Corner Office Anywhere

Traveling and working means traveling with a lot of gear. You’ll want to find the most streamlined travel tech setup that works for you, but you’ll likely need a few travel gadgets beyond your phone and laptop. Here is a list of the essential electronics accessories you’ll always want with you for a seamless work experience on the road.

Smart Watch

My smart watch is crucial for letting me make the most of being a full-time remote worker. Whether traveling as a digital nomad or taking care of life at home, the key to being able to flex your time is to maintain a reasonable window of availability during the times that your closest colleagues or employees are working, even when you’re not actively working at that time. This ensures that your coworkers don’t have to solve your problems just because you are not at your desk. A smart watch lets you be available and responsive when needed for a quick question or emergency, without having to check your phone every five minutes. And when that reasonable window of availability is done for the day, feel free to silence those notifications or go analog.

Extension Cord/Power Strip

Especially if you plan on traveling for work on a recurring basis, you will want to invest in an extension cord/power strip combo. I’ll level with you – this is going to be a heavy addition to your bag. But the awesome Anker 727 Charging Station has been a game changer, easily keeping me and my travel buddy and our many devices charged up throughout each workday. The extension cord brings the charging station right to our work table and keeps us from fighting over whatever unfavorable corner the outlet is in. As a bonus, its flat design and removable cord are much easier to pack than most of the other travel extension cords on the market.

Long USB Cable

Even with that extension cord on hand, make sure you have one pretty long USB cord that works with your most crucial device. At some point, you’re going to need to juice up that laptop from the couch or kitchen or some other outlet no-man’s land. Buy the longest cable that you can comfortably carry; at least five feet in length. If I were to replace mine, I would be looking for a combo charging cable which allows for lightning type, USB C and USB A port combinations, so I could minimize the total number of cables I carry.

Power Bank

If you haven’t noticed the trend, most of your key tech accessories are going to revolve around staying charged up on the road. When working from home on a trip, you may not use a power bank every day, but it is a key item on long travel or tourist days. I have enjoyed the Anker PowerCore Fusion bank so much I have bought it twice (after the first befell an accident that was fully my fault). I love that it’s plug flips in to lay flush for easy packing, and that I can use it as my regular power block, so it’s always charged and ready to go when I need it. It charges my phone fully and fast a couple of times on a single charge, which has always been more than enough.

Adapter/Converter

There are a lot of cool travel adapters on the market these days. But my suggestion is to keep it as simple and small as you can to help keep your bag from feeling like it contains an entire furniture store. The Skross PRO World Travel Adapter is the one adapter to rule them all. In combination with a power strip it might be the only thing you need in your bag in this category. There are a few features that I particularly like. First, it is relatively small and lightweight while providing whole-world flexibility. Second, it uses a simple level system to change the prongs, instead of many pieces that I will inevitably lose. Last but not least, it will connect just about any plug to any outlet like a champ. If you want to have one reliable adapter to travel with, I do not recommend getting one that is limited to use with plugs from your home country. This comes up more often than you think, if you have to charge up a friend, or have bought electronics in another country, or your Airbnb host has left you an iron with the wrong type of cord for your outlets (this is a true story – not all countries conform to a single standard outlet type, even within the same apartment!). 

I also usually have a couple of simple Europe to US plug adapters rolling around in my bag, because they are small but handy, and I am most often traveling in locations that use this type of plug. On a short trip, you may only need to rely on this type of adapter.

Tablet/Second Monitor

If you’re worried about working comfortably from a laptop, you are not alone. Many digital nomads travel with a second monitor. There are many good portable monitor solutions available these days. My recommendation is to travel with a tablet rather than with a second monitor because it has multiple uses. A tablet can be used as a standalone entertainment device, a temporary backup or weekend travel alternative to your laptop, and as a second screen. You’ll be able to find an application for using just about any tablet as a second monitor for your computer. I use Duet Display to turn my iPad Air into a second screen for my tiny Windows laptop, because I like to have the smallest setup I can get away with.

Wireless Headphones

You’ll be using your headphones a lot while traveling compared to working at home because you’ll more frequently be in a shared space. For most remote workers, a pair of high-quality wireless earbuds are going to strike the right balance between sound quality, convenience, and space-saving. My advice is to start with a pair of Airpods, and stray only if those aren’t working for you. Airpods are ubiquitous amongst my digital nomad peers because they are high quality, lightweight, and easy to use, though they did not work well with my particular ear shape. After a year of struggling with hanging up on people as they continually fell out of my ears, I now carry a pair of Samsung Galaxy Buds Live that work seamlessly with the rest of my Samsung gear. They look cool and stay in, but the sound quality is only okay. You might consider an over-ear set if ear buds really don’t work for you, and you can afford the space-suck.

Backup Headphones

Between connecting to meetings, listening to music or podcasts, and winding down later with TV or movies, you will inevitably, if not frequently, run through a full battery charge on your wireless headphones. On a long flight, even the best wireless headsets will simply not last. I know plenty of people that are dedicated enough to their wireless headphones to carry two pairs, but that also means dedicating yourself to charging that second pair ahead of time, which you could likely do with your first pair if you were paying attention. I find it easier to carry a cheap pair of wired backups for those days when my battery planning fails me. 

Phone Lanyard

Not tech in itself, but keeping your phone safe is crucial because as a remote worker, your phone is so closely linked to your livelihood. In a pinch I could do my whole job from my phone, and often do for short bursts. I also rely on my phone as a source of backup internet service. Accidents will happen, but it is worth taking simple steps to avoid this costly annoyance. Therefore, in addition to a phone case I always have either a wrist or neck lanyard on my phone, and have them on any time I’m outside my hotel or apartment. I find that a ring stand or pop-out grip just aren’t reliable enough and add unnecessary bulk to the phone. Even though I’m a total butterfingers, with my phone physically attached to me I’ve been holding on to it for the last two years of world travel.

Car Charger

Last up in the charge-your-stuff roundup is a USB-to-cigarette lighter charger for the car. This is another one of those low-packing-cost items that is easy enough to just keep in your bag on a permanent basis if you are a frequent traveler. I have rarely needed it within the US lately. However, rental cars outside of the US are less likely to have extras like USB ports, and are more likely to have cigarette lighters as a standard feature. Choose something cheap, light, and small.

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