Are you travelling this summer?

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(Inspired by this post) So are you travelling this summer?  And if so, what technology are you taking with you? Often one of the most costly part of t
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Alex5723

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Before COVID, I travelled like Jack Reacher.  Passport for overseas, Driver’s License, Bank card (Debit or Credit for local/overseas), a toothbrush, really good lightweight tactical boots, an army surplus parka, a mobile phone if I’m going local, and a change of clothes. Then buy disposable supplies and clothes as I need them. Cheap shirt, cheap jeans, cheap socks, cheap underwear. Cheap cotton throw away stuff. If I’m going overseas I’ll buy a cheap sim card where I’m going. One small sports bag that I can take as carry-on.

After COVID I travel with my car. Doesn’t matter how much I take as long as I include my driver’s license. If I travel by car I always take my laptop and a sim card configured with large data usage, so I use that for Internet connection rather some suspicious “free” WiFi. I discovered it’s cheaper to travel by Ferry from Tasmania to the mainland and then drive to Sydney or Adelaide than it is to fly. The local airlines are price gouging like the voracious capitalists they are. Sometimes it’s also faster because they’re regularly cancelling flights and not reimbursing affected passengers.

 

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I always take my Apple Watch, iPhone and iPad pro (with cellular) on my travels.

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Power board with built in USB charging, 3 sockets and a 2m lead. You can never find power in a convenient location that you can reach with your charger and cable and 2 devices always need charging at once.

cheers, Paul

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Retired.

If flying I carry a 15 inch laptop, Nikon SLR, bluetooth speaker and my Kindle. And we have the unlimited data plan on Verizon for North America, so I have a hot spot if needed. All fit in a single backpack; a tad heavy but good exercise running around an airport.

If driving, I bring both Nikon SLRs and all my main lenses for which I built a special carrying case… a gun case… so going out shooting has a whole different take for me. Usually, when going anywhere but the store, I will have one of my cameras in the car. But I think my cell phone will take photos (LOL).

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Susan Bradley wrote:

So are you travelling this summer? And if so, what technology are you taking with you?

Since I’m retired, I only need my cellphone.  The only folks with whom I might need to get in touch are family and friends, and we can text or call.  I’ve installed Firefox on my phone, and I’m signed into my Firefox account, so all my Firefox settings and bookmarks are synced.

I have a Microsoft 365 account, so I can check email with my phone should I so desire.  I travel by car and keep a charger in the center console.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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While traveling we carry:

• Two HP – ProBook 14″ Laptops with an Intel Core i5 processors, 8GB memory, and  256GB Solid State Drives and
• Two Samsung Galaxy smart phones.

Key features of the ProBook’s include:

• Video camera and microphone,
• Microsoft Home & Business 2016 including Outlook,
• VPN software,
• Virus software,
• Firefox and Brave
• The ability to fax, make phone calls, and send/receive text messages,
• A cable to connect the PCs a television,
• Etc.

We frequently use the laptops to stream video to a TV.  By equipping the PC with VPN software we can watch/listen to content from around country and around the world that is not available where we are visiting.

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I travel with my iPhone 13 Pro, MSI 17 Laptop (Windows 10 Home), Bluetooth portable speaker, and my battery packs.  Most of my travel is in a motorhome which has Winegard for WiFi and 4G LTE extending.

I have my email accounts setup as IMAP and save the emails I want to my main PC at home.  While traveling or just away from home, I use the Gmail app on my iPhone to check the emails anywhere there is cell service and save the emails in a Gmail folder to download from my home PC.

If no local WiFi to connect my laptop to, I use my iPhone as a hotspot to connect my laptop to.  Using my iPhone as a hotspot to connect my laptop and using a HDMI from my laptop to my TV, I can stream TV, movies, etc. from the Internet to the middle of nowhere.

HTH, Dana:))

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I’ll be traveling with my good old flip phone, which allows me to talk and text. It also will provide a wifi hot spot if needed, but since I won’t have any other devices, it won’t be needed.

I can stream internet radio to my car stereo, so I guess I should add that I’ll have a stereo in my car for the trip.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Not as many “Bits & Bobs” as I used to. One little Galaxy Note 9 Cell\Mobile, One 15′ MacBook Pro (Win10 & MacOS), One 128gb Thumb\Boot drive (Win10 & MacOS) and a small 2.5′ portable 1TB drive. Earphones nothing fancy, small enough to ram in your ear.

Important files up to 10gb (5gb each in One Drive and iCloud) and thats plenty, there isnt the need to purchase extra Cloud Storage.

Enough to recover a catastropic “crash” on the road for either OS (Win or Mac) as it all fits on the 1TB drive above. Along with Movies, TV progs and Music other backup files etc.

I used to carry a length of Ethernet cable years ago, Phone extension cord and various plastic widgets to connect to the Phone Sytem, and quite a few Hotels a while back had Ethernet Networks you could plug in to. That certainly saves quite a bit of space.

Just a backpack for a few days and it carries all your stuff for up to a week allowing for cheaper flights and “walk on walk off.”

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It depends on the nature of the trip–if purely vacation, phone plus good camera (phone doesn’t cut it in the backcountry, both for lack of mechanical zoom lens and battery needs over week plus). If some work is involved and no wilderness, drop the camera and add a surface laptop plus multi-way power socket (can defuse tense situation in airports with limited power capabilities)

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The only tech I take on trips is a smartphone and over the ear headphones (ear plug type are always too uncomfortable). When it was a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with a user-replaceable battery, I would also take a couple spare batteries and a Samsung external battery charger. But now with the S22 Ultra with a sealed battery, I use an Anker PowerCore external battery/portable charger.

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I have no plans for travel at the current time, but if I do, one or more of my laptops will be with me. Either my Dell XPS 13 or my Acer Swift Go 14, presently. If I am going somewhere where gaming will be a possibility, my Xenia 15 will come along too.

I have a laptop bag that will accommodate all three laptops if I need it to, in separate padded compartments. The brick for the Xenia (230w) is big and heavy, but I have a very, very tiny 65w (GaN) USB-C PD adapter that will cover the needs of the Acer and the Dell. (You can see my review of the unit there, where I describe the testing I did to establish that the ripple is not worse than the stock adapter).

Edit: For those of you who saw a rather unrelated link… oops! Fixed now.

My phone is not a good enough stand-in for a PC even to suffice for a day. As it stands, if I am out and all I have with me is my phone, I will wait until I have access to my laptop before doing any browsing if it is at all possible. It’s just too painful to try to do it on a phone to even bother trying.

My phone (nominally a “smart” phone) is for phone calls and to be a wireless access point for whatever laptop I am using. It is also an alarm clock and occasionally a calculator (stuff that a feature phone can do too). It is not a content consumption (video or music) device, nor a computing device. It might be a coaster device if I have a cold drink. That’s about the level of esteem I have for it and others of its ilk.

I’d be using a flip phone if that one from my carrier didn’t have the wifi hotspot feature disabled. The modern feature phones are so thick and huge compared to the svelte one I bought in the mid to late 2000s and used until a couple of years ago… back when phones were getting smaller and smaller to make them easy to carry, not bigger and bigger to better watch Tik Tok insanity on for those so inclined.

Trying to make a phone screen big enough to not be agony to use is futile; the best bet is to make it small as possible for easy carry and to use another device unless you are absolutely stuck without one, IMO.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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WSbobby-p

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