Tips for Travelling With Your Laptop & Gadgets
As both a huge gadgets fan and a keen traveller I had done a fair bit of travelling with my two laptops and a number of other gadgets.
I often arrive tired, unshaven and, frankly, frazzled. However, to date my gadgets have always arrived safe and sound, a fact I put down to following a few simple rules.
Take What You Most Need
Much as I would like to take all of my gadgets with me everywhere I go I realise that this isn’t always practical or necessary. If I am going on a holiday to the beach then I probably just want something to let me listen to music and maybe read an e-Book. On the other hand, if I am going on a work trip I will need my laptop and my phone if nothing else. After working out which of my gadgets will be earning air miles I then just need to decide which ones will go in my hand luggage for the trip and which ones will travel round the luggage carousel several times before I finally recognise my bag.
Use a Good Bag
This is a bit embarrassing actually, but I once went on a long trip carrying my mp3 player in a plastic bag. I was backpacking at the time and the device was a cheap one, but it shows how not to do things. A nicely padded bag which is just the right size will save you a lot of hassle. Good laptop bags usually have a variety of pockets for storing other gadgets and accessories in.
Don’t Forget the Accessories
Getting to your destination and finding that you don’t have the right batteries or cables isn’t the end of the world but it can be a pain. Depending upon where you are it might or might not be easy to get hold of the accessory you need. However, the simplest thing to do is make sure that you are travelling with everything you might want to use. If you are taking a battery operated gadget then make sure that any ones you are taking with you are full of juice before you head off. Airports and bigger bus and train stations are usually good places to pick up odds and ends if you realise that you have forgotten anything and don’t want to risk having to look for it in a city you don’t know well.
Back Up Information Before You Travel
No matter how many precautions you take there is no doubt that travelling with gadgets is a riskier business than just leaving them at home. If that plastic bag I mentioned earlier had burst and I had lost my mp3 then my entire collection of UB40 and Bob Marley songs would have gone with it. That might not have been a bad thing actually, as listening to nothing but reggae for six months does weird things to your head. Anyway, the point is that you are likely to be carrying about some information which you really don’t want to lose. If you are away from home when you upload the data then you could just pop into an internet café and make sure that you put a second version of it somewhere safe.
