Weekly Travel Hack: The Gatorade Triple Threat

6 comments // Written by Stephen on June 20 2013 in Motorcycling, Tips & Travel Hacks

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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Weekly Travel Hack.  Last week we learned how to charge our phone with a TV and this week we are going to learn how use a Gatorade bottle for three, yes three, handy dandy tasks.

Gatorade bottles have become surprisingly useful in my journeys and when I wanted to write a travel hack article about it I began to realize I actually use the bottles for several different things. Thus, the Gatorade triple threat article was born, so now instead of one Travel Hack this week you get three for the low low price of, well, nothing….free loaders.

Anyways, aside from being chockfull of electrolytes, an excellent hydration source, and a usual go to alleviation cure for my hangovers, I’ve found that Gatorade can actually serve many other purposes. So with no further ado, here are this week’s Travel Hacks:

1.)    If you have a phone, or even better a smartphone with a flashlight screen app, you can place it underneath a Gatorade bottle to create an instant lantern in either your dark tent or hostel.  The reason this works so well is that the Gatorade bottle distributes the light from the direct beam of your phone to illuminate a larger area. Let there be light.

2.) Of the three Travel Hacks this week this one takes the most work, which is still not much work or else it wouldn’t be a travel hack.  Have you ever had a bag of trail mix in your backpack and you just can’t get it to seal and then for the next few weeks you are picking crumbs and melted chocolate out of the contents of your bag? I have. Surprise I’m not perfect, but with this Travel Hack we can nip this problem in the butt.

First, you’re going to need a trusty pocketknife, an empty Gatorade bottle, and your delicious bag of trail mix.

Second, you’re going to take the knife and cut the top quarter off the Gatorade bottle.

Third, you’re going to take your bag of trail mix and pull it through the top of the bottle you just cut off.

Fourth, you’re going to pull the trail mix bag that is overlapping the top down around the edges where you would screw the lid onto the bottle.

Finally, you are going to screw on your lid on over the bag overlap and never have to worry about spilling trail mix in your bag again.  Take that melty chocolate trail mix; from now on the only place you’ll be melting is in my mouth, boo yah!

3.)    If you’ve read much on this site you’ll know I pretty much love motorcycles. This next Travel Hack is for the motorcycle enthusiasts out there and was taught to me by my good buddy Mark (The Peach) while we were riding our motorcycles through the deserts of the Southwest US. When on a motorcycle sometimes you go on long rides through desolate areas, like the desert, and gas stations can become few and far between. This is a problem when your gas tank only holds three gallons. That’s where this Travel Hack comes in, the Gatorade Jerry Can. For those that don’t know what a Jerry Can is, it is just a small container, usually steel or plastic that you fill with gas and tow around on your bike or car in case you run out.

On a long trip, Mark and his buddy Dave needed a Jerry Can, but all the ones for sale were too damn big to fit on their bikes, they needed something sleek and small with just the right amount of gas to get them to where they were going. They went into mad scientist mode and bought an array of bottled liquids from the gas station, water bottles, Gatorade bottles, soda bottles, etc., and filled them with gas to test each to find which would hold gasoline the best.  For whatever reason, the Gatorade bottle never leaked unlike the other bottles, the seal to the lid was superior to the rest, and thus the Gatorade Jerry Can was born and the knowledge passed on after the experiment.  So, in short, a Gatorade bottle makes an excellent Jerry Can when you are in a pinch on a motorcycle and need to carry some extra petrol.

Lastly, I want to say that filling bottles with gasoline and carrying them on motorcycles can be dangerous if you wreck, do this at your own risk. Also, probably don’t do all three of these hacks at once, it is probably not a good idea to fill a Gatorade bottle with gas and trail mix and then put an illuminated cell phone under it, safety first travelers. That wraps up this week’s Gatorade Travel Hacks, may your journeys be filled with hydration, your gas tanks remain full, your lanterns be bright, and your trail mix be non-melted.

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