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Fifty Sense: Common Sense Ideas for Thriving after 50
Fifty Sense: Common Sense Ideas for Thriving after 50

Review:
Briggs & Riley Travelware

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Briggs & Riley Travelware is a manufacturer of luggage for travel. The company is based in Hauppauge, New York and was founded as recently as 1993. The company is known for its "Simple as that" lifetime guarantee that even covers damage caused by an airline. Briggs & Riley luggage can only be purchased from specialty luggage stores in the United States and Canada, as well as through its online boutique.

Briggs & Riley manufactures a wide selection of travel bags. It was the first company to establish the NXpandable System that provides more space in the bag when expanded. It was also the first company to develop the Outsider handle, designed on the exterior of the case to ensure a flat packing area for wrinkle-free clothes.

This year, B&R introduced their newest collection – BRX – for Adventure Travelers. Long recognized for their quality, craftsmanship and commitment to their customer, this line represents their first introduction into the outdoor retail market.

Express Toiletry Kit

Like all their BRX gear bags, this unique toiletry kit has all the functionality you need. Spacious interior, wet/dry pockets and a hanging strap—a perfect bag for hanging from a towel rod or a tree branch. We found it worked really well to have two sides, one for toiletries and one for make-up. It squishes nicely into your suitcase. The cylindrical design maximizes space for essentials and it is made with strategic placement of lightweight fabrics for ultimate durability. All this and only a .6lbs.

Explore 22 Upright

The fees for checked luggage are enough to make anyone reconsider how and what we pack. We desperately attempt to minimize our necessities to fit into a single carry-on but with such strict restrictions it is difficult to organize ourselves in such a way.

The Explore 22 upright carry-on is built to maximum carry-on dimensions with capacity to grow while still adhering to restrictions. Weighing in at only 7.5 pounds you are not sacrificing space for weight making it an even more practical travel piece.

Utilizing high performance ripstop and packcloth nylon this piece can withstand whatever your travels will throw at it/ you. With an external buckle system that allows you to connect and two BRZ bags quickly together to become one piece of checkable piece of luggage it reduces the chance of lost luggage and negates that incredibly high fee for your second piece of checked luggage.

Sometimes luggage can get bulky and difficult to handle. Briggs and Riley recognizes that we are not all 22 yr old weight lifters and give you multiple grab handles to disperse the weight making it easier to lift and manage.

There are plenty of pockets to keep you organized, but not so many that you lose your belongings. There is a great external slash pocket for quick stowage of a light jacket or newspaper.

Briggs and Riley has taken a classic design of the carry-on and made it more practical and lightweight!

All-In-One Surge Protector

Briggs & Riley offers an All-in-One 110/220 volt Surge Protector as a travel accessory. It is inexpensive, small, and packed with features. Offers surge protection on both 110 (North America) and 220V (International) power, so you can use it anywhere. It has an EMI/RFI filter to protect sensitive electronic equipment and a power indicator light.

It's ingenious design features universal input so it accepts non-grounded or grounded North American plugs, as well as British, European, and many others. Perhaps the best part is that four different electrical adapters are built into the surge protector for most countries, including the UK, Australia, Europe, etc., eliminating the separate bag to carry all those individual plugs! Very small and lightweight: 3.8 ounces; 3 x 1.5 x 1.5 inches. Power indicator light and safety shutters. Electrical rating: 125V 15A, 250V, 10A.

Explore 22 Upright

What does a high-end luggage manufacturer for business and leisure travel know about the needs of Adventure Travelers? Apparently, quite a bit! This new BRX line has all the requirements for those on the go: 1) the Outsider handle system that allows a flat packing surface, 2) lightweight – only 7.5 lbs, 3) front zip compartment for a 16" laptop ( for those who don't really know how to get away from it all!), the usual quick-access pockets for passport, papers, magazines, maps, and so forth.

Combine all this with the B&R "Simple As That" all-inclusive lifetime guarantee and you've got quite a package. In this era of stricter airline regulations, two other facts are quite important. First, it's designed to the maximum carry-on dimensions. Secondly, it expands for greater capacity but it's a tapered zip expansion that allows the smaller end to fit in the overhead bin first while enabling the rest to still fit. Very clever.

Expedition 28 Rolling Duffle

All the new digital accessories are terrific – do you use a luggage scale for packing? Well, I weighed a traditional 28" rolling upright – 20.6 lbs!! With only 50lbs allowed per bag, your options are cut almost in half. The BRX 28" Rolling Duffle – only 9.5 lbs with the same volume! Add in the Outsider handle system, quick access side pockets, in-line skate type rollers, Simple As That guarantee that even includes baggage handler damage and you've got an unbeatable product.

Does it bother you that the sides of most duffle bags keep collapsing while you're trying to pack? This bag has semi-rigid interior sides that can be raised to provide continuous, easy access to enormous main compartment. They can be folded down after use, allowing the sides to collapse for efficient storage. Black and Brown are pretty common luggage colors but the new Ocean is distinctive and easily identified on the luggage conveyer.

www.briggs-riley.com

...Fiftysense Product Review Panel

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