For normal people and normal times, packing for travelling is already an art by itself, but how about packing for a gadget freak like me? Well, I am not really a gadget freak , but yes, I am a bit mad about it, and I always want all the “necessary” gadgets to go with me whenever I go; and that drives my husband crazy.
iPhone: it’s good because it has a lot of applications that are handy for travelling. It’s MAP application is very useful for finding addresses and helpful as well when you need to find a place while you are walking. The question now is what to go with that:
- Charger and its synch cable
- Earphone whenever I want to listen to iTunes services
iPad: do I need this? The question that I still can’t answer. Yes iPad is cute and trendy, but the question is whether iPad is a working device. That is what I need to find out, there are a lot of reviews about how good an iPad is, but I think I still need to prove it as I like to use it as a working device. Currently my thoughts are that it is only a fancy kindle, where you can browse. With 3G ability, it becomes a big mobile phone; however, without a sim card, it looses it’s independent accessibility and becomes an invalid computer.
The beauty of iPad is that there are no other extra accessories to go with it, everything else is similar to iPhone:
- Charger and its synch cable
- Earphone when ever I want to listen to iTunes services
However, I read a good article on iPad for traveler that says that it could function better by using this camera connection kit like this. I think i am going to try it on my next trip.
Laptop: I am still confused what is the ideal notebook to carry with me: a netbook, or a notebook. What I hate from netbook is because it’s very small, and unfortunately the one I’ve bought has no cd/dvd driver, which could be essential if I needed to store things on CD or the other way around. I do have an external DVD/CD writer, but that means it’s an extra gadget to carry.
Other things that go with it are:
- Mouse – I hate using the built in track pad, I need a mouse to operate a computer properly
- Charger – comes with 2 cable, one is the adapter and the other one is the cable that connect the adapter with the power supply.
In my case, even though I can still utilize my old netbook, which only being used several times. I decided to start saving and buy myself a nice Mac Book. The reason behind it was only for synchronization purposes as it is easier to sync between the same devises ( I have iMac at home).
Sat Nav. System: we need this when we hire a car in a foreign places; normally we use when we are visiting UK and Australia, as Sat-Nav is optional when we hire a car. However, mobile sat-nav, depends on it’s map application built in the gadget. Thus I need to ensure that I’ve downloaded the updated map of the place we are going to visit. The things to remember before we go on Road Trip Holiday.
Things to go with this gadget:
- Car charger
- Plastic clip on to stick the Sat-Nav Device with the car’s windshield.
- The pouch
Camera: this is a big issue, I cannot leave without it. Yes, taking your camera is essential while you are traveling; however, on the market, there are many types of cameras one can choose. Unfortunately I choose the complicated one. Well, I am not yet a professional photographer; but as I said earlier, I am a gadget person, I like all types of gadgets, including cameras and accessories. Worse of all, this is also the biggest gadget of all the toys I have to carry daily.
This is the list of additional accessories other than the camera:
Some extra lenses to go with the camera body:- Battery charger and it’s cable connection to power for downloading and storing all pictures into computer
- Cable to connect to the computer
- Wallets of filters – landscape photographer use a lot of filters, and my interest on photography is more on landscape photography.
- Ring adapters to hold the gelatin filters to different sizes of camera lenses
- Tripod, the biggest equipment I have to carry as I would never know if there’s an interesting object to take along the way. I carry this just to “be prepared”.
- Flash gun. Normally I don’t shoot with flash gun, but again, this is being prepared.
- Extra battery, just in case the main battery is dead and there’s no way I can recharge it quickly.
- Last but not least, GPS widget. A widget that connect with my camera, and gives information to it’s EXIF metadata of the location the photograph taken. For some this is not important, it is for me, as sometimes I forget where the heck I took that picture, but with this widget, I can identify the location I took the picture during the post production process or 2 years later.
Some extra lenses to go with the camera body:Wait, I have NOT finished! I have a second camera…. This time it’s only point to shoot and use as a back up. I don’t like this camera so much as I can’nt control the camera as easy as my DSLR camera, but this camera is handy, that means any problem, it always shoots a good picture. However, this camera also comes with it’s accessories:
- Battery charger and cable of course
- Cable to connect to the computer – but if there are cameras that use the same cable to sync with computer as well as charging.
GPS Tracking Logger: This is something I always wanted to have, just to track back where I have been on my trip. I still need to do some research on how it works and how should I use it. One thing I know is that I need to track down where I’ve been on the map. I hope this is something that I could do with.
Do you think there are other things that I need to take for my travellong ‘visiting family’ in Sydney????
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