How to get your electronics right for travel

I don’t know about you but when we travel, figuring out electronics is new each time. We ask ourselves all the usual questions. Where are we going? What plug-ins do we need? What devices are we taking? Will we have access to power regularly? What airports will we be in ? What airline are we flying on? In this post we share how to get your electronics right for travel.

Background

When we first started traveling, we didn’t have any electronics. Maybe a walkman or a portable set of speakers to plug into something to play music but thinking back 25 years or so it just wasn’t a concern. That changed.

Soon, we had cell phones and a plug-in for the cell phone and my Kobo Reader for my books. I was still buying a lot of magazines and I was still listening to my music through either my cell phone or another portable music device like the iPod. That also needed a plug-in.

Current – how to get your electronics right

Now I have my cell phone and my iPad. Their cable chargers, and portable chargers just in case. I have my new portable tripod, which also has a plug-in because it has a remote so you can take pictures remotely. Fortunately, I found a small travel container to squeeze it all into along with any possible adaptors I might need and plug-ins dependent on the country we’re going to.

Upcoming Trip to Australia

For example, for our upcoming trip to Tasmania at South Western Australia there are a number of considerations.  The plugs are different so we have to take those adapters. We will be on road trips as well as in airports for some periods of time so we need to take portable chargers just to keep everything fully charged as much as possible. Our iPads are with us because that’s what keeps us entertained. And our cell phones to keep us on top of our travel arrangements, bookings and communications.

How do we decide what to take?

On a bit of a deeper dive, we make decisions about what we’re going to take based on what we anticipate we will be doing. 

Cell Phones

For our cell phones we use eSims. We buy an eSIM for either locally or a global eSIM for our time abroad. Our current favourite is airalo<insert link>. This eSim service has worked for us quite well for the last year. This time, we bought a global eSIM with calls, text and data. This allows us to stay fully plugged in while we’re in for reaching countries. If need be, we switch over to our Canadian line (also an eSim). If you are interested in Airalo, check out our instagram post on this company and if you use our referral link (NOEL2340), you get a $4.50 CAD discount on your first eSim!

iPads

My iPad is the workhorse for our trip. I like its bigger size and its keyboard. I use it for taking notes, doing articles and write ups on the places we visit. In addition, it serves as my entertainment tool through various subscriptions. I use local wi-fi to connect when I need to, but otherwise I can work off-line for a lot of my tasks.

Chargers

The chargers we use depends on our devices. As I have an Apple Watch, I use an Anker Qi2 MagGo 3-in-1 15W Wireless Charger. In addition, when we don’t have access to power, we use the MetaTronics Omni Charger 4in1Travel Charger Power Bank. It’s built in global adaptors work great. It has worked really well for the last two trips to South America and Maui. We’ll see how it holds up on this trip.

Ear phones

A note on AirPods and earphones. I used to travel with noise cancelling headphones from Bose. I liked them, but they were bulky to take on flights. I’ve moved on to AirPods, which also have noise cancelling technology. I quite like them once I got used to them. I have noticed on some planes, I can’t use them to connect to their entertainment systems. So I also bring the plug-in your phones wired earphones.

We honestly could take so much more. However, we do try to keep what we take to a minimum and to maximize its use. If something doesn’t work, it goes out of travel rotation and we end up reselling it.

For more information on the different ways we plan for our travel, check out our Planning page!