The Travel Post: Useful Things You Should Probably Pack, Contributed by @the-alien

A few days before New Year’s Eve, I knew that I was travelling in South East Asia, and I started packing with the mindset of working on the road while I’m there.

In short, I needed to make sure that I’ll have with me all that I need to remain as productive as if I were in the comfort of my home.

Today, I am still in South East Asia, and I have a learned a few things since. With that in mind I would love to share with a list of some useful items I’m happy I packed and maybe in a few weeks, I’ll share another list of the ones I wish I have brought.

So if you’re travelling while working someday, I hope this will be useful to you.

I’m going to spare you from the two obvious ones, laptop and phone. But just in case, don’t forget to pack these two items.

Each person has their own preferences. Personally, I don’t need much because I just mostly use my laptop to write. Quite a lot actually but documents don’t take much space anyways.

I’m not into gaming or anything so I don’t really need many features, but it’s different for everyone, so make sure to pick the laptop that works for you.

The same with the phone, each person has a different taste and requirements. I for example use a ZenFone because I like Asus and they have a pretty good camera that could serve as a backup to my primary camera which is this one:

Cannon Vixia. This was recommended to me last year by a friend who’s a filmmaker and I have to say: One year later, it still works great.

Why a camcorder? Because sometimes if you have to do some interviews or you have to give some presentation, they may ask you to film it from your side too and send them the video.

I’m not a photographer so I don’t need a DSLR. Plus many DSLRs have a limit of a certain minutes of videos and in my case a camcorder is much more useful.

But if you’re into Photography, DSLR cameras may be much more compatible to what you seek.

Microphone: RØDE VideoMIC

This microphone came highly recommended and it did not disappoint. This is easily one of the best microphones I ever used, if not the best.

Clean sound, good reach, and you can clip it on top of the cameras so you stay hands free… What else can you ask for.
Bonus tip: Get a Deadcat too.

Surprise Item: Highly Unusual but Very Advantageous

Amazon Fire TV:

I know this doesn’t seem like a common travel item, but this little bad boy can actually save you a lot of headaches.

Sometimes you want to sit down and watch a movie to relax, everyone does. Sometimes a friend of a friend gets involved in some movie and you want to watch it. Or maybe sometimes you learn that your favorite screenwriter has directed his first movie and you want to watch that ( this is a story for another post).

Whatever the case may be, the last thing you want to do is to start streaming movies from unknown sites.
Or even worse downloading them.

Think about it, you have important documents in your laptop, maybe conversations with important people you don’t want to leak, maybe an unwritten book or two.

Not to mention, your crypto accounts maybe.

So for 60 bucks, you buy peace of mind. You’re in a hotel room or an AirBnb, you just plug in this little device and have instant access to HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Showtime, Starz…etc.

There’s no need to go to new – and possibly – unsafe websites to watch movies and series. Even if you have a great anti-virus and spyware, it never hurts to be extra careful.

Extra tip number 2: Always pack a water filter.

Water poisoning is a real threat, not necessarily life-threatening but it can cause you a substantial headache… Or in this case stomachache.

Something I learned travelling is that in certain places it’s very hard to come by cold water bottles in restaurants. The local juices are usually made with tap water, which means that if your stomach is not used to that, you may regret drinking the delicious little fruit delicacies.

Water is very cheap, so it stays out of the fridge to make space for all sorts of home-made drinks.

But here’s the thing, it’s hot and sunny and you just want to drink something cold and refreshing, and a warm bottle of water won’t probably do.

So if you’re unsure about the quality of the local water, you can either purchase a bottle of water and ask them to make the juice with it.

Or you can order a bottle of water and a cup of ice and this is where the water filter becomes handy.

The ice may be made by tap water too, so to avoid all risks, you can just pour water and ice into your filter and voilà.

Now you can enjoy a cold and refreshing drink without paying the extra fee of post-hydration stomach pain.

I hope you found some of these tips helpful and to all of you travelling right now, I wish you an amazing trip!

All images are public domain except for those taken by me.