Travel Gear Ideas By Individual Inventors

Travelling is one of those activities that enrich and expand our life in so many ways. And thanks to individual inventors and companies, who bring their passion for travelling into developing outdoor and travel gear, this experience becomes safer, more comfortable and enjoyable.

Oftentimes, inventors find their niche on the market through their hobbies and interests. And the travel market is a great example of that. Are you an adventurer who wants to bring new solutions to the market but doesn’t know where to draw ideas from? If yes, then let’s look at some travel gear inventions. They show that you can always find inspiration, or problems to solve, in what you love doing the most!

Ultralight Purifier is a bottle that removes viruses, bacteria, and filters chemicals, particles, and heavy metals in water from lakes, rivers, streams, and tap. Two travelers, Nancie Weston and Travis Merrigan, have been concerned with global plastic pollution and poor quality of water for some time.

To try and solve these issues, they co-founded Grayl. Then, they developed the Purifier bottle to enable not only outdoor adventurers to purify their water on the go, but also help those who have limited access to safe drinking water.

The bottle has a replaceable purifier cartridge with two technologies. The electro adsorptive media captures pathogens and inorganic contaminants, and activated carbon adsorbs heavy metals, chemicals, odors and flavors. All you need to do is to fill the bottle with water and press the cartridge down. The cartridge is good for 350 presses which gives about 65 gallons of purified water. Using Grayl’s bottle saves money and helps reduce plastic waste. It is compact and fits most backpack pockets. This travel gear will make your adventure sustainable and keep you hydrated all the way.

Carry-on Closet 2.0 is an upgraded version of the Carry-on Closet with a built-in shelving system, USB charging port, and an indestructible polycarbonate shell.

The Solgaard team, being travelers themselves and adventurous inventors, know the hassle of packing from personal experience.

To make it easier and save travelers’ time, they created an innovative suitcase with a shelving system. It minimizes the packing time and keeps belongings organized.

The six-shelf system is self-supporting and stands on the handle of the suitcase. That allows for hassle-free packing and unpacking. After all the shelves are filled, you just compress them together and put inside the suitcase compartment. You can also pack it as you would a regular suitcase without using shelves. Just remove the shelf system and you’ll have extra space.

All the compartments lining is made of recycling plastic. The 20-inch suitcase is accepted by all airlines and its bigger brother by most airlines. The 1.0 version of this innovative travel gear was featured in Time Magazine’s Top 50 best inventions of 2018.

After mulling over this issue for a few weeks, I was led to the idea of washboards – they have been around for centuries and they work very efficiently.

When preparing for a trip to Mt Kilimanjaro with a friend, Ash Newland, an inventor from Australia, came up with an idea of Scrubba wash bag.

“During the planning stages for the trip, we realised that with all our cold weather and camping gear, we would only be able to pack a few changes of casual clothes.

This led to the issue of how we were going to wash our clothes every couple of days.

The downside is that they are bulky and still require a sink or bucket. It was then that I had the revelation that if we could incorporate a highly flexible washboard into a waterproof sealable bag, we could change the way people wash clothes while traveling”.

The pocket size wash bag will be an essential addition to any travel gear. It is perfect for camping and travel. It has a flexible internal washboard that gives you a machine quality wash. There are two sizes available – regular and mini (for lighter travelers). In a regular-sized bag you can wash up to six pieces of clothes, like socks, T-shirts, and underwear. Following simple instructions on the bag, you’ll get done with your laundry in five minutes.

Bait Bunker is the gear for those who love fishing trips. This bait container keeps the live bait fresh, alive, and easily accessible.

The oxygen pumping system brings fresh air into the container and thick walls protect the live bait from heat and cold. The recyclable plastic materials of the container are not corrosive and allow you to use it even when you fish in the sea.

The design features a splash-proof lid and the shape made for stability, as well as the seat attachment.

All this makes it convenient to use on a boat. There is also a strap for easy carrying.

Bait Bunker is good for all types of baits, like minnows, insects, and worms. You can use the bunker not only for storing bait and catch, but also to keep your things dry. This travel gear eliminates the need of buying disposable fishing bait buckets, saves money, and contributes to sustainability.

The idea of Bait Bunker came from M.O.S.S. outdoor gear and fishing experts, and was designed, developed and marketed by the LA NPDT team.

More project details in our Portfolio

Any traveler knows how hard it is to sleep on airplanes, trains or in cars. Sore neck, headaches and jetlag are inevitable. And two mechanical engineers, Michael Corrigan and David Kellock, know that first-hand.

After their extensive travelling experience, the started looking for the solution to these problems. Their in-depth research and the development of over 80 prototypes brought the Trtl Pillow to life.

The Trtl neck pillow combines super soft, hypoallergenic fleece with hidden internal neck support to hold your head and neck in the best position for sleeping.

The pillow has been scientifically proven to be better than a U-shaped neck pillow and has been strategically designed to prevent stiff necks and sore shoulders.

This means that you will never need to struggle to find a comfortable sleeping position again. This travel gear is very small and compact. You can wrap it around bag straps or put in your carry-on. The latest version is Trtl Pillow Plus. It has twisting toggles to adjust the height of the pillow and over 80 configurations to fit individual neck sizes. And the breathable mesh fabric helps to regulate temperature and avoid sweating.

Travel gear looks like a soft-goods category and behaves like an engineering one. Outdoor product design has to survive abrasion, UV exposure, temperature swings, repeated load cycles and airline handling - and it has to do it at a weight and price the buyer accepts. Most first prototypes fail on the fourth constraint, not the first.

Individual inventors who bring a tested prototype and a documented test protocol to a factory get better pricing and fewer surprises, because the factory is quoting a defined product rather than absorbing your unknowns into its margin.

The GRAYL Ultralight Purifier Bottle removes viruses, bacteria, chemicals, particles, and heavy metals from water. It uses a replaceable purifier cartridge with electro adsorptive media and activated carbon. The bottle was developed by Nancie Weston and Travis Merrigan to address plastic pollution and water quality concerns for travelers and those with limited safe drinking water access.

The Solgaard Carry-on Closet 2.0 is a suitcase with a built-in shelving system, a USB charging port, and an indestructible polycarbonate shell. It minimizes packing time and organizes belongings with a self-supporting six-shelf system. The lining is made from recycled plastic. This 20-inch suitcase is accepted by all airlines.

The Scrubba Wash Bag is a pocket-sized bag with a flexible internal washboard. It provides a machine-quality wash for clothes while traveling or camping. Users follow simple instructions on the bag to wash items in about five minutes. It was invented by Ash Newland for washing clothes on a trip.

The M.O.S.S. Bait Bunker is a bait container for fishing trips. It keeps live bait fresh and accessible with an oxygen pumping system and thick walls for temperature protection. It features a splash-proof lid, a stable design, a seat attachment, and a strap for carrying. The container is made from recyclable, non-corrosive plastic materials and can also keep items dry.

The Trtl Pillow is a neck pillow developed by mechanical engineers Michael Corrigan and David Kellock. It combines soft, hypoallergenic fleece with hidden internal neck support. This design holds the head and neck in a position suitable for sleeping during travel. The inventors conducted extensive research and developed over 80 prototypes.

The travel and outdoor products in this list share a design brief that punishes shortcuts: they get dropped, soaked, packed under load and left in hot cars. Outdoor product design therefore starts with an environmental specification, not a styling exercise, because the material and sealing choices that follow are hard to reverse later.

Sunscreen and insect repellent deserve specific mention: both attack common polymers and printed graphics. Testing your material against them costs very little and prevents a category of returns that looks like manufacturing failure but is actually a specification gap.