Lucas
Traveling has been a big part of my life in recent years – in particular, business traveling. And still is – ¼ of my time I’m away of home. By this time I’ve flown more than 450 000 miles and used so many bags, backpacks, gadgets, and accessories that I can say with full confidence – I am an expert in business traveling. And here is the reason why I created this blog – to share with you all my experience from those trips. I want to tell you what to do to make it more efficient and save some of your precious time. This post is my summary on travel accessories. Take a look at at the list of best travel accessories for business trips (and not only) – the stuff I use and take always with me. These things make life a lot easier and solve a lot of problems.
Table of Contents
Wenger Gigabyte Business Backpack
I will start with my Wenger Gigabyte backpack. I used to drag with me a laptop shoulder bag on each business trip. In the beginning, I thought that this is a good idea as I can pack there some additional stuff. Since I’ve seen a lot of travelers carrying Wenger backpacks I decided to try and that was it – soon after I dumped my laptop bag to the trash.
I’ve decided for Gigabyte model as it is not too big (17 liters volume), can fit 15” inch laptop and has additional pocket for 10” device. That’s perfect for me as I’m always carrying two devices – one from my work, the second small 10” Asus Transformer – tiny laptop which I’m using to watch movies and write articles while traveling. You will find a few words about the Asus Transformer Book some paragraphs below. Coming back to the backpack – it has also some cool pockets with easy access – that’s important for me as I always have a lot of small things to pack. Definitively this stuff is one of the best travel accessories on my list.
Swissgear Sling Backpack
Next thing on my Best Travel Accessories list is the Swissgear sling backpack. I’m using this every day – not only for travels. My kids laugh at me that this is man men’s bag… well, partially true. I keep there a lot of things. Starting from wallet ending with power bank and charging cable.
This item is really useful for trips as you can have there your most important valuables and documents. And what’s cool – you can have it with you even in an emergency row as it’s so tiny that it will fit in the seat pocket in front of you.
Carry-on Spinners
Let me explain my philosophy of carry-on luggage:
- First thing, in my opinion, you don’t have to invest a lot of money to get the one which is good quality and durable. Nowadays, the majority of producers present the same level of product quality. I’m buying the middle price local brands. When it gets old or damaged I just scrap it and buy the new one.
- The second thing is to choose which type of bag you need – a softshell or hardshell? I always pick softshell as it is deeper and most of the hard shells opens into two, same size compartments what I don’t like (see photos)
- Last but not least. I always pick the size of 55cm x 40cm x 23 which is acceptable in half of the world airlines and fits all airlines which I’m flying with – check my article on Universal Carry on Size. Anyway, I used to check in my bag, but recently I’ve changed my mind and I think that a much more lean approach is to pack yourself (if possible) to your cabin bag. You can find some more interesting packing tips in my previous article on how to pack for a business trip.
Deep soft shell carry-on bag Two piece compartment of hard shell carry-on bag
JBL E65BTNC Headphones
I always had a headache after a long flight? It was often caused by the noise in the plane. During take-off and landing, it can reach 105 decibels (dB) and can stay around 85 dB during the cruising.
I got rid of this problem with the noise-canceling headphones. My choice is JBL E65BTNC – it cancels the noise perfectly, the sound is great and it costs half the price of Bose QC phones.
Skross Reload Power Bank
With all that electronic stuff, the backup power source is a must for me. My pick is Skross Reload – it’s small and has 2 USB ports to charge more devices at the same time. Mainly due to my trust in this brand – batteries are a serious thing so it’s better to have the reliable stuff instead of Noname product as it can ignite during the flight or damage your equipment.
Baseus Multi USB Cable
I always keep in my sling bag two things: power bank and this Baseus multi-connector cable. Whenever I need, I can easily charge all my devices with this combo set.
Cable Organizer Bag
The rest of the stuff like spare wires, headphones for calls, USB storage devices, pencil, and other “important” belongings I keep in my Cable Organizer. I used to store all that in the small pockets of my bags. Then it was difficult to find what you need. This simple and cheap organizer sorted it all out.
