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Buying Guide: Our Favorite Frequent-Traveler Picks: Top-Rated Tech to Take on Your Next Trip

Whether you're making good use of your time off or you're living and working as a digital nomad, you need the right technology to keep you connected and productive while you're traveling. Pre-pandemic, I traveled often for work, and I only wanted to carry the most portable and effective gear in the air, on the road, or while riding the rails. As a writer and photographer, I didn't need much more than a mirrorless camera, a tablet, and my phone loaded with a host of helpful apps. Other careers require more robust mobile setups, so I consulted a few well-traveled PCMag team members for portable hardware suggestions for this list of the technology you need when you travel.

Before you travel, remember to download a workout app and create the perfect playlist on your music streaming service of choice. After taking a scroll through the suggestions below, check out PCMag's longer list of travel apps, suggested apps for bus and train travel, and a list of the best travel cameras to take on your next trip.

About Our Expert

Kim Key

Senior Writer, Security

My Experience

I review privacy tools like hardware security keys, password managers, private messaging apps, and ad-blocking software. I also report on online scams and offer advice to families and individuals about staying safe on the internet. Before joining PCMag, I wrote about tech and video games for CNN, Fanbyte, Mashable, The New York Times, and TechRadar. I also worked at CNN International, where I did field producing and reporting on sports that are popular with worldwide audiences.

In addition to the categories below, I exclusively cover ad blockers, authenticator apps, hardware security keys, and private messaging apps.

The Technology I Use

I like testing new software for work, but I'm less "plugged in" to the internet than I used to be. I tend to read app privacy policies to see what kind of data companies collect, and as a result of those findings, I don't use many mobile apps. In a similar vein, I was an early adopter of many social media platforms, but now I’m just an infrequent Reddit lurker.

I'm a gear junkie. I split my work time between a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro and a Lenovo ThinkPad. I shoot most of my videos for PCMag using a Canon M50, a Sony A7iii, and a Sony a6000. I edit videos using Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro.

I write all of my words for PCMag either in the MS Notepad app on my ThinkPad or the Notes app on my iPhone 12 mini. If I'm traveling and working, I use my iPad to write short articles or take notes.

My dad built me my first computer sometime in the late '90s, and I used it for reading Encyclopedia Britannica and writing Sailor Moon fan fiction. My first phone was the ubiquitous Nokia candy bar.

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Our Favorite Frequent-Traveler Picks: Top-Rated Tech to Take on Your Next Trip

Of all the hardware and software products we've ever reviewed, these 15 essentials should always have a spot in your travel bag.

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