It’s anything-goes Wednesday, when we give you some tidbit (or in this case, tidbits) of travel info that didn’t make it into our other luxury family vacation posts…

• TechieDiva tells us about a UV sensor that tells you exactly when to head for shade. You input the relevant info, like level of SPF in your sunblock and type of skin, and it tells you when you’ve had enough sun. It also has cool extra features like a clock, so you can leave the watch in the hotel room. Although we haven’t personally laid eyes on one, it’s a great idea, especially for those of us who watch our kids’ skin like hawks but aren’t quite so diligent with our own.

• If you’ve always wanted a towel with its own matching bag (gasp!), Mommies With Style clued us in on where to get one. You know, it’s one of those things where, when we first saw it, we thought, oh, how cool! We want one! And then we thought, wait a minute – we can just put a towel – in another bag! That doesn’t match! And that’s okay! So why are we still telling you about it? Because at the end of the day, none of what we’re doing here is about necessity, is it?

• Want to see exactly where a hotel is? Check out Hotel World Map from Hotels.com. Powered by Google, the map shows you where all the hotels in a selected location are, as well as any tourist attractions…

• Now here’s a really cool link for your next family vacation, especially for you over-packers that are accustomed to lugging the kitchen sink along in your Louis Vuitton luggage “just in case”. The Universal Packing List is a simple website in which you can input all the details of your upcoming trip: when you’re going, what type of accommodations you’ll be staying in, who’s going with, temperature, how large your bags are, etc. Click on the button and the site generates a list for you that even includes things you might need to take care ahead of time, like arranging for pet care (God help you if you forgot Fido). To test it out, we input a trip to the USVI in September, and got back a list of 217 items including a to-do list that reminded us to get a vaccination for the plague. Uh, what? Okay, so it’s not perfect, but it is interesting, and for the most part, the recommendations actually do make sense.

• Traveling with a child who still likes a bedtime story? Keep up the routine without lugging a lot of books with the East of the Web’s Short Stories site. You can choose stories by length or decide whether to go with a classic or contemporary tale. Sadly, the age-appropriate factor seems to be there but not in use – all stories have an age rating of U (undecided? unlimited? underage?). Still, you can scan the shorter short stories yourself to decide, and print out your favorites or download them to a PDA before traveling. Extra cool part? After the little ones fall asleep, grab a drink, sit on the terrace/lanai/patio/balcony and read something for yourself: the site also has selections in humor, horror, romance, sci-fi – you get the drift.

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