Passports with Purpose

Join me in supporting Passports with Purpose

StuckatTheAirport.com is pleased and honored to join the travel bloggers around the world participating in this year’s Passports with Purpose effort to raise funds for a great cause.

Last year the group raised more than $100,000 to fund 5 water wells in Haiti through Water.org.

This year the goal is to raise $115,000 to construct three schools and fund three adult literacy programs with buildOn in the Sikasso region of southern Mali, Africa

Contributions to the project are tax-deductible and, better yet, each $10 you kick in gets you an entry in a prize drawing for some incredibly cool and useful items; everything from hotel stays and airline tickets to electronics and travel gear.

Where do all the cool prizes come from?

Each participating travel blogger has a “prize partner” and once again this year my prize partner is Minimus.biz, a great on-line site that stocks travel and individual-size items in every category you can think of: food and beverage, household, pharmacy, toys and games, travel and survival.

Minimus.biz is donating a surprise box filled with at least $100 worth of essential, curious and luxury travel-sized items. And if you don’t like surprises, they’ll also work directly with you to fill up a box with specific items of your choosing. Last year, for example, Minimus.biz co-founder Paul Shrater helped the prize winner shop the “aisles” and fill the box with items that would please an entire family.

 There are more than 2500 items on the Minimus.biz shelves, but here are few of my favorites:

Among the hand sanitizers in the Personal Care aisle, you’ll find organic options that smell like lavender or peppermint.

lavender

In the Travel Accessories aisle, they offer mini-rolls of duct tape.

The Emergency Supplies aisle offers everything from ponchos and shelf-stable foods to light sticks and survival kits.

And in the New Products aisle I found one of my new travel-size favorites: an easy-to-carry plastic egg filled with Silly Putty.

Silly Putty

The basics: funding clean drinking water in Haiti

Feelish elfish? I am.

And this year I’m once again participating in a project called Passports with Purpose: an ever-expanding group of travel bloggers who band together to raise funds for a great cause.

Now in its fifth year, the project has partnered with other great programs to do things like build a school in Cambodia, twenty-five homes in South India and a pair of libraries in Zambia.

This year, the goal is to raise $100,00 to build five wells in Haiti, in partnership with Water.org.

You can learn more about that organization and this year’s project here.

Contributions are tax-deductible and each $10 you kick in gets you an entry in a prize drawing for some incredibly cool and useful items; everything from hotel stays and airline tickets to travel gear, classes and clothing. The donation path starts here.

Each participating travel blogger has a “prize partner” and, once again, my prize partner is Minimus.biz, which is offering a surprise box chock-full of more than $100 worth of essential, curious, luxury and really fun, travel-sized items that they’ll mix up just for you – and pick up the shipping. (If the prize isn’t posted yet, it should be momentarily).

Help needed: building libraries in Zambia

Feeling elfish? I am.

 

And this year I’m participating, once again, in a project called Passports with Purpose:  an ever-expanding group of travel bloggers who band together to raise funds for a great cause.

In 2010 the group raised more than $64,000 to build a village in India to improve lives of the Dalit (untouchable) population in India.

In 2009, almost $30,000 was raised to build a school in rural Cambodia (complete with a school nurse).

This year, the goal is to raise $80,000 to build two libraries for children in Zambia, through a partnership with Room To Read.

Contributions to the project are tax-deductible, but each $10 you kick in gets you an entry in a prize drawing for some incredibly cool and useful items; everything from hotel stays and airline tickets to electronics and travel gear.

I asked the folks at Minimus.biz to be my “prize partner” again this year.

So if you donate to the Passports with Purpose project, be sure to enter to win the Minimus.biz surprise box which is chock-full of at about $100 worth of essential, curious, luxury and really fun, travel-sized items.
(If that prize isn’t on the list yet, it will be shortly…)

Minimus.biz surprise bag

Minimus.biz stocks travel-sized items in every category you can think of: food and beverage, household, pharmacy, cosmetics, toys & games, travel and survival. The first time I checked out the site I was looking for TSA-friendly hair care products, but I found a whole section of single-serving food products, travel-sized rolls of duct tape, toilet paper and seat covers, emergency supplies, a specialty boutique and themed kits like this one for germophobes.

Your donation of just $10 can really help. So please take a look at the project site and join me in making this year’s Passports with Purpose project a success.

Souvenir Sunday: tiny travel items and free in-flight Wi-Fi

Free Wi-FI at airport

This weekend kicks off a great holiday promotion that provides travelers with a truly useful travel souvenir. Depending on when you travel, you’ll be able to get free in-flight Wi-Fi on four airlines: Air Tran, Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Virgin America.

Domestic travelers on Air Tran, Delta and Virgin America will be able to use the Gogo Inflight Internet for free on all Wi-Fi equipped planes from now through January 2, 2011. (Thank-you, Google Chrome). Travelers on Alaska Airlines can log on to Gogo for free from now through December 9, 2010.  (Thank-you, Honda.)

While you’re up there poking around the Internet for free, please take a moment to look at the Passports with Purposes website.

A word-wide team of bloggers has banded together to try to raise $50,000 to build a village in India.

Last time I looked, the heart-shaped thermometer showed we were just $15,000 short of the goal.

The project on its own is quite worthy, but each $10 you donate gets you an entry ticket for one of a boatload of great prizes, everything from plane tickets and hotel stays to upscale travel gear, an iPod, an iPad and swanky vacation packages.

My prize partner for the project is Mimimus.biz, the popular website that stocks pretty much anything you can think of in travel-sized and single-serving sizes.

minimus.biz hummus dip

They’ve donated a surprise box stuffed with essential, curious and luxury travel-sized items that I hope will include the organic Amazonian lip balm that comes packaged in a tree nut, TSA-friendly single servings of hummus and the Duncan Imperial Yo-Yo keychain.

minimus.biz imperial duncan Yo-Yo key chain