LUSH brand fresh, handmade soaps are fantastic. A new soap, 13 Soap Unlucky for Dirt, takes the natural route to fighting off bacteria with the inclusion of oregano oil. Oregano oil is a natural antibiotic, and it’s a strong antifungal, antiviral oil as well.  This is no myth:  In fact, nurses have started using oregano oil to help prevent catching the antibiotic-resistant superbug staphylococus aureus (MRSA). Further, the Journal of Applied Microbiology reported (2000) that oregano oil fights off 25 different bacteria in lab tests.  LUSH created 13 Soap Unlucky for Dirt to provide a natural alternative to other antibiotic soaps – and it smells better, too. Along with the oregano oil, there’s honey and rose petals for a floral scent (rather than, er, a pizza scent).

We’re giving away 13 bars of 13 soap to one LUCKY winner. Yes, in this case, 13 will be someone’s lucky number! That’s enough soap to keep yourself clean for many, many travel adventures. Just leave a comment below describing the most disgustingly germy place you’ve been (no need to get gross in your description if you don’t wanna). In other words, let’s hear about a place where having a bar of 13 Soap Unlucky for Dirt would have really been useful. Enter until 11:59 p.m. (EST) Tuesday, September 8, 2009. We’ll choose a comment number at random, and annouce a winner Wednesday, September 9. (One entry per person; US mailing addresses only.) Have fun with this, and remember to wash your hands afterwards.

The small (2 inches squared) music player comes with a card that’s preloaded with 1,000 songs from Billboard artists, all arranged in playlists by genre and style: Country, Contemporary, R&B/Hip Hop, Alternative, Rock, Workout and Chillout. You cannot see a list of the songs for each playlist — and they are nowhere to be found online — so you never know what song is coming up next. (This is especially fun when you’re listening to a playlist for the first time.) You cannot re-arrange or go backwards to find a song that has previously played — but you can skip ahead as often as you like. As each song is played, like an iPod, the song title and artist is displayed on a small screen.

At $99.99, the slotRadio is not cheap — but you do get 1,000 songs on the disk; that’s only 10 cents per song (of course, if you hate country, the price per song you’ll listen to goes up). The player is also an FM radio. I think it’s overall a great deal, again for someone isn’t particularly particular about her music.

Other slotRadio cards with 1,000 songs each are available in 80s/90s, Oldies, Country, Hip-Hop/R&B, Rock (with more to come) for $50 a piece. Considering I pay 99 cents per song when I download them from Apple, this is a bargain at 5 cents a song. Note, however, that there’s no back-up like iTunes stored on your hard drive — if you lose the disk, you’re out of luck as there’s no replacement.

I’ll keep close watch on my slotRadio when it accompanies me on my plane trip next month. Aircraft cruising at 35,000 feet is one place I do like to have background music — to drown out plane engines and chatty seatmates. Since I’m not a music fanatic, quite frankly, some of these songs are brand new to me. But some oldies but goodies from The Police, Tom Petty and U2 that bring smiles to my face.

I’d love to see a Traveling Mamas reader enjoy the slotRadio, too! Yep, one lucky reader is going to win their very own music player. Just leave a comment below answering this question, “What one song would you like to see on a SanDisk slotRadio playlist?” I’ll generate a random number from Random.org Tuesday night (you have until 10 p.m. EST, August 25 to enter) to select the winner. U.S. residents only; no immediate family members of the Traveling Mamas.

Good luck!

A very cool feature is that the unused tickets are transferable, which means you can pass leftover tickets on to friends or family.

CityPass has generously offered a Traveling Mamas reader a prize of two adult and two youth tickets for any CityPass big city destinations (a $200 value!). If you win you may choose from New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Hollywood, Houston, Atlanta, or Toronto Canada. (Sorry, Southern California is excluded).

How to win: Leave a comment below telling us which pass you would pick and why. One entry per person per day. The contest will run through July 21  (midnight PST) when we will randomly select the winner at random.org and announce him or her on Wednesday July 22. US residents only; one entry per person, please.

Good luck!

