Now, if you’re like me then even when you’re on holiday (or vacation as they say in the USA) you need some tech with you and so here is a blog with my favourite travel tech including my top bank for travel, favourite apps and physical tech.
Prefer to watch this as a YouTube video? Click here!
As a bonus tip at the start of this video if you suffer with your ears popping and taking days to recover after travelling (which I do) then check out these reusable flying earplugs from Boots…genuinely the best £5 I’ve ever spent!
But let’s talk tech…
Travel Money
When you’re travelling to another country getting currency is the trickiest thing to work out and you probably don’t want to be carrying around a load of cash.
For this reason I signed up to Starling Bank a couple of years ago. Starling offer a debit card account and other than sending you a physical card everything else is done via their app.
There’s two reasons I’d highly recommend them
1 – No Fees! – If you want to use an ATM or pay using your card there are no fees wherever you are in the world…you just pay the conversion rate of the day. This makes spending money when travelling so simple!
2 – You can keep a check on spending as you go – Payment notifications come through instantly and even tell you how much your $11 payment just cost in £’s…this let’s you keep track of your money as you go along.
Other Travel Apps
Alongside the Starling app I have a few other travel favourites
- Triposo – A great app for travelling which let’s you download offline city or country tourist guides including places to eat, local attractions, tourist routes and even an offline map!
- Google Translate – You can download languages to translate offline and translate by holding your camera over something (instant translation), scanning something or using audio translate.
- Uber & Lyft – Both operate in a similar way and make it easy (and cheaper than a taxi) to grab a ride. Payments are easy because they go through the app and Uber is operating in loads of places now! (One of my Lyft drivers in the USA last year turned out to be a drummer of a band I listen to…what a coincidence!)
- Duo Lingo – Finally, if you want to learn a new language before you go then Duo Lingo makes it fun to do that.
Physical Travel Tech
Now, let’s talk about the physical things I take with me. I’ve linked all of the tech mentioned at the end of this section.
The first thing I pack is USB cables for my devices…typically a MicroUSB cable and a lightning cable. I also travel with my portable charger, a Romoss Sense 4…this isn’t the lightest or smallest but has a massive 10400MaH battery so lasts forever…it also has 2 USB ports so I can charge 2 devices at once.
Next is a Universal Travel Adapter which I picked up this year. It has extendable plugs for USA, EU, Australia and the EU and space to charge 3 USB devices, 1 USB C and a plug! It’s super portable and compact.
For the ultimate travel wallet (and now my daily driver) I picked up a Trove Swift Reflex which fits all my cards in, has a handy pull strip for the most used cards and the Swift Reflex is even vegan!
I also have a Tile Mate which I throw in my suitcase. I’ve got a full review coming up next week on this but the mate lets me track my case if it gets lost and gives me a heads-up when it’s arriving on the baggage claim conveyer belt!
Then, of course, there’s my every day devices that come with me…
- For reading I have a 2019 base model Kindle. It fits all my books on it, is small and has a backlight!
- My iPhone X comes with me (of course) and has all my music and travel apps on plus takes brilliant photos. On top of that my contract lets me use my data as usual throughout most of the world.
- My earphones of choice are my AirPods because they fit in my pocket, sound great and have awesome battery life.
- Finally, I throw in a pair of wired headphones and an aeroplane adapter because I don’t like the earphones you tend to get given on a plane.
The only other thing that is now an essential for me is my Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ70 digital camera because it has a killer 30x zoom, great battery life and let’s me transfer photos to my phone via wifi and a smartphone app….the zoom on this camera is seriously good…check this photo out.
So that’s it! Those are my travel tech essentials…what are yours?
Here are links to all the things I talked about…
Romoss Power Bank: https://amzn.to/2TSyJRQ
Universal Travel Adapter: https://amzn.to/31U8Ofo
Tile Mate: https://amzn.to/2Z5HU6Z
Trove Wallet: https://amzn.to/2KYywbr
Kindle 2019: https://amzn.to/2MtQhms
iPhone X: https://amzn.to/2Z39MJ7
Apple AirPods: https://amzn.to/2Zh7sJR
Panasonic Lumix TZ70: https://amzn.to/2Zh7QYP
