Camping equipment stores sell whole meals in a packet that are dehydrated and only need boiled water. "wilderness dining" a friend of mine calls it.

Portugal is not the wilderness. Local food is such a huge part of travel!

Agreed. And I hope to do some fabulous dining. Local food is probably 40% of what I like about traveling. But if I get a cup of coffee in my pj's, and can grab something inexpensively here and there for breakfast or for lunch, that's just more to spend on dinner and wine.

Make sure you try a "bica" at Pastelaria Suica on Placa Rossio. Sit, enjoy and people watch.

If your coffeemaking method requires paper filters, take a supply. Surprisingly, they are not always easy to find. For example in London last summer the supermarkets had lots of "coffee packs" but no plain filters.

Re buying breakfast at your hotel, the prices may seem high but it's worth checking out. Some hotels have great buffet breakfasts. You can drink all the juice, coffee etc. you want and eat as much as you like. This is not true of cafes. You can also take a bit extra (e.g. pastry, fruit) for snacks. Of course if you're a coffee-only person until about noon, then this idea isn't for you. Spouse and I ate breakfasts like royalty in European hotels and even found that we could easily skip lunch.

I use Maxwell House coffee singles at work for convenience. I'm admittedly not a coffee afficionado, but I like the taste of them. They look similar to a teabag and are for one use only. You would just need to heat up water and dunk them in.

For the first cup of coffee, the coffee single is perfect. Just make sure you read the directions. There is a certain amount of brewing and then dunking you must do to make them decent.

I was at REI today - they have a collapsible silicone coffee funnel. You use it with a filter. It collapses into about a six-inch disk that's 1/2 inch thick. That should travel better than my molded Melitta plastic cone. It's a bit heavy at 4 ounces, heavier than my plastic cone, but probably worth it for the space trade-off. This will go nicely with my kettle.

Instead of using "instant", I buy those single serving Folgers coffee bags. They look like tea bags, but are actually brewed coffee.

I also bring along a few packs of hot cocoa. As has been said earlier, sometimes I just want to sit back and relax before or after a long day with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate. If my apartment has a terrace, it makes all the difference in the world.

A few years back I picked up a 1 ltr hot pot (I think in Scotland) and take it with me on each trip. It really doesn't take up any extra room, as I pack things like socks and small stuff inside of it. I do the same with two insulated plastic cups.

dave

spcfa
Can you post the link for the kettle? I will be in Portugal and I would love to get one of those kettles for our 2 months adventure.

http://www.elcorteingles.es/hogar/pr...pam=3&tpam=ses

this should work - in Portuguese it's called a "hervidor de viaje" (heater/kettle of travel) in case it doesn't

That is the Spanish website, not the Portuguese. I wonder if they have it in Portugal. The portuguese website doesn't show kitchen stuff.

http://www.elcorteingles.pt/

My guess is that they should have them in both places.
I also saw this one on ebay...

http://cgi.ebay.com/travel-electric-...item45f312090c

I'm going on the premise that it's available in the Lisbon store.

kilikavc My French Press is glass and I am glad you reminded me I owned one. Is your press glass? I'm with the original poster of this topic. I adore a cup of black, dark coffee as soon as I awaken. I don't know about you all, but I cannot and would rather not, take my toilette and get dressed in a hurry while on vacation.