The Gamer Traveler only travels with Geeky Clean soaps.

I told the tale of how I came across Geeky Clean soaps in a previous post, and I promised that I would do a review as well. Here we go!

Just from looking at them, Geeky Clean soaps are unique; they look good (when was the last time you said that about a soap?), and are packaged simply but nicely with themed wrappers and clear cellophane. They are something you can feel good about giving as a gift because they look luxurious. At about 4″ x 2″ in size, these are hefty pieces of geeky hygiene.

When you open a Geeky Clean soap, the scent is overwhelming, and the three soaps I had the pleasure of trying out–Mana, Health and Barbarian Scrub–smelled just amazing. And of course, let’s not forget or ignore what makes these soaps geeky, the embedded d20 die right in the center, floating in a sea of colored and scented glycerin (and all the other not-animal-tested, Vegan-friendly ingredients). It’s a basic, solid-colored die like the ones gamers already have hundreds of, but that did not diminish my glee at knowing I’d have 3 more dice once the review process was done!

I loved all three soaps I used. They each had individual scent profiles that set them apart, but they were all just fantastic. Health has a sharp Nag Champa scent that really revitalizes (I used this one after a long day of plane travel and it perked me up) with a hint of coconut somewhere in the background. Mana brings the coconut oil to the forefront and makes for a very crisp, refreshing shower. Barbarian Scrub has spiced orange as its primary scent and the citrusy kick was just great, not to mention the apricot seed scrubbies floating in the soap which felt just so good. If I had to pick my favorite of the three I tried, I’d go with Barbarian Scrub.

I know, it’s hard to review soaps without wandering into TMI land.

Each soap lasted between 10-12 washes (consider I am 6′ tall and of portly size when figuring out how many washes that would translate into based on your size), and I’m happy to say that from start to finish, each soap held its scent wonderfully. I had no problem using the soaps, but my wife found them way too big for her hand and kept dropping them until they’d shrunk to about 2/3 of their original size. The d20 die does not interfere with the soaping process at the start, but about 3-4 washes in, it would start to protrude from the surface of the soap. Personally I did not mind; the die kinda gives you a massage as you lather up, but my wife hated it and I’d always end up pushing it out about midway through the soap’s lifespan. And while I have no complaints about the soaps in general, I did not feel at all the exfoliating spheres supposed to be in Health, and found myself wanting more apricot seeds (and better distributed throughout the whole soap) in Barbarian Scrub.

Priced at around $5, these aren’t soaps for day-to-day bathing, but they make a perfect and utterly geeky gift that’s useful as well.

10 Days in Europe by Out of the Box Games is that rare boardgame that offers the perfect combination of a fun-filled and an educational experience. A simple and elegant game, 10 Days in Europe‘s mix of luck and strategy wrapped around the “vacation in Europe” theme makes it appealing and accessible to a wide variety of ages.

All 10 Days games are based around the same idea: string together a 10-day trip using a combination of interconnected location and transportation tiles. In this edition, the locations are drawn from all of Europe (from Iceland to Turkey) and the transportation options include airplanes and boats. Each country has one tile (except for six of them, which have two) assigned to one of five colors, and there are ten Airplane Tiles (two per color) and nine Ship Tiles covering the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Baltic. The box also comes with four sets of wooden tile holders (two per set) tracking each day in the 10-day trip and the gorgeous game board.

At its core, 10 Days in Europe is a tile-arranging game that uses the board map for reference. You mix all the tiles together face down and each player proceeds to take ten tiles, placing them in their holder in any order they wish, though once placed it cannot be moved. The rest of the tiles are put into a pile and the top three are turned face up to form three discard piles. The idea is to try to make the best out of your initial tiles, and though serendipity sometimes smiles on you, you’ll most likely end up scratching your head trying to figure out how to make a trip out it all.

Each player in turn then has the chance to trade a tile in their holder for one on the table, be it one drawn from the face down draw pile, or from one of the top choices in the face up discard piles. This is the only way to move tiles in your holder around, and there’s always the risk that when you put a tile down, another player will take it. You string together countries by geographical proximity (some countries have bridges or ferries between them that make them connected), which is where the map comes in handy, and use transportation tiles to bridge gaps between them. Airplane Tiles can connect two countries of the same color and Ship Tiles connect countries that have at least one coast on that body of water. Once you have put together your 10-day trip, you win!

This is a great game for any travel enthusiast and an ideal fit for a family game night, especially if you are planning a trip to Europe in the near future. The game also has a high educational component, as each Country Tile lists the name of the country along with its capital, and the necessary use of the map for reference increases geographical knowledge through gameplay. You can check out a video demo of the game at the product page.

10 Days in Europe retails for $24.95, a good price for the high replay value you get out of it.

10 Days in Africa/Asia/the USA

The other three games in the series play the same way, though each introduces some variations in the modes of transportation. USA and Africa feature Automobile Tiles that allow you to connect two states/countries as long as these share a border with a third one in the middle (you’re in effect driving through it), and Asia introduces Railroad Tiles that allow you to connect two countries that lie along the established train routes on the map. I recommend all titles equally.