Must-Have Travel Tech Gadgets: Recommendations From Frequent Travelers

The one thing I never travel without is a compact USB-C power bank. Mine is a small Anker unit that lives in my carry-on, and it means a flat phone is never a real problem: a short burst of USB-C fast charging gets me back to a usable battery before I have finished queuing.

I test charging gear for a living, so the reason it travels with me is not brand loyalty, it is the maths. A 10,000mAh bank with USB-C Power Delivery of at least 20W will recharge most phones a couple of times over, fits in a jacket pocket, and stays under the 100Wh limit airlines set, so it is always allowed in the cabin rather than getting pulled at the gate. For anyone who keeps their boarding pass, tickets and maps on their phone, that one item quietly removes the biggest failure point of modern travel.

My travel hack that I don’t go to Ecuador or Galapagos without is a good dry bag. It’s the one piece of gear that I have returned to time and time again through the years of leading trips because it constantly proves to be useful.

Why Galapagos? Well, wet landings are kind of the quintessential dry bag usage. Getting out of the zodiacs and into waist deep ocean water before you make it to the trailhead is typical at several landing sites. If your camera, passport, and electronics aren’t protected from the water, your expensive gear is instantly at risk from saltwater. Storing your belongings in a $20-30 submersible dry bag protects your thousands of dollars of gear right off the boat.

But it doesn’t stop there. Splash from the ocean while riding in zodiacs, surprise rain storms in the cloud forest, and condensation from your snorkel bag are all situations where moisture can be an issue and regular backpacks fail. A good quality dry bag will keep your stuff dry day after day of heavy use. Brands like Sea to Summit or Ortlieb are both stand uppers that I have personally tested and will remain 100% waterproof throughout your trip.

Lastly, this travel hack is great because it just outright allows you to enjoy your experiences! Snapping that perfect shot of wildlife won’t be second guessed because you know your gear is protected from the elements.

Mine is dull, but it’s saved more than one trip: a compact portable charger that plugs into a normal three-pin socket, the sort of slow backup charger every EV driver should keep in the boot and most leave at home.

I sell EV charging kit for a living, and I still never set off on a longer drive without it, because the public charging network is improving but not dependable. Roughly 20% of the public charge points I pull up to are broken, blocked, or already in use, and when you’re low and away from home, that’s the difference between a relaxed stop and a genuine problem. A slow charger won’t fill the car quickly, but plugged in at a cottage, a hotel car park, or a friend’s outside socket overnight, it quietly buys back the range you need to reach a proper charger the next day.

The wider point for any travel gadget is that the useful one isn’t the flashiest; it’s the one that covers you when the thing you were relying on lets you down. For an EV, that’s a backup way to put miles in the battery. It lives in my boot permanently, and I stop noticing it’s there until the moment I need it.

Portable wifi router. Specifically one that takes a local SIM.

Traveling between Bali, Estonia, and everywhere in between with a toddler means I can’t afford dead connectivity. My wife and I both work remotely, the baby needs her white noise app, and if I lose internet mid-client call it costs real money. A pocket router means one SIM handles all our devices, no fumbling with hotspot settings on the phone, no draining the phone battery just to get a laptop online.

The other thing nobody talks about: when you’re in Bali and the local ISP drops out (which it does), having a backup LTE connection ready in 30 seconds is the difference between a lost work day and a minor inconvenience.

We’ve been doing this circuit for a few years now and that little router has paid for itself probably 50 times over. Boring answer but it’s the honest one.

I’m Runbo Li, Co-founder & CEO at Magic Hour.

The one gadget I never travel without is a portable USB-C hub with HDMI out, SD card reader, and power delivery. Sounds boring. It’s not.

When you run a company with millions of users as a two-person team, “travel” doesn’t mean “offline.” It means your hotel room becomes your office, a coffee shop becomes your war room, and any screen becomes your monitor. Last year I was in a hotel in New York the night before a partner meeting. I needed to pull footage from an SD card, edit a demo reel, and push it to our staging environment. One hub, plugged into my laptop, connected to the hotel TV as a second monitor, card reader pulling assets directly. Done in 90 minutes. Without it, I would’ve been squinting at a 14-inch screen trying to drag timelines around.

