MSNBC.com 2000: “Great gifts for millennium grads”

Go with less

MSNBC.com Living Shopping — May 23, 2000

By Teri Goldberg

For travelers or parents on tighter budgets, check out Walkabout Travel Gear. Based in Moab, Utah, the travel gear company stocks some very simple devices that will help your graduate negotiate foreign territory for a lot less “dinero” or “moula.” For only $4.50, the Kwikpoint International Translator, a three-paneled, two-sided brochure requires no technical and barely any intellectual ability. Just point to one of the more than 400 illustrations on the heavy-coated plastic and “you’re there,” as the saying goes. Objects and situations pictured range from food to shelter to shopping. The company claims that Kwikpoint is “issued to all U.S. Marines abroad, and used by the International Monetary Fund, and many international companies.”

Despite their excellent training, some graduates may need some help with exchange rates. For the mathematically challenged, you can pick up a currency converter for only $14 that works as a calculator as well. The 3 1/2-by-2-inch device converts currency and has a memory bank that keeps track of trip expenditures. An even cheaper option is a credit-card calculator. The solar-powered calculator weighs less than the converter and never runs out of batteries. Batteries also tend to be expensive overseas.