Best GJ Guitar for Serious Travel???

TimW

I am going to be backpacking around SE Asia, India and Nepal for 6 months and am trying to decide what guitar to take. I have been pondering some sort of backpacker or 3/4 guitar but I am starting to think that the difficulty of carrying around a full size may be worth the joy of being able to play one every day. The ideal guitar would be: inexpensive, light weight, could tolerate various climates (high humidity) and durable. I have pretty small hands, so a low profile neck would be an added bonus. I would welcome any thoughts that you all have --also any thoughts on best padded gig bags that could be strapped to a backpack!

Jim Kaznosky

Have you given thought to a parlor type guitar?

pickitjohn

I was getting the crack repaired on My Altamire M01D I'm so glad I got from Michael here at Djanjobooks.

Thanks! It's great, new Tuners, a Dupont bridge, and it sounds wonderful. 8)

To the point:

While I was there they just started carrying

Journey Instruments "Overhead" travel guitar

Very impressive they are also making a carbon base model might be best for the conditions of your travels. I didn't play that model.

Here is a link to a youtube of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7vui4D6yUI

have a great trip and pick on

pickitjohn

TimW

The Journey and Dupont suggestions make sense for the purpose of carrying but I agree with Stuart's comment that I don't want to take anything that I couldn't afford to lose or break. I have tried a few 3/4 guitars (are the Parlor guitars much different?) but I am really hoping spend a lot of time working on technique and not being able to rest my arm on the guitar really seems to hinder a solid le pompe and strong single note attack. I am a lot less concerned with what it sounds like than the ability to put in practice time on something that can facilitate improving my technique rather than wrecking it.

I was even thinking about taking my Martin Backpacker (from my folky days in the past) and trying to create some sort of shell for it (maybe out of a dense foam) that would make it fit in my arms like a full size guitar but could then detach the shell from the guitar fasten it all to my backpack (ok, it was late at night when I was pondering this and it seemed reasonable at the time).

jonpowl

Here is a link to an interesting Yamaha, available in steel or nylon string (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SLG110S). This guitar would require headphones, perfect for practice but bad for jamming. I would either take a Cigano or a Martin Backpacker. You could also buy one when you get there and sell it before you return home like I did in Costa Rica.

klaatu

Here's another company making folding travel guitars:
http://www.voyageairguitar.com

They're mostly flattops, but they would certainly pack well. Their lower end models are pretty inexpensive.

Buco

TimW wrote:

The ideal guitar would be: inexpensive, light weight, could tolerate various climates (high humidity) and durable. I have pretty small hands, so a low profile neck would be an added bonus. I would welcome any thoughts that you all have --also any thoughts on best padded gig bags that could be strapped to a backpack!

Here's one vote for ukelele.

I picked up a concert sized ukelele to bring with for my trips and vacations.
You get to learn a new instrument, it's super easy to carry around (I don't even have to put it in the overhead bin I just keep it under the seat or next to me), great conversation starter, fun to play, sounds great, people love to hear it and everyone is impressed how "so much music comes out of that small thing".

I got a very nice sounding laminate model so not too much worries about different climates, and it set me back only around $140.
When I come back home my calluses are still there and I'm actually forming a callus on my picking thumb ala Wes M which is totally awesome.
I find even though I'm playing a different instrument and not a guitar, as long as I'm keeping my brain and my fingers musically active I don't notice I'm taking several steps backwards when I return home from traveling as when I did before when I wasn't playing any music while traveling.

Oh and you don't need a padded gig bag, you simply stick it in you back pack.

It's easy to switch over, I learned all the basic chords in about a week of playing.
It's tuned a 4th above or a 5th bellow. I'm never sure what's referred to as above and what's bellow but open D chord becomes G and open A becomes D and so on.
Anyway, pretty easy for a guitar player to pick up the basics and play some tunes.

See, if you replace "guitar" with "uke" every single one of your requirements is covered.

Buco