The deeper principle here is what I call “collapse the setup.” Every minute you spend configuring your environment is a minute you’re not doing the work. Most people pack for comfort. I pack for capability. A $40 hub turns any location into a full workstation. That’s asymmetric value.

I’ve also used it in pitch settings. Walked into a meeting where the projector only had HDMI, no one had an adapter, and I just pulled mine out. Small thing, but it signals preparedness. People notice when you’re the one who solves the room’s problem in three seconds.

The best travel tech isn’t flashy. It’s the thing that removes friction between you and your next move.

As someone who has spent over two decades engineering luxury smart home environments where everything must work seamlessly, I am incredibly meticulous about the technology I travel with. When I am away from Southern California designing systems or collaborating with architects, I never travel without the Lutron Caseta Wireless Smart Bridge and a Pico Remote.

This compact setup allows me to pre-configure and test lighting integration scenes right from my hotel room or temporary workspace, ensuring that different automation platforms communicate flawlessly before they are deployed on-site. It has been incredibly useful for live demonstrations, letting me show builders and designers exactly how “invisible intelligence” operates and how we can program automated schedules or “Smart Away” security features on the fly.

Having this reliable, pocket-sized control hub on hand saves countless hours of troubleshooting during the early design phases of a project. For anyone in design, building, or tech integration, having a portable, physical interface that you can program in minutes is the ultimate tool for turning a abstract concept into a hands-on, luxury experience.

For travelling and trekking in high altitude, the one travel technology I recommend most for remote adventure is a dedicated GPS tracking and emergency communication device, not a smartphone.

The mobile network is not always available on many trail routes in the Himalayas and weather, terrain and elevation can hinder communication in an emergency. A GPS tracking device can be used to keep track of the location of trekkers. It can also include an SOS function for emergencies and can offer visibility of trekkers’ location for family members or rescue coordinators when circumstances change.

Careful GPS tracking during trekking in remote areas has proved to be a great asset in providing situational awareness at Himalayan Guardian Nepal, particularly on trips to Everest Base Camp, Annapurna Circuit and Manaslu. Smartphones are still useful for navigation, but require battery life and cell coverage, while purpose-built tracking devices are built for the rugged mountain terrain.

Location tracking technology can be a valuable asset for travelers navigating remote areas, providing an added layer of security and peace of mind.

I never travel without a set of spare batteries that I keep in an inside pocket. When I play outdoor weddings in temperatures around the low single digits Celsius, I only load fresh batteries right before use. That habit has led to fewer sudden drop-offs and much less battery anxiety during my sets. Cold gear is one thing, but cold batteries are where you get caught out, so this simple practice keeps my wireless mics and small devices reliable.

One travel gadget I never leave home without is a universal travel adapter with built-in USB-C ports. It sounds simple, but it’s probably the most useful piece of tech in my bag. I travel frequently and work with clients across different countries, so knowing I can charge my phone, laptop, and other devices without hunting for the right adapter saves both time and frustration.

I’ve learned that when your devices stay charged, everything else becomes easier—boarding passes, hotel reservations, navigation, and staying in touch with clients or family. It’s not the flashiest travel gadget, but it’s the one I rely on the most because it solves a problem every international traveler eventually faces.

A good power bank gets a lot of attention, but the travel gadget I rely on most is a pair of noise-canceling headphones. Not because I want silence all the time, but because they let me control my environment when everything around me is unpredictable.

Travel days tend to be full of small interruptions—airport announcements, crowded terminals, delayed flights, hotel lobbies doubling as workspaces. Having a way to block out that background noise makes it much easier to switch between deep work, calls, or simply taking a break. It’s one of those tools that quietly improves the entire day rather than solving a single problem.

