Digital Travel Kit for Wired Travellers

Digital Travel Kit for Wired Travellers

With all the gadgets people carry around on vacation or business these days it is a real challenge to keep all the weight from these electronics down. This is a new problem we never had to deal with before. Most of these toys never even existed a few years ago.

Cell phones, PDAs, Nintendo DS, portable DVD players, iPods, PVR’s, portable GPS, mini hard drives. Each one may not weigh much but with a half dozen devices and the associated power adapters and cables you end up with several extra pounds and bulk.

Being a lover of light travel and gadgets I have compiled my own electronics travel pack after much research and test usage of portable electronics accessories.

Here is my list of items I carry when traveling and they have served me well even on three month trips.

Laptop

I use a Toshiba 4.3 pound Portege M410 tablet with a 12″ screen with built in Bluetooth, wifi, USB 2 ports and SD card reader. My new maximum weight allowed is no heavier than 4 pounds which is totally doable with the newer low power efficient processors. The very lightest laptops with built in DVD drives are the Panasonic Toughbook business series. The Y4 comes with a 14.1″ screen in a 3.4 lb package.

Portable USB Hub with Built in Card Reader

It took a long time to find a small laptop powered usb hub with a self enclosed cable that also had slots for most portable memory cards. I finally found such a device in the Zonet ZUC2800L, 3 port USB 2 hub with 23 in 1 card reader. Unfortunately, the device is discontinued so you may have to hunt for it on Ebay.
[http://www.zonetusa.com/DispProduct.asp?ProductID=190]

Portable Retractable Cable Unit

A portable flat cable solution with Firewire that will keep cables in a single housing is hard to find. Sure, there are ones which are USB only or ethernet only but there is only one unit that includes Ethernet, various USB 2 connectors AND Firewire for your portable digital video camera. The Kensington PocketLink 4-in-1. The Kensington retractable cable system is a well built system with proper shielding and I have had no interference problems with it. Some of the other generic brand or free trade show shwag retractables don’t have adequate shielding. Nothing sucks worst than being stuck in a foreign hotel unable to do a video transfer because of cheap cables. I always recommend spending the money on quality cables.
[http://us.kensington.com/html/6114.html]

Flexible Power Supply

Sometimes laptop manufacturers cheap out by shipping bulky power supplies with their demure portables hindering your efforts for light travel. Then there are all the other adapters you need for cell phones, Nintendo DS, PSP, GPS, digital camera and other accessories. Fortunately third party manufacturers have stepped up to the plate with more compact power supplies that can also dual charge a laptop and other devices like cell phones using removable adapters. Igo was the first company to produce these small yet flexible power supplies. Since then other portable device third parties have come out with similar mini power adapters with exchangeable tips. Kensington and Targus have similar sytems. All three have adapters for wall, car or airplane usage.
http://www.igo.com

Mini USB Hard Drive for Backup

If your backup needs are limited to a couple of gigs a regular USB flash drive will do but if you are dealing with video or just have larger backup requirements I suggest a miniature USB hard drive. Plenty of manufacturers put 2.5″ laptop drives in housings or you can do it yourself by purchasing a drive and plunking it into one of the numerous enclosures for sale. But if you want real portability and a drive guaranteed to run off your laptop’s USB slot without an extra power cable you want the Aegis Mini 1.8″ drives from Apricorn. Offered in 30, 60 and 80gb capacities in a tiny enclosure with built in cable. Smaller and thinner than a small deck of cards with either USB or Firewire interfaces. Unlike the 2.5″ drives the 1.8″‘s are obviously smaller and lower power which means they will run on any laptop’s usb port. Some of the 2.5″ external drives require a separate power adapter or draw power from another USB port with another cable; definitely not something we want.
http://www.apricorn.com/products.php?cat_id=51

I will continue with travel mice and rechargeable battery options in my next article.