In the last three years I have done several three - five month 20,000 km trips in a car, sleeping in a tent all around Australia, with some high end ukes.
A wooden kala will suffer sun damage almost as quickly as a Kamaka if you leave it in direct sunlight all day. Ply wood will go out of shape if it gets too hot while under tension, and wont come back. So it does not matter if you have a Kamaka or a Kala, you might need to put in the same effort to look after the uke, that is what I found anyway. What is the point of taking a uke, no matter how expensive, if you are not going to look after it and it will become unplayable, your wife could have fit in another set of shoes or something. So now I take a good uke on my travels. I have insurance against theft, and I think accidental damage, and enjoy the best tone when I am relaxing after a hard day on the road. I often also take a cheap uke like a Dolphin to share with anyone who asks me about ukes. I can tell them the dolphin cost only $50, show them a C chord and I tell them they could get started straight away for $50. So maybe you could buy the Kala and take two ukes, there are bound to be other spouses doing the same as you who should learn how to play a uke?
. We are in Maui right now and brought our Pono mahogany baritone and Donaldson koa soprano. We take extra care especially with the sun and heat in Maui - I love the Costco "lightning rounds" of shopping. If we can't find shade or will be gone for any length of time, we take them with us. After we are here they stay in the condo until we leave.
