaper to travel around London in a car/cab then to hop on the tube?

A lot of the information on the site is way above my head and designed to appeal to the techies out there to drag them away from watching the latest Star Trek episodes, however there are some ingenious inventions. The USB ring, designed to look like a skull, very now. And I’m loving the noose lamp!

Jay Garrett doesn’t come across as your typical IT geek, lordy no, he writes with humour and personality.

He does make you want to read more and more and it’s a long time since I stayed on one website for a long period of time. Usually with the great world wide web at my fingertips I flick through search engines looking up whatever comes into my mind, but not today.

I love this site, it gets a full thumbs up from me and I have absolutely no doubt I am going to be saving this little beauty in my favourites to have a little check back now and then and get some ingenious ideas for Christmas presents!

I was asked to have a little peek at some alternative travel sites. Being an avid globetrotter myself I am always on the lookout for weird and wonderful travel websites. I like browsing the latest ranges of hard luggage”and travel accessories, as well as flicking through descriptions of cool travel locations.

Traveljungle.co.uk has pretty good content - very newsworthy and up to date. My favourite bit of the site were the fantastic videos of the Christmas Markets in Germany, which make me want to grab my carry on luggage and go shopping for delicate decorations all wrapped up with hats and scarves. Very picture postcard, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The site’s also got some personal travel anecdotes, including a lovely one about a guy who proposed to his girlfriend over the public address system on a Ryanair flight to Barcelona!

To the people of traveljungle: you have been warned. I’m on your trail and I’ll be checking back soon to see what new morsels you’ve got to tantalise us about exotic locations.

Deuter has just launched the new Alpine Guide Lite range which is an incredibly light rucksack weighing in at just over 1kg. The featherweight sacks were designed with serious Alpinists in mind, someone who wants to travel fast and light without compromising on durability and comfort. They also feature reinforced side straps (also hold fat powder skis), ice axe loops, removable insulating foam mat as well as gear loops and top lid attachment rings. Sounds ideal for a hiking, climbing adventure.

Lowe Alpine has a surprisingly large range of rucksacks for travelling light. An

equivalent to the Deuter is the Mountain Attack Pro. With 35L plus an extra 10L if needed, it is another good rucksack from a company with a good track record. One of its key selling points is the ability to access gear quickly and the hip belt can be removed if you are wearing a harness. The pack features dual daisy chains, hip-belt gear hoops and removable ice hoops. The only compromise is that it weighs 1.66kg, so a little more than the Deuter. Even so it’s a good all-rounder.

Berghaus are well known for their waterproof hiking boots but they also make fine rucksacks. Its Arete 35 is designed for Alpinists wanting something light (1.14kg) on their backs that carries all necessary equipment, such as crampons, ice axes etc. This pack is really basic in comparison to the Lowe Alpine and Deuter. But that is reflected in the price as it’s quite a bit cheaper.

Finally, let’s look at what North Face have to offer. The Terra 35 is pretty similar to the Deuter in price and weight, coming in at 1.19kg. An ideal sack for day-tripping in the mountains, it is hydration system compatible and has a number of loops and straps. It doesn’t appear to be as technical as the Lowe Alpine or Deuter, but it does have the edge on Deuter with an extra 3L to pack your stuff into, but falls down on the number of straps that you can attach your kit to.

Last week I went to Wembley Stadium to watch England play Kazakhstan. We had fantastic seats - just 16 rows from the pitch.

The plan was to take almost my entire winter coat collection as I know sat in the stands the wind can whip round and freeze your derriere! Only on the day, I got up and it was absolutely roasting. I knew, this being Great Britain and all, that whilst the sun might have its hat on now, it will most definitely be arctic temperatures when I’m doing the Wembley walk home, so I set about looking for a suitable method of transportation for the coat that I would surely need later.

Reaching into the cupboard above my wardrobe, I fumbled around for the perfect “travel backpack”, a sporty looking number, with all manner of zips and clips and compartments. Perfect I think. I stuff my hideous winter coat into it, along with a bottle of water, and my face paints. Yes people, 89,107 people attended, only one hardcore fan with their face painted – MOI!

As we head up to Wembley I was still in a t-shirt, and no sign yet of the weather changing, so I’m worried that I have lugged all my necessities for no reason.

The ticket gets scanned and we are in. The security spy me and my “travel backpack” and think that I’m a good target to wile away their day and have a good old nosey. Only it took them ages. They went through every compartment secreted in the trusty rucksack and left me standing there with my possessions strewn everywhere having to remember where everything went. Their parting comment was, “great rucksack for travelling love, but you need one with fewer compartments.”

I resisted the urge to shout back, given that I’d paid £60 for my ticket and didn’t want to get thrown out but seriously…. isn’t that the point of a “travel backpack” to assist in the efficiency of space? The best one I have seen is the Karrimor Global 50-70 - it even has a zip off day sac. That would come in very handy for carrying say – A COAT!

As it was ladies and gents, I never did take my coat out of the bag, but hey ho, we won 5-1 so I won’t complain!