Top 5 Travel Essentials

Over the past few months I’ve been fortunate enough to travel more than ever. Without realising it, I’ve begun to create a bit of a routine in terms of what and when I pack. There are a few items which I now don’t think I could travel without. Here are my travel essentials:
Mission Workshop // R6 Arkiv Field Pack
I bought this backpack a couple of years ago now and I remember it being quite a big purchase for me at the time. These bags aren’t cheap, costing £200 for the 40L but I couldn’t be more happy with it. I use this bag more than any other, daily when I need both my laptop and my camera because it’s a perfect size for a day bag at home or when travelling. You can also add attachments; I’ve found the laptop sleeve especially useful.
One of the best things about the bag is it’s super comfortable when walking around and also happens to be waterproof. I tested this in Chicago last year when I got caught in torrential rain and tornado warnings. Camera, laptop, passport – all dry as a bone. There’s a good reason it comes with a lifetime warranty: you pay for quality!
Decent Headphones
The more I fly the more important this one becomes. I actually got a pair of Beats with my Macbook and they’ve been surprisingly reliable. They aren’t true noise cancelling but manage to dilute the majority of baby screams. The hardest thing about long flights is tricking yourself into believing it’s time to sleep. A good playlist, some decent headphones and maybe an eye cover should help you get some shut-eye!
Loot Card
I recently teamed up with Loot and took a road trip through the Alps. I was joined by my friend and incredible photographer Elan and we spent a week driving through Switzerland, Austria and Italy where I used the Loot card instead of having to draw cash. Using the Loot app made our whole trip stress free as we were able to create weekly budgets, enabling us to keep track of how much we were spending. This is why I genuinely find the app so useful; When I’m doing long road trips it can be really hard to make sure I’m budgeting well and not overspending over the first few days. There is also a really cool feature called ‘Loot Goals’ where you can essentially begin planning your travels, such as a road trip with a budget of £300.
Travelling and spending on my Loot card without fees made our whole experience so much easier, with more time to plan our adventures! I’m super excited to travel in the near future when the app evolves, sending through notifications of your spending in GBP rather than guessing a rough exchange rate (I do that a lot). Everything that Loot has in store over the coming months is super exciting!
Portable Charger + Hard Drive
When you are spending long days on the road or exploring all day you rarely get a chance to charge so I’ve found it really useful to bring a portable charger with me. You tend to get 3-4 charges depending on which power block you buy. This way, there will be no more getting lost in a forest or stuck at the top of a mountain without any idea of how to get down… because that can happen!
Suunto Watch
This is easily my favourite running gadget. I’ve been pretty disappointed by the accuracy of sports GPS watches in the past but the Ambit 3 Peak has been amazing. I always track my runs on the watch and link with the Movescount app which uploads automatically to Strava. It’s particularly useful if you enjoy trail running because it gives information on the weather, temperature and even direction. Living in London, I haven’t really had to use these features yet but it’’s pretty useful to have. If you are an ultra runner and concerned about battery life, this is probably one of the best options; I managed 10.5 hours and still had about 20% left! Up until now this was virtually unheard of with Garmin watches.
There you have it! My top five travel essentials.
I hope you all have an amazing week ahead and if you know any frequent travellers and are still to do your Christmas shopping, hopefully this helped!
Tags: adlifestyleTraveltravel tips
Dan, thanks for the advise on headphones and watches! I’ve been looking for a nice pair of headphones to double as leisure and to use for running, can’t decide between the Beats or the Bose sport headphones. When it comes to watches, I’m stoked to check out the Nike Apple Watch Series 2. I think the capabilities on that are pretty sweet and will meet my needs. I’ll keep Loot in mind when I plan my next trip. Hope you enjoyed your holidays!