Ever wondered what an up and coming Instagram influencer travel couple have on their packing list, this list gives you the lowdown on all the gadgets and technology we take travelling with us. If you thought travel was a vortex for spending all your money, wait until you get seriously into your photography game. Our list of travel technology ‘essentials’ has continued to grow and grow and is now a major component of our luggage. A bizarre concept when we used to travel with not even a phone. It sure takes a bit of getting used to transporting so much gear, but hey anything for the ‘gram right? We’re now pretty happy to say after oh so much research that we have settled upon the essentials and saved you the effort of thinking of it all! Of course, not everything is necessary and it’s really up to you, but this allows us the complete freedom to do any work we want on the road. (Note none of this is sponsored in any way, nor did we receive any products for free, we worked hard to purchase everything on the list ourselves).

So, without further ado, here is our kit bag, everything in it, and why we bother with it weighing us down.

Bag: EVOC CP 35L

You might think choosing a good travel bag would be easy and you could not be more wrong. Finding the right fit for exactly what we wanted was an arduous task made significantly more difficult with the number of suggestions out there. In the end, we bit the bullet and bought the EVOC CP 35L and we’re stoked to say it’s the ideal gadget bag. It literally fits all of the below in it, with room to spare and stacked full of features.

First off, this bag is the exact maximum limits of a carry-on bag, so you’ve got maximum space. Secondly its full of compartments and loads of customizable padding designed specifically for keeping your expensive gear protected. Aside from that it also has a built-in rain cover you can whip out, attachments for your tripod and store over 3 litres of water on the sides. It even has ice axe loops, just in case your extremely adventurous!

But seriously one of the best things about this bag is it is dam comfortable, and that’s a rarity believe it or not in these style bags. The only negative we’ve found is it is quite large, but really that’s not a negative when you’re talking about carrying a LOT of gear nice and safely.

Phone: Paige- iPhone X;  James – Galaxy S9+

These days travelling with your phone just makes life easier. The benefit of being able to access, maps, look up info and places on the go or simply search restaurant suggestions makes travelling that bit easier. Also having a small camera with you wherever you go is very handy for those moments you’re not expecting! And of course, for our slight Instagram addiction…

Drone: DJI Mavic Air -Fly more combo

This is our most recent addition to the kit and man I wish we got one earlier! These things are fun fun fun … albeit a little bit scary when you’re flying out over the ocean or you think a bird is about to try to attack your floating $1000. Again, we spent ages deciding on the best value drone and settled on the Mavic air. Its super small and has a better camera than the Mavic Pro, yet is actually cheaper. The reasoning being its shorter flight time, however, 17 minutes is more than sufficient as anything we want to capture will be including us in the photo too. I’m still amazed at how effective and easy to learn this beast is and that the photos and videos it produces are on par with much larger cameras! The fly-more kit is a necessity in our opinion for the extra batteries and charging hub, believe us you’re going to need them!

Laptop: Apple MacBook Air 2014

Having a laptop goes hand-in-hand with the digital nomad lifestyle, you’ll also look the part tapping away on keys in an overpriced café just for their Wi-Fi. Seriously though this is needed for editing pics, writing blogs, searching the web or the occasional Netflix and chill session. Our MacBook does the job but is in dire need of an upgrade as even browsing the web seems to be a difficult task for it these days and editing photos seem to take a lifetime, don’t even bother with editing videos!

Camera: Sony a6000 + 10-18mm and 35mm Lenses

Again, we did some serious research when deciding on a camera, there literally an overload of information and opinions available. In the end we settled for a Sony A6000 it’s an absolute beast for the money, being mirrorless it’s also much smaller than a standard DSLR. Knowing absolutely nothing about cameras before buying this, we find this super easy to use and the results blow our phone cameras out of the water. Choosing the lens is the next difficult thing, our camera came with a 35mm lens however we found that in some cases we had to go too far back from what we wanted to take pictures of. So, we got the 10-18 wide angled lens and find we now with the two lenses we never have any issues at all.

