LIFESTYLE️
LIFESTYLE️
HESTIA SMART TELESCOPE
It feels like we’re seeing into the future here, but it’s really only space we’re seeing into. Boring old space, with all its dumb constellations, silly sparkling stars, extraordinary planets… wait what?
The brand-new eHHestia is a telescope through your smartphone. Imagine if, you’d told Italian Antonio Meucci when he invented the first, primitive, telephone in 1849 that one day his invention would advance to the point where you’d be able to see into space with it. Moon pie people, moon pie.
Thought up and built by telescope makers Vaonis, the Hestia is more of an advancement in astrophotography that astronomy per se. It’s small, box like device which connects to your phone amplifies brightness of the night sky by up to 25 times on your phone, and enhance sharpness fivefold, making even the most amateur of photographers able to take some cool photos.
What we think is cool, is how it promises a interactive map of the sky, making an astronomy tower’s worth of astronomical information just a tap away. It’s expected to drop early 2024, with a price of only AU$189—not bad for an entire universe.
LAUNCHING EARLY-2024 FROM AU$189
EURAIL PASS
Europe is synonymous with train travel, for about a million excellent reasons. It’s flexible, there’s thousands of different stations to choose from, customs is a heck of a lot easier and it deposits you smack dab in the centre of key destinations.
Last month we used Eurail Pass to hightail it from the Swiss Alps over to a ridiculously green corner of England (Shropshire, to be exact).
Some trains were high-speed, some were delightfully local—but all of them were easy to book and easy to board. Big shout out to their offline mobile app, yew yew! Sneaky tip: If you’ve got the funds to travel First Class, the seats are crazy comfy and there’s a TEA TROLLEY that comes around on UK trains. A tea trolley offering biscuits. Doesn’t get better than that.
BEENLEIGH RUM
Rum is the new water.
At least that’s what the kids are saying these days on the streets (citation unavailable for this claim but trust us, they are), and in the streets of China they’re saying next year is the Year of the Dragon, which it definitely is in the Lunar year.
It makes sense then that Aussie distillers Beenleigh are releasing Dragon Release Rum, an exclusive and limited-edition blend crafted from an exquisite selection of rum that’s been aged in barrels for up to eight years in tribute to the 2024 Year of the Dragon. We’ve had a taste: it’s full of spiced oak and scorched toffee notes, giving way to honey, more oak and lingering florals. Just like a dragon.
Beenleigh is the oldest operating distillery in the country—numero uno (number one) ever since an abandoned steamboat with an epic copper still washed up on the Beenleigh sugarcane property in Queensland. Copper still + sugarcane: what else was there to do, besides make rum? And we’re glad they did.
FROM AU$160
HORIZN
Horizn is a luggage brand with the motto Let’s Go Further.
This is something, as the kids say, that we can totally fuck with. It’s right up our alley, and the next time we’re going further in a far-flung city in Eastern Europe somewhere, we’ll be bringing with us one from the Horizn RE Series, which seems to have gone further than most when it comes to sustainability: On the outside is 97% recycled polycarbonate hard shell protecting your most important gear, and on the inside is high-end, water-resistant lining. It’s also 100% vegan. The Sofo Rolltop Backpack is really cool too—a smaller option with a padded compartment for your laptop—ideal for the on-the-go worker.
This is the sort of gear to make you look chic as, in airports, walking the streets of a new city, or pretty much anywhere. We absolutely love it.
SOFO ROLLTOP BACKPACK FROM AU$232
RE SERIES FROM AU$537
VACAY SWIMWEAR
We on vacay, baby!
Launched in Adelaide in 2016, it’s been a slow burn for swimwear brand Vacay, but their range of spicy men’s shorts now seem to be on every set of men’s legs at the beach this summer. They were even on Mark Wahlberg’s legs, the Hollywood big shot you will remember from lead roles in The Fighter and Ted and wish you didn’t remember from his lead role in the early 90s rap abomination Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
The Vacay men’s range seemed to somehow make this writer’s unsexy rig sexy, and judging by their marketing, sexy rigs even sexier. Better yet, they’ve just released their first range of women’s gear. They describe themselves as “vacation inspired swimwear for the travel inspired.” and it’s not difficult to picture ourselves in Vacay gear on a Croatian beach, sipping cocktails with low-fi beats playing somewhere nearby. Take me there now, pls.
FROM AU$59
get in the know Expected to be completed in 2025, Chile is building the Giant Magellan Telescope which will have a telescopic power 10 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope, and four times that of the James Webb Space Telescope. More than enough to see Uranus.
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