I’ve decided that the bane of modern travel is all the gadgets and associated paraphernalia that you have to take with you. Makes you tired just thinking about it.
Laptop – chk
Laptop charger – chk
Camera – chk
Zoom lens – chk
Camera battery charger – chk
Camera cord for affixing to laptop – chk
Cellphone – chk
Cellphone charger – chk
Flip camera – chk
iPod – chk
iPod charger – chk
Earphones – chk
The kitchen sink – chk
… Did I take ANY of this on trips with me 20 years ago?
Weather in Reykjavík: 8°C, mostly cloudy, wind 14 km/h. Weather in Stockholm: 5°C, mostly cloudy, wind 21 km/h.
Hm.
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
My system for not forgetting things is all in the packaging. My mom loves sewing and she made me a whole set of coordinated bags in various shapes and sizes for everything I need to bring on the average trip (including a custom padded laptop case). When they’re all full and accounted for, I’m done with the electronics packing. It also keeps the spaghetti bowl mess of all the cables under control.
góða ferð!
The bane of modern travel is flying BA, awful, with their miserable, ready to strike, air stewardesses. Singapore Airlines, ahhhhh, much better.
Travelling with iPhone switch off data roaming. You forgot Blackberry – might be a pain, but at least you won’t head back to work with your Outlook filled and angry emails about being over your Outlook space.
Talk about your ‘gadgetry, this has me upset:
http://grapevine.is/Home/ReadArticle/Private-Army-Sets-Sights-on-Iceland
These guys are like professional killers in my thinking and no more desirable to have inside one’s country than the Hell’s Angels group.
Yes, and the personal baggage allowance on aircraft gets less and less-unless, of course, you are willing to pay the exorbitant charge for excess weight. Have a safe and happy trip to Oslo.
ps: It is refreshing to walk around Reykjavik and not encounter a population wired up to their i-pods. People still talk to each other! How un-European!
sylvia from viking wirral
oops….Stockholm!!!!!
You cut that list in half by using USB charging devices. Drop the ipod and use the phone for music, video’s and as a simple camera. Charge everything via usb from the laptop and use the same cable for data transfer.
I no longer bother with a laptop, I use LogMeIn and access my desktop PC – although it requires a PC at your destination which is probably impractical for journalist.
Some day we will look back on this post and read it as a sign of the times – all those gadgets, that was SO 2010…. You’ll carry a single device that will function as a phone, laptop, projector, wallet, ID, camera (still & video), plane ticket, car key, photo album, tour guide, workout coach and music player. We will wonder how and why anybody had to travel with more than this one device and a carry-on with a change of clothes.
Is that a Weather Report? Don´t freeze your assets in Sweden.
all that and add
Garmin Etrex GPS and
associated charger
What about the iPad and and iPhone and chargers your list sounds so nineteenth century as JB in san diego says.
@Tom thumb dont worry soon the price of oil will pick up and our wonderful friends from russia will be in the air, maybe those guys are ex blackwater mercenries.
“all that and add Garmin Etrex GPS and associated charger”
Why bother, use the phone GPS or even a netbook GPS at a stretch. Standalone GPS is already obsolete.
At least you don’t have to care about a plug adapter when travelling from Iceland to Stockholm. What are all the gadgets for, if you can’t plug them into the available sockets.
computer’s fine for music too.
This photo was taken 4 years ago, those are just the chargers the family needed then – at least 2-3 more now…
Nokia N900 + cable + headphones, that’s about all I need.. People’s needs vary though.
@Kevin Oconnor, waterford, Ireland:
I could rent a Qonset hut across the airfield from these folks and display my antiwar paintings there. The blackwater fellows, now xe, found spots in the CIA forward positions and in Homeland Security. Today in the Grapevine they are saying that these mercenaries and their contracts with Iceland are already committed on paper. If Iceland didn’t want American nukes and nuke subs why would they want a rent-an-army at Keflavik?
Thank you for your comments, everyone!!
