What do you bring when you travel?

[P-Dub]

Just curious on what people bring when they go traveling either for work/business or for vacation?

I'm going to be off on a major trip soon and was thinking about the voltage and plug requirements. Sometimes I'm single minded, or is that simple minded, and was thinking I needed adapter plugs for all my gear. Then I figured it out, bring a power bar and just use one adapter plug.

Most of my chargers are dual voltage, I've squinted, ok, I took a picture and blew it up and can see the 120 to 240 Hz rating.

Right now what I've got going with me:

iPad 3 - wife's
iPad 2 - mine
iPhone 5s - mine
Moto Razr - unlocked so I can get a local sim card and tether my devices
Casio digital camera - Don't recall the model number, but heard it was really a re-branded Nikon. I use this mainly if I want to get a really good picture, it has a better zoom and optics, but my 5s is is getting pretty close.

The only thing I'm not going to take with me is my laptop. I've been bouncing back and forth between taking it and not. It is really work related and would only be used early mornings or late night. Plus I have some remote software that I could use from my iPad, but productivity would be really low. The added weight and security is some of the reasons I'm pretty sure I'm going to leave it at home.

Oh, and I've got a spare battery backup to ensure I have charge for the whole day for my two phones. It is really for the phones. The iPads have great battery life so will easily go a full vacation day on one charge.

[Ovation]

Depends on the trip. I make two trips alone per year (4-6 days long), one driving to Florida from Montreal and flying home, the other in reverse (I deliver my mother in law's car back and forth as she's no longer up to the long drive). These take place during my semesters, so I take my laptop (I teach online courses) as well as my phone and iPad.

Our family summer road trip last month, however, saw the laptop get a nice rest at home. My iPad Air, my wife's iPad 2, my iPhone 4, my daughter's iPod Touch 5 and a wireless portable drive loaded with movies and music (can stream to any and all devices in the list via the media app) was enough (and compact enough to fit in a smaller bag than my "mobile office"--largish backpack that fits my laptop and 5-10 books of various sizes).

[P-Dub]

Oh, iPad Air! That is something I'm looking to upgrade to or an iPad mini. But with the new 6+ and the Note4's coming out, I may be able to reduce my device count if I go with one of these big phones.

The wireless drive is a great idea. I forgot that we have one, but right now we don't use it so much for travel as to stream at home, my wife uses that more than I.

[Ovation]

I got the drive because my iPad Air was a prize (so it is the 16gb model rather than the 128 I would have bought). However, I've ordered a 128gb 6+, so I'll see how that works out. I use the Air with a bluetooth Mac keyboard for a lot of basic writing (Pages works well) when I'm away from home. My laptop still works fine but its battery is not very efficient anymore (it's a 2009 model MacBook Pro), so when I need to work without out a nearby outlet, the Air w/keyboard and supplemental wireless drive fill in nicely.

[impala454]

Something I did on a recent work trip to Sweden which was huge was to use Google Maps' download feature. You can select a specific area and save that map to the phone for offline access. This was very handy in places where I couldn't find free wifi.

[P-Dub]

Chuck - That's a good feature of Google Maps. I'm going to try this on my trip.

Well my power bar idea won't really work. I'm travelling to 240 volt land and my power bars are rated for 120 V. I've been reading issues with trying to use N/A power bars and it drawing too many amps, which shouldn't be the case. I figure I'll have about 7 A with all my devices plugged in, but I figure why risk it? I don't want cable to melt or sparks to fly, just don't need that on my mind. Plus I'll save some weight and space by ditching the power bar.

Will get some adapter plugs to connect our chargers. All my devices are dual voltage, and I'm only using genuine Apple chargers for my Apple devices.

[P-Dub]

In the end I had no issues with my electronics.

Sydney, Australia - Was fortunate that there was an existing power bar in our room that accepted north american 2 prong plugs. So it was simply plugging in the various apple power plugs and I was set.

Hong Kong - The first layover was for just one night, the flat that we had rented had adapter plugs as well as a combo power bar. So plugging in our devices was simple. I also purchased a 4 port USB charger with interchangeable power plugs, it has 2 x 2.1 amp and 2x 1 amp usb plugs.

Shanghai - Our hotel room had a mix of local plugs and one combo NA/local outlet by the middle night stand. So my wife used that with her iPad charger and then I used my multiport USB device that I purchased in HK plus an adapter I had to plug in.

