While the destination may be your goal when travelling, getting there can often take it’s toll if you’re not prepared and ready for whatever could come your way. We outline our essentials – all the things you’ll find in our carry-on bag for a trip, and really the stuff we keep using once we’re there. It’s best to put all the important stuff in your carry-one isn’t it?
Deflatable Water Bottle
The last thing you want to be while you’re sitting in airports, riding on an airplane or arriving at your fabulous hotel you got a great deal on from Expedia, is be dehydrated. This can be a tricky situation as you have to get a bottle through security and it has to be empty, then refill it after you’ve passed security, and who wants to carry around a bulky bottle only to have it full sometimes.
Vapur, the Anti-Bottle provides an elegant and space saving solution. These plastic collapsible and rollable ‘bottles’ fits easily into your carry-on, and takes up almost no space at all, they even come in sizes from .5L to 1L. Get one here.
Battery + WiFi in Your Pocket
Long days taking selfies and snapping shots of the glorious architecture and surroundings can drain your phone quickly – don’t let that end your day or send you back to the hotel for a few hours of recharging, unless you’re in Spain in which case participate in Siesta as necessary. Grab yourself one of those pocket/bag sized battery usb chargers to plug your phone in. They come in various battery capacities and can be acquired for as little as $15, there’s no reason to be left powerless at Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria without your phone, music device or Kindle for the bus ride.
If you’re a keener, like we are, the CITUS-NEO W1 is the gadget for you. The 10000mAh battery, which is enough to charge your iPhone three or four times, also acts as a WiFi hotspot! In a recent trip we found very useful as many hotels have less than desirable wifi speeds, we plugged our own router in to the wired connection and and our own little wifi point.
Universal Plug Adapter
This one seems obvious, but we’ve used these and they’re actually very good, and they only cost about $3 each! Having uses a few different types of these devices we can honestly say that our experience with these ones has been positive. They’re solidly built and don’t feel flimsy or ’empty’ like some tend to. They typically remain in the socket well without falling out, unless you plug your Macbook Pro adapter on there – but those are big and heavy so it’s to be expected.
We recommend grabbing two or three, and scattering them between your carry-on and luggage, or give one to a friend.
Kindle Paperwhite
Is there a better way to read? Especially when weight and space are at a premium? The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite provides crisp clear text in any lighting even in direct sunlight or total darkness. The screen is illuminated by lights directed towards the screen not your face, so you won’t be strained after that long flight and a Harry Potter book. You probably won’t’ need to plug this into your portable battery because the Kindle Paperwhite battery lasts weeks on a single charge. The Kindle Paperwhite can be purchased with or without 3G directly from Amazon.
NVIDIA Shield Tablet
The Nvidia Shield tablet wants to be the ultimate mobile gaming device, and in many ways is. With it’s Tegra K1 process it provides slick smooth graphics for the most resources heavy games available on the Android platform. Combine this with a dedicated controller (sold separately) and you’ve got yourself near console level excitement – really it even has a console mode to hook up to the TV via it’s build in HDMI.
Now if gaming isn’t your thing that’s okay too, the Nvidia Shield Tablet also features excellent sound with it’s front facing speakers, a full HD 1920 x 1080 display and it’s one of very few tablets to allow Netflix playback in full HD as well. Overall a very good 8″ tablet packed with all the stuff you need to get through a long flight or just distract yourself while those children run circles around you in the waiting area, that is if you’re not having a snack in the lounge. See more on the Nvidia Website.
Nikon D7100 + DX 35mm Lens
While a mobile phone may satisfy some people when it comes to creating beautiful photos to document their journey – it’s not enough for us. That’s why we have this delightful piece of technology, the Nikon D7100 paired with a 35mm lense. Why the small lense you ask? Well, it’s small, unless you’re a hardcore professional photographer or much more into the process than we are, you don’t want to carry around a giant stalker lens or a bag with multiple lenses. This 35mm lens is clear and easy – with no zoom to worry about and a camera that takes photos large enough to crop later just point and shoot, but not in auto mode. If you take photos in auto mode why do you have this. See an example here and grab the lens here.
