There are many things that you are going to need to do in order to get ready for your next international trip.
You’re going to need to plan your itinerary. You’ll need to actually book hotel rooms and flights. You’ll need to set a budget for each day. You’ll need to have money converted using a remittance service like Remitly. You’ll need to leave your itinerary with someone at home you trust. And of course, you’re going to need to pack.
As part of the packing stage, you’re going to have to decide which tech-related items you want to bring and which items you want to leave behind at home.
With that in mind, let’s now talk about the top tech items that you should strongly consider bringing along for your next international trip. Some of these items may seem obvious, but others you may not have thought about:
Phone
It’s understandable if you want to consider leaving your phone behind in order to truly unplug.
But the truth is that traveling internationally is not the best time to unplug in the truest sense. It will still be a very smart idea to bring your phone with you purely for safety reasons, such as if you will need to make an emergency call, text, or email.
Furthermore, phones make it easy to handle finances or look up boarding passes while you’re on the go too. For these reasons, your phone really isn’t something you want to leave behind.
Laptop (or Tablet)
Okay, so you should bring your phone, but you can still leave behind your laptop (or tablet) if you want to unplug at least partially, right?
Your laptop probably isn’t as essential as your phone. But if you need to get any work done while you travel, then bringing your laptop along will still be a good idea even if you’ve told yourself that you’re not going to work at all.
It’s always wise to be prepared, and you can use your laptop as another communication device in the event that you lose your phone (or vice versa).
Wi-Fi Router
This one is a particularly important (and overlooked) tech item to bring especially if you work from your laptop.
The reason why is because public Wi-Fi hotspots simply aren’t always reliable (they may have a slow or spotty connection when you need that least), and on top of that, they can be unsecured and risky to use as well. To be on the safe side of things, just bring your own personal Wi-Fi router if you have one.
It will certainly be safer (and perhaps even faster) than the internet you can use at an airport, coffee shop, or your hotel.
Smart Bag
Here’s one tech item you may not have thought of bringing on your trip: a smart bag.
What is a smart bag, exactly?
A smart bag is simply an ordinary suitcase or travel bag, only it comes with cool gear such as a built-in battery, the ability to charge electronics such as phones and tablets, and even a location tracker so if you lose it you can find it.
Is it a truly necessary item to have? Probably not, and your old suitcase will work just fine. But you can’t having the ability to charge your electronics from literally anywhere, in addition to being able to track your lost luggage, will be a very nice thing to have.
Smart Padlock
It’s always a wise idea to keep your luggage safe and secure when you’re traveling, and what’s why having a padlock to lock up your suitcases is a good idea.
But specifically, you may want to consider investing in a smart padlock. Smart padlocks differ from other types of padlocks in that they have no keys or wheels.
Instead, the only way that it unlocks is through a Bluetooth connection to your phone. Without your phone, you won’t be able to open the padlock, which makes it a far more secure option against unauthorized access in contrast to other locking systems that are out there.
Tech Items For Travel
It’s your trip, so you can bring or leave behind whatever you want to. But at the very least, you should consider bringing along the above tech items for the reasons that we’ve gone over.
