All The Gear I Didn't Use: 5 Travel Products I Wasted My Money On

Updated in 2024! Not all travel gear is great. I'm spilling the tea on 5 travel products I wasted my money on. Better luck next time!

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What I can't live without: A sweater, a PacSafe day bag, and one carry on sized pack or suitcase, depending on the trip.

I've said it before and I"ll say it again: I LOVE packing! And travel gear and gadgets? I love them too. I can spend hours browsing in travel stores and websites. While I keep my own kit pretty minimal, I'm always picking up new items to try out and seeing how they work with my existing stuff. Of course, not everything is great but even if things aren't perfect I can usually get some use out of them. But not for the five items in this post. This is about all the gear I didn't use, the stuff that never helped me out and never made my life easier. These are five travel products I wasted my money on.

An important point of clarification before we begin. Some of these products were disappointing to me through their function and design, while others found their way on this list in part because of me - they just weren't what I needed or wanted in the end, though their function may have been just fine for another user. So take this all with a grain of salt - if you're a devoted user, I'm glad it's working out for you!

(PS: Love tough talk on travel gear? You can also check out my post about 9 travel accessories that no one needs to buy!)

The Scrubba wash bag

Scrubba Wash Bag photo credit: Modern Survival Online under Creative Commons licensing.

A packaged Scubba and a shirt folded to a similar shape. Frankly, I think an extra shirt is a better value for your allotted space and weight.

I wanted to love the Scrubba Wash Bag more than all these other products combined. I am obsessed with travel laundry. I only travel with clothing that I can sink wash and air dry and I've traveled with the same braided stretch laundry line and large, flat sink plug since 2001.  My periodic trips to laundromats for deep cleans make my soul sing. Therefore, the idea of a product that made hand washing easier and more effective sounded fantastic to me. 

The Scrubba Wash Bag is a large bag that looks and feels similar to a dry bag for canoeing. To use it, you put water, soap, and dirty clothing inside and you seal it to keep the water in. The inside of the bag is fitted with little nubby bumps so when you smush the sides of the bag against each other, with the dirty clothing, water, and soap caught in the middle, it's suppose to give the clothing a great scrub. There's a few other small steps involved, like removing the excess air and turning down the top to prevent leaks, but you get the idea.

Here's why I thought the Scrubba would be fantastic. I thought it would allow me to more thoroughly and quickly scrub my travel clothing. I thought it would give everything a deeper clean, given that every time you touch it, you are bringing the clothing in contact with the interior scrubbing bumps. I thought it would be fantastic for hostels, where you can't exactly leave things hanging around in a common sink. I also thought it would be great for boutique hotels with quirky, small, shallow sinks. 

And I was wrong!

Here's what I learned. First, if a hostel sink is yucky or occupied, it won't matter whether or not you have a Scubba. You don't want the exterior of bag to get gross and dirty as you're going to be handling it extensively for the scrubbing portion of things. Same for a shallow, weird boutique hotel sink. You really need the Scrubba to stand nearly straight under a stream of water for it to fill without things sloshing out and that's impossible in tiny, shallow sink. If you don't have a clean, regular size sink, you're going to have to fill it up from a bathtub or shower - so tricky. 

Next, even though the bag is technically leak proof, it is nearly impossible to use without getting water EVERYWHERE. It slashes all over the bathroom as you're filling it. It splashes some more as you're removing the sopping wet clothing to wring it out. And despite the "fold over and secure" top, I always found little bits of water seeped out. So messy. So wet. So not fun!

Finally, and most frustrating of all, it didn't do a better job of washing my clothing than I can manage on my own. I've found the biggest thing about getting clothing clean is to put a strong effort into targeting specific stains and areas that are prone to collecting smells (like the underside of shirt sleeves) and then do a general scrub/scrunch to get everything else fresh. And it's impossible to do this in the Scrubba Wash Bag. Sure, you can do a half way decent overall wash but you can't specifically target specific stains or spots. So unless your clothing is uniformly stained or smelly, your results will be uneven. It's back to old fashioned hand scrubbing in the sink for me - with maybe more laundromat visits than usual thrown in.

