Scottevest Travel Vest : There’s A Pocket For That
Baggage is an annoyance on the road; even carry on baggage, especially short trips. Travel with bags slows travelers up at security check points, leaves traveler property at risk for theft or loss at security check points … and for day trips requires travelers to schlep their bags wherever they go.
Yes, I admit, there are many times travel requires a bag or two, however earlier this month I have decided to begin traveling with an 11″ MacBook Air, iPad, chargers, headsets, two cameras set-ups, SD card reader, spare SD card, sun glasses, pack of gum, two note books, pens, wallet, passport wallet, iPhone, Blackberry and sun glasses … and no bag.
In researching how to shed bags and make myself more mobile, there was only one choice for traveling this way on a series of flights … the Scottevest Travel Vest. The Scottevest Travel Vest is designed with 22 pockets, sewn in such a way that the vest always fits close to the body without a significant bulge indicating the contents of the vest.
Traveling with the Scottevest Travel Vest was a truly different experience. Most of the time before a trip my time is spent organizing my bag, for my first trip with the Scottevest Travel Vest, my morning was spent installing the wires for my in-ear head sets … and that was pretty much it. When it was time to go, I spent 5 minutes loading up my pockets and walked out the door.
At the airport security check point everything I had with me was in the vest. While laptops with solid state hard drives are not required to be removed from a bag at a TSA checkpoint, I removed mine rather than argue with the TSA screener … a split second later everything I had was on the X-Ray belt and I was on my way. No fuss … no muss.
The Scottevest Travel Vest’s design is unusual in that the vest is very well balanced, even when the weight of the loads of the pockets are not evenly balanced. This design is extremely functional when packing an iPad or MacBook Air (or both an iPad and 11″ MacBook Air in my case) in a single pocket within the Travel Vest.
The details of the Travel Vest’s functionality are apparent throughout the entire vest. For starters, the interior mobile phone pockets are constructed with touch-screen windows. These windows allow for the person wearing the vest to completely control the touch screen of an iPhone or other touch screen device.
For ease and comfort of using a mobile phone and MP3 player with the Travel Vest, in addition to the see through tough screen mobile phone windows, the Travel Vest has an integrated wire system for headsets. Initially I was skeptical, as I always seem to get tangled up in my headset wires, but the layout of the Travel Vest makes securing the headsets simple, painless and most of off … hidden and untangled.
There are two minor problems with the Scottevest Travel Vest … and by minor I mean, minor.
The first minor problem is this … if you have your headsets wired into your Travel Vest the cable won’t reach the tray table in front of you to plug into your laptop or iPad to watch a movie in flight. This wasn’t a problem for me, as I planned to pack a pair of Sony noise canceling headsets. But it occurred to me that most people probably don’t fly two sets of headsets.
The second minor problem is this … if you have an iPad, netbook or iPad and netbook inside your Travel Vest, sitting in an aircraft seat can be a tad awkward. Of course the obvious solution is to place the netbook and iPad in the seat back pocket in front of you … but this issue became quite obvious to me as I squeezed into the seat of my first flight with no bags … a US Airways Canadair Regional Jet 200.
So rather than rattle off what I put into my Scottevest Travel Vest, I figured I’d post my photos of the vest below, describing the contents of each pocket beneath each image.
… at a cost of US$100, there certainly is a pocket for nearly everything with the Scottevest Travel Vest.
The Scottevest Travel Vest is going on my list of Travel Essentials!
Happy Flying!
Photo 1: The Scottevest Travel Vest
Photo 2: The ScotteVest Travel Vest inside out to show pockets
Photo 3:Â Apple iPhone 4 through interior touch screen window
Photo 4: Blackberry Curve through see through interior touch screen pocket window
Photo 5:Â Two pen slots, along the zipper, easy to access, hidden from view
Photo 6: iBeats by Dr. Dre in ear headsets with phone mic, wires concealed in the vest
(vest has ear bud baskets to conceal the ear buds, take a look at Photo 1)
Photo 7:Â 11″ MacBook Air and iPad in the interior pocket
Photo 8: Apple power supply, iPhone/iPad cables, Kodak SD card reader, SD & SIM cards
Photo 9: Cross Passport wallet, Louis Vuitton business card holder, press credential
Photo 10: Oakley Flak Jacket sun glasses
Photo 11: Moleskine hard cover notebook, Moleskine soft cover notebook, Doublemint
Photo 12:Â Keys, attached to a supplied afixed bungee that ensures you don’t lose your keys!
Photo 13:Â Sony MDR NC-20 noise canceling headsets
Photo 14: A pack of Cottonelle ‘fresh wipes’ in a ZipLoc bag stashed in the rear pocket
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Wow. that’s a lot of stuff in all those pockets. you not trust the airline to take care of electronic packed in suitcase? I say because you are carrying three “computers” (4 if you count the blackberry) – iPad, Air, and iPhone.
Some thug can, instead of asking for your iphone, can make off with your whole jacket – and poof! you are back to the stone age!
🙂
Happy Traveling, Fish!
Derek,
A) When the vest is worn properly, ie: not inside out, you can’t see what is inside the vest, there is no bulk, so its all hidden from view. So … no thug fear
B) If I see you boarding my flight I’ll be sure to alert the authorities :0)
Happy Flying!
-Fish
But Fish, don’t you think thugs would “know” what a Scott-e-Vest looks like, whether or not they can see the stuff you may have?
Those vest and Nerds go hand in hand. And Nerds pack expensively.
That’s why I can a mini-backpack. They don’t know if I’m packing heat along with my windows mobile phone and dell netbook.
How much did it weigh when loaded and how did it feel to wear it loaded?
I’m thinking of getting one for vacation travel and wearing it all day when out seeing the sights.
Also, I’m thinking I’d need something for my camera and lenses. Would a backpack over it be comfortable? How about a ThinkTank belt and a few of its accessories (I wear the “bandolier” style version)?
Does it not strain your shoulders if wearing long term with all the weight? Are there any pads on the shoulders or how does it avoid this?
Looks really good.. definitely tempted to get one as I’m a big fan of packing light and this would be great for one day trips.. Have you worn it with a suit in under? do you reckon it would fit?
Using the Scottevest jacket (with zip off sleeves) has paid off when flying airlines like EasyJet, which restricts the size of a carry on. I simply load my jacket and avoid the issue. My jacket is quite the topic of conversation, having owned it for a few years before there was much press about it. Other than the pockets, which are designed for specific items, I have assigned a use to the other pockets and stick to it. That way I can always find things quickly. As you point out, everything is hidden and safe inside the jacket if you wish.
Steve K – the weight is determined by what you load it with. The jacket/vest is very lightweight. I use it in conjunction with a backpack with no issue. You probably want to store gear in a different way to allow for the (front) shoulder straps.
Josh – I don’t think the jacket/vest would cover a suit jacket completely. The vest is shorter than a suit coat, I think.
Thanks, Scott Jordan, for a great innovation. It makes my travel easier.