Month: August 2018

Not everyone wants technology when they travel, and I get that: sometimes it’s good to “just leave it all behind”. However, there are a few technologies that can make a trip more enjoyable.

Last month, I wrote about GPS technology that helps you locate yourself, share your location and routes with traveling companions, and reassure those at home. This technology is very useful when you travel, but then so is blogging, taking digital photos, using roaming data and roaming power.

If you want to share news of your travels with others, but not everyone on your Facebook list, you can create a custom Facebook group, but I like the simplicity of blogging: you can create a custom address (e.g. antartica2018.blogspot.com), share with select people, write with any number of devices/apps, include pictures/videos/sounds, and refer back to it for years to come.

Digital photos are ubiquitous. Most times, memory cards are large enough to store your photos for an entire trip. However, if you want to share pictures on-the-fly, or take more pictures and videos than will fit on memory cards, you need to give it some forethought.

If you are going on an extended trip, or just plan to take a lot of video, you might think about bringing a hard drive and a method of transferring your data to it. Memory cards tend to store tens of GB, while hard drives can usually hold hundreds or thousands of GB.

Sharing your photos and videos on-the-fly means you will need a dependable Internet connection. To get online while you travel, you have several options: hope for WiFi spots, buy a local SIM card for your smart device, get a roaming plan for your smart device, or (if you have several devices you want to keep online) consider the latest gadget from Skyroam. You can buy or rent a Skyroam device, and get data on a reasonably-priced daily or monthly plan. The resulting WiFi is “unlimited” for up to 5 devices at once, but is somewhat limited for speed: fast (3G/4G speed) for the first 500MB per day, then slow (2G speed) for the remainder of the 24-hour period. Actual speeds will vary from location to location.

Roaming power can also be an issue in some circumstances. If you don’t already know what a “power bank” is, have a look at them, because they could provide the power you need when you can’t get to a power outlet. The latest Skyroam device also doubles as a power bank.

Happy travels!