For a two-week road trip in Italy, the serrated Chaparral was my only knife. Sal Glesser’s Chaparral has been studied many times on this blog, but lately, the serrated version has become a central part of my rotation.

Why is this knife such a great traveling companion?

Friendly FRN handle: The grey FRN offers excellent grip, even with wet hands, making it comfortable and reliable in a variety of conditions.

Blade length: At less than 3 inches (71 mm), it’s easily accepted as a pocket knife. The serrations effectively add about 25 % more cutting edge, boosting performance without increasing size.

Flat and thin: Its slim profile allows it to comfortably fit in a watch pocket.

Sturdy mechanism: The hidden pin ensures zero vertical play, providing a rock-solid feel.

So this little big knife was my main cutting gear for two weeks.

I was able to open it in restaurant without to be noticed and replace the dull silverware provided.
The serrated Chap is a folding steak knife by essence.

Its thin blade is making the cuts accurate even on delicate cream croissant shared with a coffee.

One of the challenge for such a thin blade is the famous hard cheese found in Emilia-Romagna: the Parmigiano Reggiano.

Normally, Parmigiano is not “cut” — a traditional leaf-shaped short knife is stuck into it and breaks off large chunks like a wedge. That approach wasn’t a problem for the thin CTS-XHP blade of the Chaparral. It dug in deeply and, with a slight torsion, fragmented the cheese effortlessly.

Hard sausages in Tuscany can be made from deer or doe or even boar.
Again, bring a thing serrated edge to the board and it will be a success.

Pizza can be a challenge. You want to cut through all the layers without dulling the edge on the plate. Serrated edges do not dull easily in the plate. And even some knives encountered provide serrations at the end of the edge like this one:

Here the Chap near a friend’s Captain which has been used to deal with mozzarella.

It feels good to be not the only Spyderco in the village.

After two weeks with the Chaparral, I never felt “under-knifed.” It performed reliably in all conditions — rain, seashore, and forest — and remained socially unobtrusive. Its cutting power, thanks to the thin, hard CTS-XHP blade, proved that a pocket-sized chainsaw can be an essential part of any traveling kit.

After two weeks of use, the Chaparral showed no rust issues, no bent serrations, and no gritty mechanism. I simply rinsed it under the tap and let it dry in my pocket.

Even now, I don’t feel any need to resharpen the blade — the serrations are extremely difficult to dull. For a travel folder, I can confidently say: the Chaparral comes highly recommended!

If you want to see some spectacular moments from my two-week Italian road trip, I’ve released four video postcards on YouTube, all filmed and edited on the same iPhone 14 Pro that provided the photos for this article. If you enjoy them, feel free to give a thumbs up and subscribe to my Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/@nemosandman