There are a few travel-specific tech items that we have found SO handy on our longer trips that we would love to share with you. By no means do you “absolutely have to have these or else your trip will go up in flames”. However, they do make our longer trips easier, and we’d prefer to bring ‘em along. Some items will only be necessary for certain types of trips, for example hot locations, beach vacations, or international vacations.
We have included lists for: phone accessories, photography, and other tech we love.
Phone Accessories
When you travel outside of your home country, you’ll likely want a SIM card to use data while you’re out and about. Unless, of course, your home country has awesome phone plans that include international roaming, unlike our Canadian garbage plans. You might be able to get by with Wi-Fi and pre-downloading maps, but we like to have easier and less restricted access than that. We have bought our E-SIMs from Airalo when we travel abroad. We have used these in Greece, Italy, Egypt, and the US. The advantage to an E-SIM is that you don’t have to remove your usual SIM card (ie. no risk of losing it!).
If you’re prone to dropping stuff like Suzanne (arguably the world’s clumsiest human), or plan on having your phone out a lot to take photos, a phone lanyard might be worth investing in. We bought two types: ones that go around your neck and ones that go around your wrist. The advantage of wrapping your phone around your wrist or neck is that you can’t drop it, (never to be seen again). Also, no one can snatch it out of your hand in a busy city center while you’re taking that perfect Insta photo (or whatever social media site is currently popular).
Great for a beach vacation! Especially if you and your travel partner both want to go in the water at the same time, but don’t want to risk having your valuables stolen from the beach. Put your phone, hotel keycard, credit card, or maybe some cash all inside and bring it in the water with you. Get one that floats, like we did!
Photography & Accessories
We don’t travel without at least one camera, plus the necessary lenses. Ahmed is always trying to squeeze in just one more lens or camera accessory. Our compact camera bag only fits two lenses, so often we can only pack two. In this case, Ahmed will choose an all rounder lens and a zoom lens. Make sure you have adequate batteries for the camera, and the correct charger. Nothing is worse than running out of battery mid-excursion!
If you’d be heartbroken to lose your photos, consider an SD card reader to USB-C. You can use this to transfer camera photos to your iPad/tablet in order to back your photos up to the cloud. The one we’ve linked only works with newer iPads and Android devices with USB-C.
If you are like us and come home with thousands of photos from each trip, consider investing in some additional cloud storage to house your photos while you’re on vacation. This way, if your phone or camera gets lost or stolen, everything is backed up to the cloud. We used Microsoft 365 because we already had accounts and it just happened to have storage as well. In the future, we would use iDrive as it is just dedicated to storage.
GoPro (or other sports action camera)
We didn’t use to travel with a GoPro, but now we love packing this little guy. It’s small, compact, and great for road trips. You can suction cup it to the windshield and have it record your drive! You can also buy a floating handle if you want to bring it in the water with you on a beach trip. It doesn’t have to be the GoPro brand, any other sports action camera you’re in love with will work.
Okay, obviously don’t bring a drone with you if you don’t already own one and/or don’t know how to fly it. Maybe that’s not obvious, I don’t know. If you need a license to fly, make sure you have one. If you need a permit to fly, make sure you have one. If you’re going to bring a drone with you, make sure flying is legal in the country and area(s) you’re visiting.
Ahmed’s drone has been his new best travel friend. He brings it anywhere he knows he’ll be allowed to fly (and have the chance to). For example, we did not bring a drone to Egypt because they are not allowed and will get taken away at the airport.
Other Travel Tech We Love
Everyone travels with so much tech now that you end up with cables and headphones all strewn about in your bag. Using a small pouch or tech organizer will help keep your extra SIM cards, charging cables, and extra batteries organized. We have one from BagSmart, but there are many available online. Even an old makeup bag or such will be better than nothing!
If you’re travelling in a continent different from where you live, you’ll need a travel adapter to charge your device(s). For us as Canadians, that means when we travel to Europe or Egypt, we’ve needed to bring one along. We like the ones that allow you to charge more than one device at a time, so we aren’t waiting turns to charge our phones, camera, iPads, etc. Our favourite also works with many types of power outlets, which is a bonus.
Never be without power! We like to bring a small portable power bank with us to have on trains, on planes, or while heading out for a long day of touristy things. Our favourite is from Anker, which also serves as an in-wall charger for devices. The only downfall with the Anker one is that it only works with North American plugs. If you’re bringing it elsewhere, you’d need to first plug it into an adapter to charge it.
With everyone’s luggage getting lost so often, we followed the trend and bought Air Tags for even our carry-ons (you just never know if they’ll make you check them!). We luckily didn’t have anything get lost, but we do have family friends who used an Air Tag to track their lost luggage all over the world before it was finally returned to them. Now, we don’t travel without putting one in at least our checked bags and larger carry-ons.
iPads (or other tablet)
Not all planes have screens on the seat back in front of you anymore. And phones really aren’t big enough to watch movies on for an intercontinental flight. This is why we recommend an iPad or other small tablet to watch movies on the plane. Make sure you load your movies in advance so you can watch them offline!