Q grew up camping in the backwoods, running rivers in Alaska and taking exotic trips to places like the Galapagos Islands and Belize. I grew up taking 12-hour annual summer road trips to Ohio to visit Grandma. Oh, we did take a much-anticipated Big Deal trip to Disney World when I was 10. (By the way, mom, I’m not knocking my childhood at all, just sayin’ that long plane trips were not the norm for us.)

While I did fly overseas (by myself!) for the first time when I was 18, and I did the requisite two weeks of backpacking through Europe before studying abroad for a semester, honestly, I didn’t travel too much in my 20s. That is, until I met Q — ironically enough, when we were both working for the same travel company. Employed by a tour operator, part of our benefits included free trips to worldwide locations. Before we were engaged, we went to Costa Rica and Hawaii, courtesy of our employer. Outside of work Q introduced me to the awesome desert in Moab, Utah, and beaches in Mexico — two places I count among my favorites today.

I feel so lucky I married someone who, when I say, “Let’s go somewhere,” he replies, “It’ll take me 20 minutes to pack.” We’ll sooner spend paychecks on vacations than electronics (to wit, I have no iPhone or oversized living-room TV). Our kids are well schooled in how to behave in the airport security line, since both have flown regularly since they were three months old.

It’s only fitting that we’re not at home on our 10th wedding anniversary, but instead on the road. While I’d hoped to orchestrate a big ol’ anniversary celebration and vow renewal on a beach (or cruise ship), our summer schedule (and lack of finances due to the crummy economy, not to mention other trips in the past year) just didn’t permit it.

For our anniversary, we’re not sipping frothy drinks on white sand, but rather spending the day with a handful of my very best friends from college, their spouses and kids (yep, we number more than 20 in all) at a vacation rental in southern New Hampshire. Exotic: no. Incredible that we actually managed to execute a long weekend with so many of us hailing from all corners of the country: absolutely.

More often it’s much less about where you are, but who you’re with.

Happy anniversary, Q! I look forward to so many more travels with you — no matter where in the world our adventures take us.

I am thrilled that it sounds like the Skip Hop Duo Deluxe Edition Diaper Bag in Navy Blossom will go to someone who can truly use it.

Aisling, I’ll email you to get your snail mail address.

Again, we select all of our giveaway winners via the random number generator random.org. If you didn’t win this time, keep an eye on TravelingMamas.com — we love to give stuff away, and we’ll likely hold another giveaway soon!

We’ve partnered with the folks at AllModernBaby.com to give to a lucky reader one of the site’s best-selling items: the Skip Hop Duo Deluxe Edition Diaper Bag in Navy Blossom. While I’ve not seen this item in person, reviews on the site suggest that the medium-sized shoulder bag has great pockets with magnetic closures — and that the color is closer to black than navy.

All Modern Baby is a contemporary children’s furniture site that carries leading manufacturers such as Stokke, DwellStudio, and Bugaboo. It sells not only items for the home, but also travel-related gear, too, like strollers and baby carriers. Many of the products are hip and high end (strollers for $1,200!), but it’s certainly a pretty, easy-to-navigate site for browsing and dreaming if prices are too steep for your pocketbook.

All you need to do to win this diaper bag is tell us in the comments why you want to win it: to have a spare one on hand, you’re expecting a baby, you’ve worn out your old bag… or you just think it’s cool!

Leave a comment below to enter until midnight Tuesday, June 30. We’ll pull a name randomly (with a random-number generator) and announce a winner on Winning Wednesday, July 1. Only one entrant per person, U.S. only; no immediate relatives of Traveling Mamas. Good luck!

Tell us a little about TwitterMoms; what inspired you to create it, and what would you like to see happen with it in the future?

As a stay at home mom, you sometimes don’t get enough adult interaction during the day. Twitter was great for connecting with friends, and I noticed a lot of interesting moms on it – but no easy way to learn more about them, or make decisions about who would be really interesting to connect with on Twitter.

My husband joked about starting a site to fill that niche. On Sept. 2, 2008 I had roughed out the concept on Ning (a free “build your own social network” web hosting company). I added the URL to my Twitter profile and the next morning we had four members. A month later, membership rushed past 2,200 active members, and now stands around 16,000. It’s been quite a rush!

