Taking on the life of a full-time traveller seems glamorous. Never ending holidays, margaritas, beaches and visiting world wonders become just the normal day occurrences. But believe me when we tell you, it is not all roses. The social media side that you see, the smiles and the sun is far from the whole reality. There are countless sleepless nights staying up working, editing, engaging and creating, not to mention the relationship day to day positives and negatives we all go through.
Through these challenges, we need plenty of help to do what we do and that means making sure setting up the best environment and the best equipment that we trust to make our lives easier. So adopting the thought of trying to be as efficient in our packing and minimalist in our lives in general, we adopted these travel essential items for our trips around the world. Note that some brands are sponsors but our opinions are genuine and we made sure to have tested the competition before going long term with the same brand.
Being connected around the world
Product: Tep Wireless
As full time travellers that work online and relying heavily on social media, having an internet connection is a non-negotiable thing we need to deal with. In fact, we take sometimes excessive measures to make sure we stay connected. Pending on how long how we are staying in a country, we usually buy a SIM card with LTE connection. However, that always isn’t always the easy option and often it is not cost effective. We also look for any accommodation that has Wi-Fi connection. When you travel often it is also quite remote, all these processes are stressful, time consuming and costly so we thought of finally converting for a portable Wi-Fi device. We first came through this concept a long long time ago in Japan, one of the pioneers of walking around with your own Wi-Fi portable router. For our major road trip driving from UK towards China, we decided it was the perfect timing to bring with us such device, which was for us the Tep Wireless.
TEP wireless work in conjunction the local service providers and automatically connects to their network, giving you fast internet as soon as you enter the borders of a country. What you need to do is to mention to the company the dates of your location and the company will add credits for you which will connect you online. It works in over 100 countries, with unlimited internet.
How it works is that you rent the device for a daily fee which will include the unlimited internet for the duration of your rental. They deliver it to your home or hotel and you only pop it in the mail to return to the company. In our case, we found that for the majority of the countries we visited had 4G access, there was no problem at all. Although, when we entered the Stans, this is where the 4G device didn’t work and we wish we had the 3G device which as unfortunately not available when we needed it. Note that it works on multiple devices which is perfect if you work on the road. You can check out their website for more information about coverage and payment plans.
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Skincare
Products: 1/ Aesop 2/ Nuxe face cream
One thing that we neglected in the past is our skincare. Often when we travel, we get get up at 5AM and do some sightseeing/photo taking all day, so the last thing we wanted to do was to spend time with skincare in the mornings and evenings. It is surprising how many travellers actually cut out on skincare products and ritual by using travel as an excuse. Yes products can be heavy and take extra space but we’ve come to learn and believe that taking care of your skin is part of taking care of yourself and your health. This is why for us, it has been an essential “space sacrifice” to bring skincare with us.
From using many brands in the past and learning to use Aesop lately, we’ve come to conclusion Aesop has products that can actually clean out all the pollution and mess we end up having on our faces due to travel. The natural smells and its actual result make it become an essential in your life. Go to an Aesop store and get a 15 minute ritual and we guarantee you that you will be hooked.
The Tea Tree exfoliant with the face cleanser is something we can’t not have in our luggage. It’s an unisex product so we both share it. Our personal favourite is the travel 50ml natural deodorant which is super easy to carry around, smells great and releases no harmful CFC’s into the environment compared to using spraying cans.
When we travel, we really try to stick to as many natural based products as possible. We believe that products with many chemicals are harmful to our bodies so avoid we them when we can. All of Aesop’s products are made naturally. While the prices are just a tad on the higher side, the quality of the product is unquestionable. Your skin looks better immediately after use and makes a longer term difference to the health of your face.
Aesop products can be found in Dubai at The Dubai Mall and in Bloomingdales in the same location. They also have 100 stores around the world in major key cities.
Storage for photos & videos
Product: 1/ LaCie 2/ Seagate
If you are a photographer and content creator, you must have 1000’s of hard drives. We are victims of this, yes victims, because it is so heavy to carry! As much as we have small amazing hard drives that are well rugged like our Rugged LaCie 4TB, sometimes you need to bring all your files in order to work on specific projects. This is our current case… can you imagine that we actually carry our own big 10TB LaCie hard drive around?! If you live in Dubai, buy them off Souq.com as it is so convenient and quick delivery to home. If you are travelling, this brand is one of the biggest out there so you can buy it at Apple Stores, etc.
Something we want to mention about our 10TB is that it is a LaCie D2 which can actually power a compatible laptop5 (your MacBook Pro) through a USB-C (Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1) port. That’s one less cable cluttering up your desktop which is great.
So yep, that’s our HDD situation, since we are taking regularly over 500 photos a day when on the road, data storage is an essential item for us for our job, but also in order to have a back up of our personal laptop if something goes wrong.
All these products can be found on Souq.com, Amazon and other major tech shops all around the world.
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Travel bags and cases
Products: 1/ Herschel 2/ Knomo London 3/Incase
Travelling long term means that we need good quality bags. Herschel bags and luggages have lifetime warranty so if there are some problems with zips, wheels and attachments, we can simply exchange it at the store if we have a receipt. So easy and worth every penny of a purchase. For our laptop cases, we use Incase shells. InCase really make the best Apple Product cases for phones and laptops. Both of us insert our laptops in a laptop sleeve from Knomo London which is also an amazing organizer to put important travel papers, cords, cards, etc.
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Plugs & Chargers
Products: 1/ OneAdapter 2/ Anker 3/ Belkin
With technology comes portable chargers, plugs, cords, etc! Considering not everywhere you go has enough electricity outlets, we love having this OneAdapter as it gives us the opportunity to charge many things but also quickly. For portable chargers, we have many Belkin and Anker products which we got from Souq.com and DXB.net, another great website we use to buy travel technology and accessories.
- What are you go-to technology things you like to pack when you travel?
- Don’t forget to book your travel insurance before travelling!
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