Cable organizer 
My stuff
NEW: Power Strip From LDNIO
I don’t get it – most of the hotels I visited in my life had too few sockets… I always struggle to charge all my devices: mobile phone, power bank, laptop, watch, GoPro, Headphones… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ See – I need more than one socket.
That’s why I’ve just bought the LDNIO Power Strip and I can say – problem solved. It has 3 sockets to plug your chargers and any other devices and 7 USB ports – you can charge up to 10 devices. Enough, even for me.
Asus Transformer Book
I always need to carry two laptops – one from my work and the other one is my private one. I was looking for something really small – in the size of a 10-inch tablet with a traditional keyboard, SSD hard drive and Windows operating system. And of course not too expensive. That’s how I came to the Asus Transformer Book.
It’s a 10-inch laptop with Windows on board. I really enjoy the size of this thing – you can easily put it in the airplane’s seat pocket (see photo below). It has enough power to watch the Netflix movies, browse the internet and write texts for the blog. One of the best things is the battery – you can easily work with that up to 6 hours just on the battery. And if your power is gone, charge it with your phone charger (or power bank) – yes, no more dedicated, big laptop chargers. I consider this one of the best advantages of this device.
And finally, it does not cost much – I paid around 300 EUR for my Asus Transformer Book. It’s also important as I do not have to worry if I damage or drop it – you know, this happens when traveling – see what happened to my phone couple of paragraphs below…
Well, I can definitively recommend this cheap, tiny laptop as one of the best travel accessories on my list. This is a perfect laptop for travelers.
Samsung Gear S3 Frontier Smartwatch
I’ve decided for Samsung smartwatch as these look like the real watches. What I don’t like in for example in Apple Watch that it looks like a child toy, Samsung’s Gear S3 design is far better and it’s half of the iWatch price. Anyway, this gadget is worth to recommend for all travelers and joggers – you can steer with this your Spotify app or Endomondo when your phone is somewhere in your backpack or in the pocket.
Samsung Galaxy S8+
Galaxy S8+ is my current phone. I’m Galaxy S series user since it exists and I’m a big fan of this brand. First of all – I got used to Android. My wife is using Apple stuff and whenever she needs mine “technical support” in her phone problems I’m getting nervous trying to handle with her iOS device. Android is far more adjustable and customized – this is what I like.
The other reason why I like this phone is that I’m a big fan of its camera device. The photos from Samsung Galaxy S8+ are amazing and for me, it’s really important as most of the photos from travels are taken with a phone camera.
Soon I will think about buying a new phone as I’ve smashed the LCD in my current device (see photo below). I’m thinking about Galaxy Note 9 – my friend is using this and said that it’s worth recommending. You can be sure that I will make an update of this section when I will get a new phone.
GoPro HERO 7 Black
That’s my newest purchase – GoPro 7 Black Edition. Why do I need it? I’d like to put some good videos on my YouTube account. However the video quality in my phone is good, the video stabilization is really bad – the image looks bumpy and shaky.
GoPro Hero 7 in Black edition has really good video stabilization. You can check some samples on my YouTube channel (thanks in advance for subscription). Below I put the sample from India which I took a few days ago to show the Indian’s roads condition (it was really bumpy and it’s not visible in the video):
Another thing is that GoPro is really easy to handle – it’s small and has a lot of handy grips, arms, pods, and other accessories. If you travel a lot GoPro should be in your equipment. Definitively one of the best travel accessories.
Neck Support Travel Pillow
Last but not least on my Best Travel Accessories list – let me introduce the neck support called Travel Pillow. In my humble opinion, this is the next step in the evolution of travel pillows. First of all, it’s not as big and bulky as the traditional travel pillows. Second, it’s really easy to attach it to any bag – just wrap it around the backpack’s handle and that’s it. This is a mandatory item on my packaging list and one of the best travel accessories to recommend you.
Best Travel Accessories – which are yours?
That’s it for now. I will update this Best Travel Accessories list whenever I find something interesting among travel accessories worth sharing with you. If you find some of those mentioned above useful, let me know in comments. And if you would like to explore more the topic of travel gear, check my guide on best gifts for travelers or my analysis on trending travel accessories in 2019.
Photos and featured image: Lucas
Featured image: Canva