I am a Yorkshireman after all, and from Sheffield at that. Look after your pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, my mum always said. And, to a point she's right.
But, there are some things that, despite the cost, are just worth it. Here are a few that have proved invaluable on this holiday, all of which cost more than I would have liked to have paid, but all of which have been worth their weight in gold.
1. Fin's helmet
For years and years we have struggled with Fin to keep his goggles on while skiing. We've tried time and again to find goggles that fit him well, but whatever we try he's constantly pulling them off, we're constantly putting them back on, back off, back on, all day long. Anyone that's skied with us will know how frustrating it can be for us and, I guess, how uncomfortable it might be for Fin.
Helmet's with visors have been around for a while but I've not seen any kids one. Maybe because I've never liked them, but on our last boys trip away one of the guys had a visor helmet and he said it was great, so when I got home we started looking at one for Fin. They were all a bit on the expensive side, but then I saw that Salomon made one and because I get some nice BASI discount on Salomon products we managed to get one with 40% discount.
So we bought one of their Grom helmets, the same design as Fin's previous helmet but this time with a built in visor.
First of all I think it looks great. It fits really well, it's so easy for him to use, he keeps the visor down all day long, and it has put an end to the constant fiddling and messing we've become accustomed to. The lens is fairly generic and seems to be fine in all light conditions except for complete whiteouts. One of the best fifty quids we've ever spent.
A friend of mine bought some Salomon goggles earlier this year and was really impressed with them.
I've acquired a few pairs of goggles over the years and have usually bought ones with interchangeable
lenses - usually reflective lenses for bright sunny conditions and clear lenses for foggy and low light conditions. This works great, especially during a week where the conditions are varied, but it can become a drag on those days when the weather is constantly changing and you end up seemingly spending half the day changing lenses - sometimes it can be a bit fiddly to swap them out as well as having to carry that spare lens around with you.
So when I started looking at the Salomon range I took note of their Photochromatic range. A bit like transitions lenses, they adjust according to the lighting conditions. They have a natural clear state but darken as the UV intensifies. I wouldn't normally have entertained these, principally because of the price premium, but in part due to my BASI discount and the fact I had money to spend from my birthday presents, I decided to take a punt.
Never been so satisfied with anything, except perhaps Karen on a good day.
At no point, be it on the brightest of bright days or the dullest of dull did I ever stop to think "if only I had that other lens in today". To keep them on all day every day without any faffing around makes them well with the money. They didn't fog up once. Not sure I'd have paid the full price (£160) without having tried them first, but now having had the opportunity to sample them over 13 days of skiing mixed and various conditions I'd jump straight in without a doubt. Might even buy Karen a pair, especially as she's now a bit of a speed demon.
3. GoPro Hero 5
I've been using the Ion camera for a few years now and have always been really impressed with the video quality, mainly shot at 1080p. Had a bit of distortion but not as much as the older GoPro's seemed to. I quite liked the fact it was different from the pack and I found the user interface on the phone to be pretty decent. But recently I found the app stopped working (on Android at least) or maybe it was the device that was faulty, either way I knew it was time for a new action cam.
I looked at various options, but on a recent holiday to Champoluc had the opportunity to try out a friends GoPro Hero 5 and was actually well impressed. Loved the fact you can talk to it and that it can shoot up to 120 fps and up to 4k (but not simultaneously). So I looked at that and also the Hero 6 which was even better but a bit pricier. In the end I picked up a Hero 5 from Amazon Spain for around £215 - bought an extra battery, had a bit of a play with it (the camera) then left for Canada with high hopes of capturing some decent footage.
And so it proved to be well worth it. The ease of use along with the robustness meant I took it out most days, the battery life was very respectable, the range of features did (almost) everything I wanted. Used it to create time-lapse videos of our journeys (I only wish GoPro would include the option to timestamp the time-lapse photos - this would have saved me heaps of time) and as I'm sure you have seen lots of video footage as well as high quality pictures. The GoPro quik software is reasonably good for putting together short edits but is very limited in what it can do. I like the fact you can shoot in Linear mode, a more traditional regular, non fish eyed wide angle view with none or limited distortion.
Overall it was a really good buy and well worth the money, without which this blog would not have been what it is. I'm surprised I like it this much.
4. Travel Adapter
We seem to be travelling with more and more electronic devices these days. Gone are the days when we took a single converter plug to charge the phone or for the travel hair dryer. Now we have a multitude of devices, all of which require plugging in at some point. Finlay alone has his phone, his DS and his laptop. More phones for me and Karen, plus the GoPro, camera (although this didn't get used much due to the insane quality of the camera on my Pixel phone), MacBook, iPad, smart watch, electric toothbrushes, hair straighteners, the list never seems to end.
On top of this, a number of UK/EU devices and chargers won't work when in the U.S or Canada due to voltage differences.
Enter the Bestek Travel Adapter Voltage Converter. Not only does this fantastic little device do all the voltage conversion stuff (up to a certain wattage) meaning things like our electric toothbrushes and tablet devices charge fuss free, it also has two UK 3 pin plugs and four USB outlet ports, meaning we could charge oodles of devices from a single socket.
It came with a handy travel case and all the adapters required to work pretty much worldwide.
A fantastic little device, picked up for less that £40 courtesy of Amazon Prime, well worth it.
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