Chuck - I did download various maps via the Google Maps download feature. This really worked well. Luckily I did not really need to use the maps as I had various tour guides along the way. The one thing that doesn't work with the downloaded maps were places that I saved. Now I could simply be doing it wrong, but it would be nice to be able to star and have those saved places come up on the saved offline maps.

Cell phone use:

I was concerned about roaming charges for texts, calls and especially data so I turned my iPhone 5s cell data off for the entire time, I had also turned off the roaming just in case my cell data came on accidentally. In Australia I had set my phone to airplane mode. In Shanghai I did a combination of airplane mode and had cellular on, but no data. In Hong Kong I had my cell service on, but data off. The reason I switched it up in Shanghai, was that in airplane mode no voicemails could be left. I have a voicemail to text feature that I had my staff test while I had wifi and when they called to try and leave a message it would just get a local could not connect to cell message. When I had my phone on, it would ring and if I ignored it it would eventually go to voicemail, if I declined the call, it would default to a local could not connect message. Not sure if this is a local issue or just the standard fall back protocol. Since I wanted to ensure that people could leave a voicemail, I turned my phone on.

I can report that so far I have not been charged for any roaming call costs, since I did not make any roaming calls, but also no roaming text charges. I will have to wait for my next bill to confirm, but from the web access I see no additional charges. Only my standard voicemail to text charge.

One reason to keep my phone cell service on, is it enables the GPS function and coupled with the offline maps, gives a pretty good indication of my location. Another precaution was I set my mail checking all to manual and then hid the mail icons in a folder so I wouldn't accidentally tap it.

My Moto Razr was an interesting story.

In Australia, I got a Vodafone SIM and it basically worked for calls, text and 1 GB of data. But it wouldn't work for tethering. This kinda sucked as the plan was to have this serve as the hotspot for my 5s and my wife's iPad3. I tried tech support but they were pretty baffled as well. Then I recalled my experience in trying to use my local Telus SIM in my unlocked Fido phone. I had the exact same experience, calls, text and data worked but tethering did not. So I chalked it up to a phone specific issue. The best place to buy the SIM card is at the airport. Basically after you exit the baggage claim, just off to the right there are 2 telecom shops selling phones and plans. When you purchase at the airport it is 50% off the normal price. I paid A$20 which basically works out to Cdn$20. Normally this would be a A$40 plan.

In Hong Kong, I got a onetwefree SIM card for local calls, text and 1GB of data. After what seemed like forever to get the SIM activated, mostly due to the phone starting to overheat, everything worked including tethering! So chalk this up to some strangeness. I paid HK$98 for a 30 day plan, which works out to about Cdn$15. I almost used up the entire 1GB of data, with the tethering ability, the iPad and iPhone used up a lot of data, more than in my usual typical day at home. Of course I'm out and about and doing pics and facebook and instagram so that is to be expected.

I did not bother getting a SIM for Shanghai. There was one available for purchase in the arrival section in the middle of the baggage claim carousels. I think this is a smart move by the local telcom. The prices were a bit higher than HK, but not totally unreasonable. I wish I took a pic of the plan details, but I think the costs were RMB$100 and RMB$200. Hmm, from my quick google search, it appears that you do pay a premium for buying at the airport. Well I guess I saved some money by not purchasing any.

In the end, I'm glad I had my Moto Razr, it worked really well in Australia for pics as some turned out pretty good, especially through Instagram. However, it was still slow and it just got worse. Since I use my 5s as my main phone, using the Moto was a serious step back and I am looking forward to ditching it for another phone. I also have a 4s that I use and it is still faster than the Moto.

I hardly used my Casio digital camera. I only took 38 pictures and mostly in Australia. I have over 800 pictures on my 5s plus more than 50 videos.

And my backup battery decided to die on me during the trip. It stopped working in Australia as it would refuse to turn on. Luckily in Hong Kong I was able to easily purchase 2 spare battery packs for cheap! One is basically a dud, there is no way it is actually a 10,000 mAh unit, more like a 2,000 mAh. The other one is a nice unit that is a 16,800 mAh and I'm pretty sure it is accurate.

In the end my day pack was mainly the Moto for data sharing and a battery pack. The rest of my pack was water and snacks which took up most of my pack weight.