My Travel Arsenal

For those that have spent a long time on the road, you know how difficult it can be to get your stuff working just right. In my career, I have done quite a bit of traveling. Living out of a suitcase is not a pleasant thing. From charging all of your stuff to meeting your entertainment needs, these things can pose a huge burden on you. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to go and buy a cable or charger, etc while traveling. This post will cover both technical and non-technical pointers. Although my current job barely requires traveling, I am planning for a QBR in ATL and decided to make sure my stuff is in order.

Charging

If you are like me, you have probably chosen a platform of mobile device (e.g. Android or Apple) and have similar charging cables. If not, I feel for you. Although I have standardized on Apple products, I do have a mixture of Micro USB, Lightning, and USB C.

Extension Cord

The Extension Cord I use is a TROND two outlet extension cord with a five foot power cord and five USB 2.4A chargers. This allows me to connect my iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple Pencil, Amazon Fire Stick, Battery pack and MacBook.

Extension Cord can be purchased from Amazon using the link.

Note: When you are stuck at the airport, and need to charge but all the outlets are being used, dont be that guy telling people to move. Offer to share the connection and plug your extention cord in and allow them to charge their devices as well.

Cables
You should have sufficient cables for all your devices. It sucks to have to wake up in the middle of the night to try and swap cables to charge another device.

Apple Pencil Charging Adapters
When I first purchased the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil, there was no way of getting a replacement connector for the Apple Pencil to Lightning Cable. Thankfully, we can now purchase replacement connectors. For ~$11.00, you can have one in the car, travel bag, and desk.

Lightning Cables
I like the braded cable options because they last longer, IMHO. I have multiple sets of these cables. I have three in my car, three in my bag, and three for the house. These cables are awesome.

USB C Cables
For my MacBook Pro, I replaced the original Apple USB C ectension with these cables. That are long enough for me. In addition to the USB C cables, I also carry my old 3-Prong extension cable for the AC brick from my old MacBook Pro. This allows me to connect to crappy AC outlets that cannot hold the brick up. You can buy one from Apple or you can also snatch one up at Amazon.

 

USB Condoms
OK, that is not really what the manufacture calls them, but it is essentially what they are. These devices, have a male and female USB connetor. These connectors allow you to connect the USB charging cable with the data pairs removed. This will ONLY allow charging. In the event that you must use the lamp, TV, or public charging stations, you can safely do so with these condoms. Of course, if you cannot connect the cable to the condom and then to the charger DO NOT CHARGE YOUR DEVICE. They will pwn your device.

Entertainment

Amazon Fire Stick
I bought an Amazon Fire Stick that is always in my travel bag. I love these things. I own about 6 now. Obviosuly, based on my links, you can see I use Amazon quite a bit. I subscribe to Amazon Prime, which gives me access to content in the form of video and audio as well Kindle books. Amazon Fire Stick will let me load the NetFlix and Hulu apps as well as give me access to some of my Cable subscription stuff from Comcast via the HBO, Showtime, etc Apps.

In addition to the Fire Stick, I also carry an HDMI extention cable. This is because sometimes, the TVs do not allow you the room to connect the Fire Stick and or the ability to plug the power in.

The Amazon Fire Stick requires power from a USB adapter using the included Micro USB cable. I plug this into my extension cord above.

Kindle
I love to read. I have a another blog for my books and reading projects. I have A.D.D. so it is difficult for me to read on an iPad or other device because of the many distractions (Twitter, email, Instagram, etc, notifications). So I use a Kindle Paper White. This is the best ~$100.00 I spent.

The Kindle gives you, IMHO, the best reading experience you can have save that of a real, traditional book. The e-Ink and the no-glare screen is incredible for reading anywhere. The battery life is remarkable as well. I go a couple of weeks sometimes without charging on a heaving reading weekend.

 

Travel Router

When traveling, if you are like me that can expense the Internet, I like to purchase the premium Internet with greater bandwidth. The problem with this is that some hotels will charge you by device. That is not acceptable at my current employer and I assume, not many companies will allow you to do this either. So I use a travel router with dual WiFi radios. The device I purchased is the GL-AR750 Travel AC Router. With this router/AP, I can connect to the hotel WiFi with the 2.4 GHz and then use the 5GHz for my devices. This allows me to have my Amazon Fire Stick pre-configured for the SSID and password, etc for all the hotels I stay at. Therefore, I modify the connection on one device, and the others do not need to do anything different.

This particular model comes with an OpenVPN client which is great because I can connect to my home running OpenVPN and relay that connection out to the Internet to stream NetFlix and other streaming type connections. I have two OpenVPN servers (same box different logical servers), one listening on TCP 80 and another listening on UDP 53. These ports are usually safe from Layer 7 type snooping since I primarily use them for “Open” WiFi connections where you are less likely to have a Layer 7 type firewall inspecting traffic.

Note: In addition to that, this could be use as a RAT or LAN Turtle of sorts. You can drop it into the customer’s network and then have it OpenVPN to you.

Local Content

I use lots of streaming content solutions; Lynda.com, PluralSight, Amazon, INE, Audible.com, Podcasts, etc. Prior to traveling, make sure you download content for offline (e.g. in the air) use.

Non Technology

Separate Toiletry bag
I have a separate toiletry bag that I have fully stocked with everything I need. Toothpaste, deodorant, tooth brush, nail clipper, cotton swabs, soap, cologne, etc. When I travel, I do not have worry about “did I pack the blades for my razor?”. I know it is all there. Just toss it into my suitcase and I am gone.

Shoe Bags
When you travel and you are like me that wants to go to the hotel gym, have dress shoes for the business meetings, flip flops and maybe my combat boots, you need to have a way to transport them without them dirtying my clothes. I used to use plastic bags, but the hotel cleaning crew kept throwing them out. I found these drawstring bags to put shoes in and they work great.

Garbage Bag
Another thing I like to do is to have an empty garbage bag in my bag. This allows me to put dirty clothes into them when returning or at a minimum, put the bag between my clean and dirty clothes.