[Day 28] Travel Tools and Accessories: All You Need to Get Moving and Go Mobile

After traveling to and through 61 countries, I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for what travels tools, products and accessories you need to make your life easier, more comfortable and better organized.

Since I love making sure that you’re in the know and telling you about the best stuff, I’ve made a list of the top five travel tools, in my opinion, that you need to have as a location independent entrepreneur.

That said, there are many more travel tools out there that are nothing short of awesome, but it’s all a matter of finding what works for you.

Flightfox

If you want to save yourself serious time and still find great flight deals, then I love Flightfox. Basically you post your flight wishes and experts go about finding you the best deal. You then `hire’ the winning flight based on cost, duration and layovers.

It’s well worth the small fee and the trouble you’d go to if you did it yourself. It’s especially good for more complex routes and itineraries too and they get back to you in 24 hours.

Overall it’s like having a really travel savvy Virtual Assistant do all the work for you. To get the best prices, you should do a quick search on Skyscanner first so that the Flightfox agents have a price to beat.

World Nomads Travel Insurance

Most people balk at the fact that I travelled without insurance for many years. I just didn’t think much about it as I don’t have that many possessions, but when I biked across Africa in 2012 I figured it was a worthwhile investment.

So I did some research and found World Nomads. What I like about World Nomads is not only do they offer great rates, they also are passionate about travelers and they have built a community around them.

Their insurance policies are available to people from over 150 countries and are designed for adventurous travelers with cover for overseas medical, evacuation, baggage and activities such as skiing and snowboarding.

They repeatedly come out on top for the best medical and personal cover. I paid US$600 for a one-year worldwide travel insurance policy, including adventure activities (like cycling across Africa) and additional cover for my laptop and smartphone.

VISA HQ

Finding out visa requirements is as easy as a Google search, but the process of filling out the paperwork depending on how long you’ll be there can get pretty tedious and time consuming. I know that I personally forget to fill out the right paperwork and have definitely been fined for not staying within my visa guidelines.

One way to avoid the tediousness of getting a visa is to use VisaHQ. They offer a really impressive, fast and courteous service, and have excellent staff on board to assist you out.

You get real-time status updates to your email or mobile phone, and their service starts at just $44.95, which is not much when you consider the alternative headaches some embassies can cause with their slow visa turnaround rates.

SKRoss World Adapter Pro + USB

This travel adapter is sexy, sleek, lightweight and lets you charge iPad, razor, laptop etc. in any foreign country you are in. It has a patented all-in-one country slider system which includes six different country plugs.

You can charge two USB devices at the same time, and you’re also guaranteed a safe power connection in more than 150 countries on all continents. I have two actually, and keep on in my carry on and one in my suitcase just in case. Friends tend to like borrowing them too!

Seagate Backup Plus

Seagate’s Portable External Hard Drive is an indispensable gadget that I use to keep copy of the digital files that make up my business. It’s complete with 1TB of memory and a USB 3.0 port.

It also has a handy one-click custom back up plan that you can schedule for weekly full backups by simply connecting it to your laptop. If you want to get extra geeky, it enables user-generated content to be backed up from your favorite social network or shared directly to them.

So there you have it! Like I said, there are tons more tools that make traveling so much simpler, and you can find some of my recommendations here on my travel page.

If you buy my book or head to the resources section on my book website, you’ll see under chapter 12 there is EVERY single tool I mention. So what are you waiting for?

Day 28 Blog Challenge to accept in 3 easy steps

1. Write a response blog post to either of these questions:

What travel tools and services are most important to you when taking your business abroad?

2. Share your blog post response:

Don’t forget to leave a comment below or a trackback to your blog response. Share your post from your own site on social media using #TSE30DC at the end of your tweet or post.

3. Embed the 30 Day Blog Challenge badge in your post:

Choose the badge you most like from right here. Then just COPY the HTML code already pre done for you, and PASTE it into the HTML tab of your post.

Read these resource posts to help you

Check out this post to learn more – 13 Travel and Life Lessons Learned While Gallivanting Around the World

What’s next in the 30 Day Blog Challenge?

Click to tweet this: Travel Tools and Accessories: All You Need to Get Moving and Go Mobile #TSE30DC

Grab a copy of my No #1 Bestseller The Suitcase Entrepreneur on Amazon, Kobo, Nook or NOW Paperback!

Follow the 30 Day Blog Challenge Pinterest board (it’s such a great visual way to explore all your posts)

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post for Day 29 Living the Dream: What Does Yours Look Like?

Summary of your posts today

• Sarah reminds herself constantly of why she is working towards a location independent lifestyle. She actually made sticky notes and a poster and sees it every day
• Ray is a regular traveler and he has discussed shared his favourite tools
• Mary’s ideal lifestyle is to have minimal belongings. That would mean no clutter and having only things that truly mean something to her
• Deborah has shared a list of her favourite tools that she feels she definitely wants to get. She’ll be traveling to many different countries
• Michelle is going to work hard, achieve her business goals and enjoy her free time by flying high and travelling to places she never would have thought of before
• Elizabeth is a photographer, and she keeps all her photos on their memory cards until she gets back to base. A backup hard drive is a must for her
• Cotey can’t really seem to get it with out some equipment like paper cutters. Working digitally doesn’t feel as much fun to him