For the future of TwitterMoms, I would like to continue to offer the moms high-quality opportunities and resources from the media, marketers or other moms. I want to give my members value that could possibly help them in either their professional or family life.

We believe that any mama can be a Traveling Mama. Where are some places you’ve vacationed with your children?

Well, I love to travel – it’s one of my passions that I would like to pass down to my kids. But since they are so young right now I’ve really only taken them to places to visit family like Colorado to go skiing with their cousins, Florida and Indiana to visit the grandparents. However, I plan to travel internationally with them when they are older.

Since becoming a mother, have you had to travel without your family?

Funny you should ask I’m leaving for a business trip to New York without my kids in a couple of days. It’s the longest time I have ever been away from them. On one hand, I’m very excited about having a break, but on the other, I will miss them so much.

Where is the one place you’d most like to vacation with your children?

Italy. Because I want to give my children the opportunity to learn about another culture and experience a different world outside of their bubble. And, I love the food, language and people. My dream vacation would be to rent a villa in Tuscany for many weeks and take trips to Florence, Venice and Rome. Wow! I would love that.

Thank you, Megan! And for the uninitiated, you can find Megan at Twittermoms, or on Twitter as, well…her Twitter name should be no surprise. Thanks for letting us get to know you better, Megan!

My family tested the Motorola Talkabout Two-Way Radios on a recent camping trip, dude ranch vacation and hotel stay. We gave the kids a radio so they’d be reachable as they walked the campground loop, and we let them take one while they tried to find our hotel room on their own (didn’t quite happen; they read the signs wrong — but they didn’t panic since they heard us on the other end of the radio). The kids actually got the most use out of them when we took two cars to the dude ranch (Dad had to leave early) and they chatted with each other between cars. Of course the most appealing feature of the radios for the kids: the built-in flashlight.

Other perks for this particular pair: you can receive weather alerts from the NOAA Weather Radio; the radios can work up to 9 miles away in “medium-interference” situations (like on a flat lake); there’s a “hands-free” option; and there’s an emergency alert button you can hit to send out a distress call (perhaps best not to teach young children this signal, lest they “cry wolf” and get in big trouble).

One feature that drove me nuts until I figured out how to turn it off: the “I’m done talking” beep that occurs when you’re finished transmitting. This so-called “Roger beep” is optional, though, so that made me happy.

Overall, this radio that retails for $80 (a pair) has more bells and whistles than the average family might need. But if you’ve got a geeky mate who might dig all the extras, it’s a fabulous gift.

That said, you can also comment below to win a pair of Motorola Talkabout Two-Way Radios. Yes, Motorola has generously offered to mail a U.S. winner a set. All you have to do is leave a comment below and tell me on what summer trip or excursion you might use them. Enter until midnight (EST) Tuesday, June 23; I’ll draw a winner randomly and announce a name on Wednesday, June 24. Again, only U.S. entrants and no immediate family of the Traveling Mamas!

Lush Bubble Bar

“I work a pretty customer service oriented job and am definitely a people pleaser so it is really hard for me to let go of my day or not take my job home with me. I am a HUGE fan of LUSH products and they always come into play when I am trying to unwind. My favorite thing to do to get away from it all is to give myself a facial and make myself a really really good sandwich. Often my boyfriend participates in both (since the day I noted his flaky tzone and did the LUSH Love Lettuce mask on him – he was very impressed with the results) and I start with Ultrabland, then steam my face over a bowl of hot water with a C toner tab to get everything out of my pores. Then I do the Cupcake mask which smells just like chocolate frosting and wipe it off with the toner water and moisturize with Imperialis. Then we watch a bad bad wedding movie or old episodes of The Cosby Show and he tells me I won’t always be able to please everyone and we have a cup of tea. It’s my favorite thing. This is an awesome giveaway. Thanks for letting me enter!”

Congratulations, Emily. I’m thrilled to see that this prize is going to someone who will definitely appreciate it. Contact me through this site, and the Art of Bathing gift box will be mailed to the address of your choosing. Happy bathing!