So who would benefit from this product? If you were traveling in a very remote area where there was no possibility of washing services, the Scrubba would do a decent job of cleaning your clothing, combined with your own efforts to pre-treat stains and pre-scrub smelly areas. But given how far and wide I've traveled, I've never had a problem finding a laundromat or having staff at a rural guesthouse take care of my laundry for a small fee. Given that the Scrubba is about the size of a shirt, I think the majority of travelers would rather have an extra top than the Scrubba itself.

The Go Girl female urination aid

Go Girl photo courtesy Travel Away under Creative Commons licensing.

My dear friend - not me! - once took a very long, very hot, very uncomfortable train trip in India. We're talking about the kind of voyage that hits the 24 hour mark and means several miserable visits to what passes as a "bathroom". It was the kind of voyage that necessitates a new level of bonding with your spouse so you don't completely fall apart in the process of keeping your balance on a moving vehicle, holding your skirt up and out of the way, and actually doing your business. With her less than elegant story strong in my mind, I set about to purchase a Go Girl before spending a month on the road.

A Go Girl is one of many devices on the market that profess to assist women in peeing while standing up. Imagine a kind of funnel like device... and maybe stop imagining! I thought it would be an invaluable tool to have at my side throughout some challenging travel circumstances. 

There's just one problem. I never did get to use it. That's because, despite my best efforts, I was unable to figure out how to roll or fold the Go Girl so it would fit back into its narrow cylinder of a carrying tube. The tube is really instrumental in the success of using this product. You're suppose to be able to use Go Girl to do your business, give it a quick rinse, and pack it back in it's carrying case where it stays clean and protected (and away from the other items in your purse or suitcase). Sadly, the instructions didn't supply any tips or tricks for making the process any easier.

Of course, we could have persevered and kept folding and rolling until we finally figured out the precise way to do it. But by then, the magic was lost. The entire point of this product was that it would make going to the bathroom EASIER, not harder. Even if I figured out the trick to sticking it back in the tube, it wasn't something I ever wanted to think about or fuss with on the road. Imagine if I tried to replicate my steps in some grimy bathroom and the entire thing slipped from my hands and landed on the filthy floor? 

I offered up my unused Go Girl on a local Facebook swap group and there was actually a bit of a fight as people clamored to get their hands on it. Yes, I told them it was opened, though unused, and that it had frustrated me greatly. Nobody cared! I swapped it for a large package of toilet paper, which seemed poetic. 

This item was much more fussy and fiddly than anticipated. For the weight and space it takes up in your pack, in most circumstances you're better off carrying your own toilet paper - now THAT is something I've used constantly when I've traveled. But if you want to tackle the Go Girl, you can buy it here.

Undersized suitcase coffee cup holder

Latte leash photo credit: Favpng under Creative Commons licensing.

As we returned from our first trip to Hawaii, having broken in our fancy new suitcases (Translation: they cost us about $35 each at the shopping center luggage store), we were having travel pains. The suitcases lacked side pockets, like those found on backpacks, and it was aggravating. So too was the jet lag  we were muddling through so we did the only sensible thing and grabbed large coffees before boarding our flight. And for reasons I don't fully understand, Ryan thought he could balance a large, full, scalding hot coffee on the top of his suitcase in the little indentation where the telescoping handle emerges - and walk with said suitcase on an angle, pulling it down the bumpy ramp to board the aircraft. Surprise, surprise: the coffee went flying, spilled everywhere, and every single passenger on our flight had to walk and wheel through a pool of coffee before they got on the plane. 