Action Cam: GoPro Hero 7 Black

We’ve been pretty slack with our GoPro usage in the past as we found the quality not fantastic and the need for a gimbal stabiliser was a big turn-off. However, upgrading from the Hero 5 to the 7 we have seen dramatic quality differences in the photos and video. Additionally, the GoPro finally has gimbal like stabilisation, so finally, our GoPro is going to get some decent non-shaky usable footage! This isn’t really a necessity for us however the ability to get shots in the water or where the camera is a bit difficult makes this a great addition to our kit.

Tripod’s: Manfrotto Travel Tripod and GorillaPod

Tripods are the key to getting good pictures. Let’s face it you cannot trust random strangers to take good photos of you period, inevitably you will be half out of the shot, overexposed with one eye closed. A tripod allows you to be in full control and set the shot up fully before taking it, making sure you’ll be happy. Set your camera to time-lapse mode and it will continuously take pictures, allowing even the fussiest people to surely get a good shot. That or use a remote with your camera. We find both the tripods get used evenly and both have their advantages from either being tall or small!

GoPro Accessories: 3-Way Grip/Arm/Tripod, Dome

One thing is certain, you can’t have a GoPro without accessories. Well, you can.. but its kind of limiting having to mount it on a fixed place like a helmet or something. It’s much more practical to have a whole range of mounts to hold it in any scenario; suction caps, handlebar holders etc. We find our 3-Way to be the handiest of all our accessories, it can be used in a multitude of ways and is a really sturdy handheld shooting method. It also has a little built-in tripod. The other piece of kit we have, that we haven’t actually used yet is the Dome! This fairly bulky item captures epic half underwater half overwater shots by splitting water between the lens due to the bubble design of the dome. We hope to get some really cool content with this in the near future!

Power Bank

We have a few of these little fellas and they come in super handy when you’re out and about and need a little extra charge for any devices. Some of the really good ones can even charge a phone from dead 8 times or a MacBook! Cant tell you how many times these have saved us when we havnt had enough time to charge everything on our nights stay somewhere.

Batteries/Chargers/Cables/Cable Case

This goes without saying you cant have your devices without plenty of spare batteries and adequate charging docks. We bought aftermarket GoPro and Sony battery chargers that can charge up multiple batteries at once and are much easier than relying on plugging the device into the wall. We also have a handy little case that manages all our cables in a super easy and tangle free way.

Travel Adaptor

Don’t be forgetting your trusty travel adaptor either! We have a couple of universal ones that allow for a range of combinations meaning wherever you go, the one adaptor will be able to work. Perfect, we live in the twenty-first century we don’t need to be carrying 10 different adaptors around with us! Handy Tip: Bring a power board with you to plug into it so you can plug multiple devices into the one unit.

 

SD Cards

Buy plenty is all we can say. You never want to be without an SD card or in the situation that has happened a few times, getting to a shoot spot about to take a photo and realising theirs no card in the dam camera. Yep it sucks. So make sure you get a few big ones, their cheap these days so no excuse.

External Hard Drives

Backing up everything is vital to us as it would be crushing to lose everything! It also helps keep the laptop speedy without all the pictures stored on it! We have two 2 Terabyte externals.

 

Umbrella

You may laugh but I bet you won’t when you in the middle of the jungle and the heavens open with rain. A tiny travel umbrella won’t take up any space but will save you from a world of pain, or wet clothes.

 

Torch/Headtorches

Another handy little thing you may not think of bringing but comes in super useful if you end up going on a morning hike to catch sunrise, the power goes out or a zombie apocalypse.

Passport Bag/Pens/Paper

It just makes life simpler having one spot for your passport that you always know where it is. It is also useful for storing any booking confirmations/information you need in a safe spot. Also chuck a few pens in for the inevitable incoming passenger cards on the plane that nobody ever has a pen for.