People often pack gear for worst-case scenarios, but the gadgets that earn a permanent place in my bag are the ones that reduce friction over and over again. The biggest productivity gains while traveling usually come from protecting your focus, not squeezing in another hour of work.

I’ve had my Shure SE215 in-ear monitors for more than ten years now, and I bring them on every trip. When I’m stuck in a hotel room, I can run through practice sessions without waking up whoever’s next door. On flights, I’ll use them to transcribe rhythms, and at loud venues they keep my ears from getting wrecked. The sound isolation is good enough that I can work on complicated patterns at pretty low volumes.

If you’re a musician who travels, you can’t afford to mess around with your hearing. These let me keep up my practice routine no matter where I am, and my ears are still in good shape because of it. The cable detaches, so when it wears out I can just replace that part instead of throwing the whole thing away. Out of everything I own, these are the one thing that works equally well for teaching and traveling.

My smartphone is always with me when I’m traveling, and it has all the Google Maps downloaded, so I have them offline. While I was using Wi-Fi to download maps, I did not get lost when I had no cell service. It saved time, helped reduce stress, and allowed us to keep our trip on schedule. I also advise all of my guest renters (scooter/car) to do this, as they are renting in Cozumel, Mexico, and will be able to avoid spending their vacation looking at maps.

The gadget I’d pick is a Trimble laser distance meter. At Kelbe Bros., we sell and service construction lasers, and I’m around a lot of equipment decisions where a bad measurement can turn into wasted time.

Where it earns its keep: quick checks on access, machine clearance, layout distances, or whether the equipment someone wants to rent actually fits the space they’re working in. It beats eyeballing it or pacing things off in work boots.

For short-term or specialized rentals, that little measurement can help avoid choosing the wrong machine for the job. Not flashy, but very useful if your travel includes jobsites, property walks, facilities, or any kind of field work.

My tip: keep spare batteries with it and store it in the same pocket every time. The best gadget is the one you can find when someone asks, “How much room do we actually have?”

A GaN multi-port wall charger. One brick, three outputs. A laptop and two phones charge at the same time. I run a phone-based business. A dead device mid-trip isn’t a minor annoyance. It’s missed calls that turn into missed revenue. Airports run out of outlets fast. Hotel nightstands never have enough plugs for a laptop and a phone at once. I keep a phone-sized battery pack in my bag too, just for flights with no seat power. My rule: charge before the battery drops to a sliver. Never wait until it blinks red. You can lose signal for an hour and recover fine. You can’t recover a dead phone mid-client call. Pack the charger before you pack anything else.

As a local fire chief and the owner of an HVAC company with over 40 years of experience, I am constantly on call and moving between job sites. The one travel tech gadget I never leave home without is a smart home bridge controller connected to my phone, specifically the Nest or Honeywell smart thermostat app.

Whether I am responding to an emergency call or traveling out of town, this tech allows me to monitor and adjust my home’s climate and safety systems remotely. For example, during unpredictable Maryland winters, I can ensure my pipes don’t freeze and verify that my system is running efficiently without having to physically be there.

Reddit users looking to secure their homes while traveling should consider integrating a smart thermostat like Nest or ecobee. It gives you instant peace of mind, protects your property from sudden system failures, and keeps your energy bills low while you are away.

I’ve never boarded a plane or hit the road without my compact portable power bank, and it’s the travel tech I’d push anyone to pack first. It keeps my phone alive for hours so I can open a Bible app, fire off a quick note to our folks, or pull up notes from recent studies no matter where I land.

We’ve learned to prioritize the essentials that keep people walking together through life’s joys, and this little unit does exactly that without weighing me down. It’s been useful beyond simple charging. I can listen to a cappella recordings offline, stay current with our monthly fellowship potluck plans, and make sure family-integrated moments don’t stop just because I’m away.

When resources feel tight I still choose what builds real links over flashy extras, and this charger has never let me down. Pack one and you’ll turn every layover into time that actually feeds your walk.