My essential travel tech gets lighter each year, mainly because tech gets upgraded, gets smaller and some gadgets have enough multi-functions to replace other separate items. Power has always been the key and each time I’ve replaced an item I’ve tried to ensure that it can be charged from either USB or AA batteries to reduce what needs to be carried When traveling I once thought that I needed the kitchen sink – check out this ‘What’s In Your Bag‘ post from July 2008 and you’ll see what I mean! I now love the way that the iPhone has replaced many other items – the stills camera, the HD video camera, the TV, the TomTom GPS unit and more than often the netbook. It even has the potential to replace the flashlight with it’s built in LED and flashlight app – although I would never put all my eggs in one basket and rely on only one device when in the pitch black.
I thought it would be worthwhile listing the items with links to blog posts as a number of tweeple have asked if I have a kit list (OK, one person asked) …
The Essential Selection:
ManBag
Apple iPhone 4
Apple iPhone cable
Kensington USB Battery pack x 2
Kensington USB Travel Charger
Three MiFi
Fenix E20 Flashlight (2xAA)
Powertraveller Motormonkey and tips
Spartan Swiss Army
LAMY pen
Moo cards
8GB encrypted USB pen
… and if weight permits:
Energizer USB AA Rechargeable Solar Flip
X-mini II Mini Speaker
Toshiba NB100 Netbook running XP and Jolicloud
Toshiba power supply
Cyclone Micro Media Player with 8GB SD card
Hauppauge WinTV Diversity freview USB TV tuner
The question I’ve been asking myself is will an Apple iPad fill a gap (more than the iPhone) or replace the netbook … at the moment I’m not sure it will do all the things I sometimes need to do for work when remote. So for now it would be a no for an iPad and I’m watching others in the tech wilderness (Ref: A, Ref: B) to see how they are getting on with only an iPad to rely on.
If you have any thoughts, let me know below 🙂 …
- My Essential Travel Tech
- X-mini II Mini Speaker
- Folding Solar Panel
- Three MiFi Mobile WiFi
- Powertraveller Motormonkey
- Kensington battery and charger for iPhone
- HY mini Wind Turbine USB charger
- Energizer Rechargeable Solar Flip
- Mobile Internet Signal
- iGo PowerXtender for iPhone
- Fenix E20 LED Torch
- Jolicloud netbook OS
- Toshiba NB100 Netbook
I think your basic kit and mine are fairly similar, if different in detail. In short an iphone, netbook (novatech), 3 mi-fi, powermonkey Xplorer, USB memory and cables and bits all carried in a swiss-army backpack.I’ve thought about an ipad too, but feel that until such time as either the netbook and/or iphone dies will stick as I am. Then an ipad might replace the netbook or an ipad plus a cheap mobile (for voice and txt) would replace the iphone and netbook. At the moment I remain on the fence perhaps until ipad2?
.@tontowilliams I’ve wondered how i’d get on with an iPad and a cheap small mobile rather than iPhone, the mobile would have to take decent pictures, have the ‘easy’ ability to transfer them to the pad for editing/blogging and also be able to upload directly to online services.I still think I would want the ability to browse and use twitter on the move without having to pull out a rather large iPad.