I recently took a long (week and a half, 3600 mile) road trip. Didn't want to "leave home without it" so I bought a Pax vaporizer before leaving. Used this several times while traveling. This was my first exposure to vaporizers and didn't use a pipe at all. Here's what I can tell ya as a noob. Loaded the Pax before we left and once on the road. This thing is very economical -- what I would smoke in a day took 3-4 days to vape, easy. High's probably not quite as strong (I didn't mind that).

Keep it real discrete and you can use a vaporizer just about anywhere. My wife says she can smell burning pot while it's on, but the smell goes away when the "oven" is off. I was pretty impressed with the Pax, but it is expensive. Some other pros and cons of the Pax -- Only charged it once in 11 days. This thing holds a charge pretty well. It takes about a minute to get the green light from the time you turn it on, so if you're trying to be invisible, plan on something to do for a minute.