We clearly needed a new system, so we picked up "latte leashes". These cleverly designed fabric pouches hang from the top of your suitcase's telescoping handles, and the weight of the coffee cup you insert in the pouch keeps the pouch hanging straight. When not in use, they just smush up among the collapsed handles of your suitcase.

There's just one problem with latte leashes. They're designed to fit the equivalence of a Starbucks "tall" size. Now if that's your usual size, you're fine. Or if you only travel in Europe, where take out coffee cups are small and elegant and oh-so-chic, there's no problem. But who are we kidding? We get HUGE coffee when we travel in North America, which is often. And while these larger sizes kinda fit, they're mighty top heavy. One fallen coffee is one too many. It just wasn't as sturdy and practical as we wanted and needed. So our latte leashes were given to a travel loving couple of friends (who kindly bought me a latte as a thank you!) who might be able to put them to better use.

There are non-fabric, non swinging cup holders that attach to a suitcase's telescoping handle that look more sturdy and stable. I might give them a try next! I've also found a model as pictured above, that has an open bottom and looks like it could accommodate different size cups with ease.

Neck cooling bandannas

When I wore my new Nike trail running shoes through security on my flight to Las Vegas, the agent made a not-that-funny remark about just how bright my shoes were - and they WERE a rather eye watering shade of yellowish green - and remarked that no one would lose me on a trip. Oh ha ha ha. Those shoes were just one part of the colorful ensembles Ryan and I had planned for Death Valley National Park. 

Going to Death Valley in July is nothing to sneeze at and we took our gear seriously. We had the moisture-wicking clothing, the broad sun hats, and of course my sturdy, glow in the dark shoes. We also brought silica gel infused, round, thin bandannas designed to keep your entire body cool when you soak them in water and then drape them around your neck. The idea is that the gel beads absorb the cold water and don't drip water onto your neck. We gave them a trial run at home several months before our trip and they worked great. There was just one problem when we got to Death Valley. We forgot to use them! 

It was a good reminder that sometimes even well performing gear is a waste of space and money when it's such a niche product that it can only really be used in one or two scenarios. Throw in a little jet lag and a small object that can easily get buried in a bag and it's not surprising that some gear never truly gets used for its intended purpose. So while our cooling bandannas could their job, in theory, we just never got our act together to use them in practice. A classic "It's not you, it's me" scenario. Plus, a regular old scarf or towel, soaked in cold water and wrung out, would work nearly as well. Sorry bandannas - you were a straight up waste of money.

InstaCloth towel tablets

Imagine it's a long, hot, dusty day on the road. You're parched and grubby and, though you have clean water with you, there's no possible way to apply it to your face and body. This was presumably the scenario flooding my imagination when I purchased a pack of InstaCloth.

InstaCloth is a kind of one time use, disposable washcloth that is ultra compressed until it's about double the size of a dinner mint. The idea is that you can use them in countries where wash cloths are not provided in hotels (which, to be fair, is a lot of the world). You can also theoretically use them for freshening up after along train or plane ride, to remove make up without staining a clean hand towel, and so on. The problem is - you don't REALLY need them. If I have access to clean water, I'll find a way to apply it to my body. It's not that hard to splash water on your face, use a small hand towel in lieu of a wash cloth, or use some paper towels to freshen up in an airport. 

I traveled with these in my pack for years, never using them once. I never even needed them while camping. I wanted to love InstaCloth. It's such a nifty concept! But it turns out that disposable wash cloths just isn't an essential piece of travel gear for me. They're just another fussy, fiddly niche item adding unwanted bulk to my pack. However, judging fromsome online reviews, other people love them.  *Shrug*. 

You win some, you lose some

What can I say? Sometimes your travel gear does not work out nearly as well as you expected -and sometimes you realize that the product was fine but really just useless in your pack. I'm sharing my experience not to throw shade at any particular item (well, not a lot of shade at the very least) but so everyone who is reviewing their options has as much information as possible. Here's to finding the best gear possible - or, at the very least, saving your money for more travel down the road!


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