Tag: travel tips

Review: Halfday Duffel

Disclaimer: this is NOT a paid advertisement. This is a review of something I paid good money for, tested, and then decided to post a review. I’m not against paid advertisements (hint, hint…), but for now, this is my completely unbiased opinion!

I’m a sucker for an Instagram ad, and when the Halfday Duffel (https://halfdaytravel.com) ad popped up, I was instantly intrigued.

This duffel promised so much! Garment bag! Weekender! A place for shoes! I love a good multitasking anything, and with multiple trips coming up that required fancy dresses and suits, I took the plunge and bought one for my husband and one for myself.

Halfday in action

First, you unzip the duffle until it is lying flat, then put whatever you want to lay flat in the garment bag portion. I managed to get three (!!) dresses in, the hanger hook holding everything in place, and the bottom clips ensuring the dresses wouldn’t bunch up.

Then I stuffed in my shoes into the shoe pockets. As a size 9, I managed to get two pairs of heels in, while my husband (size 13) could only fit one pair.

Anti-bunching clips

Then it was time to zip up to create the duffel.

I found it was easiest to zip halfway up, then start filling with clothes, then zip again and stuff the remaining toiletries in right before you zip it completely up, so as not to waste any space.

With clothes

I managed to get 4 days worth of outfits plus my formal wear into this duffel. Three pairs of pants, a pair of jeans, several sweaters and a few shirts. Plus all of my toiletries!

Overall, I love this bag. It’s easy to carry, and holds so much stuff! It also fit beautifully into the overhead compartment, even on the smaller Embraer jet I flew recently.

A few of my less than favorite moments:

– You have to half fill, then zip, then fill again, otherwise your belongings spill out and it becomes cumbersome to zip up.

– You have to completely unpack at your destination to get your garment bag items out. This isn’t a huge problem, but as someone who lives out of her bag, it’s a little more of a pain once I hit the ground.

Even with these minor frustrations, I say it’s definitely worth the purchase. I’ll be using mine regularly.

How to see FREE Art in San Francisco

If you are like me, art plays a central role in any trip. From paintings to architecture to weird one-person performance pieces, tuning into art on a trip adds an important dimension to all of my travels.

In a place like San Francisco, where the art world is thriving, it can be hard to narrow down exactly what to see, especially if you are short on time. How do you prioritize? And with any trip, there is always the decision point of what to spend money on and where to save. If you are going to San Francisco, don’t let the art slip by. Here is how to see some beautiful works, and for FREE!

Go For The Gallery

Mr. Brainwash

Galleries line the streets in SF, and can be found in most neighborhoods. The highest concentration of these galleries live between Union Square and The Tenderloin districts, specifically on the streets running east/west. Geary, Sutter, and Post streets all have excellent galleries with collections from very famous artists.

Salvador Dali

The collections are for sale and often the spaces are smaller, but there are no lines, no fees for entrance, and excellent variety of unique pieces you will not see in larger museums.

On this trip, we stumbled into the Christopher-Clark Fine Art gallery (where we were introduced to the artist Mr. Brainwash, who, according to the gallery staff, is a protégé of Banksy. He was already a street artist when Banksy discovered him and took him under his wing. His pieces are layered and complex and visually very, very cool.

As we perused the rest of the gallery, we discovered a collection of Salvador Dali pieces, as well as a collection of Pieces by Matisse and Rembrandt. It was an exceptional collection, and best of all, no lines and free!

Next we hit openings at two smaller galleries on Sutter. At Hashimoto Contemporary gallery we saw the opening of Scott Albrecht’s exhibit “Holding Time”, a Brooklyn based artist displaying his signature graphic relief paintings and sculpture.

Scott Albrecht

After checking out his beautiful works, we popped into the gallery next door, Glass Rice, where another opening was in progress.

Gallery hopping in San Francisco is a lovely way to see unique pieces by famous artists and fabulous new works by emerging artists. If you are traveling to San Francisco, be sure to add this to your itinerary to add an extra dimension to your experience.