I think I need someone to make me carrying cases like EJC describes –what a great idea!
As for iPhones — they have only been available in Iceland for a couple of months now so they’re not yet that common. Something about licensing. Plus they cost a fortune.
And as for the mercenaries (this comment box is really all over the place!) — yes, there has been some talk of this. A private Dutch army (in lieu of Icesave, perhaps?) wants to set up a training site on the Reykjanes peninsula, where they’re trying to set up a health spa next to the Blue Lagoon, and where there is a new private hospital (for rich foreign tourists) in the pipeline. As EPI quipped: “Well, at least they’ll have some use for that hospital when they start shooting at each other.”
“Why bother, use the phone GPS or even a netbook GPS at a stretch. Standalone GPS is already obsolete.”
Because
1. Etrex is waterproof for hiking (unlike a phone or a netbook)
2. It’s small and light.
3. The GPS chip is far more sensitive than my Nokia 5800 which I suspect is not waterproof?.
4. I can afford to have a spare unit and umpteen spare NIMH AA batteries in my rucsack (plus a compass!).
So I don’t agree that standalone GPS is, as yet, obsolete!
Still though, away from home, I have to bring that charger! Plus a cable to connect to laptop before and after hikes/walks or whatever.
I do take my laptop but nothing else. I have found that I tend to take loads of pictures I never look at, so now I just buy postcards. Don’t have an iPod and if in need of music, use my laptop. Don’t take my cellphone either – most destinations I travel to I either have one or can borrow one or rent one if absolutely necessary. I’d say that the bane of travel are not so much gadgets as security hassles and endless line-ups
Not quite on topic, this thing about gadgets (one day there’ll be one mobile thing that does everything!), but where is this place? Not too near you I hope!!
“Homes Evacuated As Volcano Erupts In Iceland”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Volcano-Erupts-In-Southern-Iceland-Under-Glacier-Emergency-Declared-And-Homes-Ecavuated/Article/201003315578368?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15578368_Volcano_Erupts_In_Southern_Iceland_Under_Glacier%2C_Emergency_Declared_And_Homes_Ecavuated
I’ve recently added a Kindle to that list as well. And we can’t forget the plug and voltage adaptors.
.. and see what happens as Alda leave (N)Iceland -a volcano erupts.(.. or one might say the N in Niceland)
I travel with an iPod touch and a Canon digital camera which works off rechargeable AA batteries. The chargers for these are very small, so it’s not much trouble.
Of course I am usually also travelling with 2 children, so that requires a lot more entertainment stuff ( for them, not me!)
Biggest pain in travelling? No food on most flights now, so you have to carry stuff onto the plane after going through security. I’d pay a bit more for some “proper food” on planes. Are you listening Air Canada?
“3. The GPS chip is far more sensitive than my Nokia 5800 which I suspect is not waterproof?.”
All you need is a waterproof cover for the phone ~$15. Nothing else in your list makes it worth carrying a standalone unit if weight is an issue. The 5800 gps sensitivity is perfectly fine for walking; although it requires careful placement in a car.
You’re clearly none of you cyclists!
I do have a netbook, which is really useful and which I take with me when not travelling by bike or plane. Likewise, I have a digital SLR which takes much better photographs than my phone which I take on some car trips.
But for the rest, I have a Google G1 phone which does phone, web, email, music, camera (including movies), GPS including maps of everywhere, weather forecasts, route planning… It recharges from USB; and I have a small solar panel with a USB charging output. Total, two items; total weight, under 400 grammes.
I have to agree with the opinion, that stand-alone Garmin GPS are generally very useful gadgets and almost indespensable for hiking tours in remote areas in Iceland without sufficient network coverage. Apart from this, roaming costs for downloading maps on the fly are exorbitant abroad.
And there are free mapsource-maps for GPS available (non-routable), which contain almost all hiking tracks and are extremely helpful:
http://ourfootprints.de/gps/mapsource-island_e.html