If you can stand to stick something in your ears, I'd go for so-called in-ear monitors. The ones with the silicone flanges give you a passive noise reduction of easily 20db. More than the circum- or supra-aural designs like Bose and without masking the actual signal. In addition, some companies offer in-ear monitors WITH active noise canceling on top of it, usually built into a little box hanging at chest level.

The main reason for this decision is sound, ease of transportation and price to sound quality.

A pair of $70 Klipsch S4 will sound better than the Bose sets and better than the comparable Audio Technica set.

If you are willing to spend up to 150, check if there are any in-ears in that price range that have detachable cables. The cables are the first thing to break. If they do, you basically need a new pair of headphones. With detachable cables you just get a new set of cables.

Check out Sennheiser, Etymotics, Shure.

Till