Choosing electronics and a phone or camera for long-term travel can be a daunting/overwhelming decision to make. Add to that the fact you are embarking on full-time family travel and you have a serious dilemma on your hands… Is there really such a thing as a ready-made electronics packing list for family travel?
Much Most of travel these days is researched and booked online. So to one extent, yes; you do need electronics for travel. And you need to know your way around sites and apps sufficiently to confirm visas and flight bookings. But what do you actually need to carry every day in your backpack for long-term travel?
As we finalise our plans to set off this year on our third family gap year we reckon we’ve got our electronics packing list pretty well refined. It’s evolved and adapted as we’ve travelled and it fits our needs.
(So much so that in compiling this list I realise how ludicrous it is to admit how much we are in fact carrying!). Obviously even getting to the stage of preparing a list of electronics to pack has bypassed from need to include many extras… But despite this rather embarrassing realisation I’m going to continue and confess it all share we have found most useful.
So in the hope of giving you confidence in making decisions for cameras and accessories to carry – here’s our (entire!) electronics packing list for a round the world trip with kids.
In the camera bag
Manfrotto Camera Holster Bag
After the camera, this is obviously the most important part of what’s in my camera bag… The bag itself. Because I don’t carry extra lenses (one is plenty when juggling kids and bags and busy streets of Asia) the small holster bag is perfect for my camera. It’s compact and keeps the camera safely stored without taking up tooooo much room in my day pack.
Sony Alpha 7iii E-Mount Camera
A lightweight, full-frame mirrorless camera… I absolutely love it. When we left for our first family gap year I took my DSLR (a Canon 760D) which was great as I’d had it for ages, was comfortable driving it and because it wasn’t brand new I wasn’t super-duper worried about it. It was a big decision to make the switch to mirrorless but wow; it’s a beautiful camera to use.
Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD Lens for Sony E
This is a great flexible wide-angle lens to carry. I love the wide angle of this lens and the large aperture. Appearance and weight-wise its also a great choice for travel as it isn’t super heavy and is less bulky than rival Sony lenses of this wide-angle range.
Camera accessories
But wait; there’s more! These are other camera accessories we use as part of our electronics kit for full-time travel…
- B+W 67mm UV MRC-Nano Lens Filter: I’ve not experimented much with different filters but find a clear B+W UV filter much more serves a purpose of protection for my lens. I have a not-so-great but ended-well story from Egypt where Harry dropped my camera and lens (not from high at all) but hard enough that it shattered the lens filter. It’s much easier to replace a filter than to swallow the reality of replacing a lens.
- Rode VideoMicro Compact On-Camera Microphone: This is an awesome mini microphone with a “Dead Cat” fake-fur wind shield that does a brilliant job of keeping wind noise out for videos and vlogs. (This is a new addition to our camera bag since moving to the Cook Islands but so far has proved worth carrying in our electronics kit!).
- Brand-less Camera Strap: Not a necessity but one more way (attempt) to look ever so slightly a little bit less like a glitzy rich travel photographer and therefore less of a target. (Not 100% sure if this really deflects such attempts but it’s worth a shot, right?). Plus I always love the colour splash.
- Memory Cards: We use Sandisk Extreme Pro SD cards in the camera, drone and GoPro. From experience with backing up and converting and shifting files from memory cards to storage and/or Bluetooth it’s not worth being cheap when it comes to memory cards. For extra safety and protection of our cards we use a waterproof SD card carrying case.
Waterproof and action photography
This is Gavin’s domain and he does an awesome job videoing and capturing action moments that aren’t suitable for carrying my main camera. (Plus see below as to why I need to separate that this is the waterproof and action camera so that he doesn’t use mine for THAT!)…
We find the GoPro so easy to carry and great for the kids to use. It’s obviously much more discrete for videoing than a larger camera – useful for quick or sneaky shots, easy time lapses or filming on the move.
In the GoPro bag
- GoPro Hero8 Black
- GoPro 3-Way Grip Arm Tripod
- Waterproof Sleeve & Lanyard
- Floating Hand Grip
- Various adapters
- Micro SD Cards
- HERO10 Dual Battery Charger
- 2x Rechargeable Batteries
From the sky
It’s a tough call whether the drone or GoPro is Gavin’s real pride and joy… I reckon it would be a close call with the only down side to carrying a drone being the increase in restrictions on where you can and can’t fly it.
The DJI Spark is an amazing lightweight piece of modern technology and it takes pretty fantastic video footage and photography. It packs up into a handy small kit so it’s easy to store in your backpack.
It does however require a few accessories…
- DJI Spark Drone
- 2x spare batteries
- Drone controller (attaches to phone)
- Dual Charging battery station
- 8x spare propellers
- Micro-SD cards
The DJI Spark has since ceased manufacture but has been replaced (and upgraded) by the DJI Mavic Mini (which is even lighter than the Spark at only 249 grams!).
Note: Do be very careful in checking ahead about restrictions and rules in different regions and countries you plan to travel to with a drone. Some countries do not allow drones full-stop and some have restrictions of drones over a certain size.
Computers and screens
For our first two gap years we travelled with one mini MacBook Air which was perfectly sufficient. We used it for making travel bookings as we went, writing the odd blog post and transferring photos to save on the hard drive.
This time however we are setting off on our way towards Europe for even longer term travel (and with the potential for carrying more than just one backpack each if we end up in a campervan) so we will take both laptops.
For the amount we used a laptop we found downsizing to a small MacBook Air was a great choice.
In the computer bag
- Apple 11” Macbook Air
- iPad Mini 3
- iPad Mini 4
- iPhone 8+ (Sarah’s)
- iPhone 7+ (Gavin’s)
1x iPod Touch*- Kindle
*We took an old iPod for the kids to use taking photos and watching downloaded movies the first year but upgraded to iPad Mini’s by year two.
We bought second hand iPad Mini’s from TradeMe in New Zealand and ordered parallel Lifeproof-style cases. I found these to be a great purchase and an ideal size for the kids to carry a lot of the time themselves.
We have recently upgraded our phones to later models but the listed models are what we first travelled long-term using.
The Kindle is a new purchase on round two of full-time travel… And it’s amazing. Harry uses this the most and loves finding a book series to get into. (Great for long-term travel – obviously – as books are definitely not one for the backpackers packing list!).
Cords and miscellaneous items
- 5x Thunderbolt Cables
- 1x Mini-USB Cable
- 2x Micro-USED Cables – 1 short & 1 long
- 1x 1TB Seagate Portable External Hard Drive
- 1x Macbook Power Adapter – with multiple adapters
- 4-Port USB Multiplug Travel Charger
- Z-Series Rechargeable Camera Battery – 1x cord
- 1x Universal International Multi Plug Adapter
- 10,000mAh Power Bank
Programmes for photo and video editing
I use Adobe Lightroom to edit all our photos (just the colours and lighting; I haven’t gone near Photoshop and manipulating photos in that way yet).
To edit videos for our YouTube channel we use Adobe Premiere Pro. This is an amazing programme though there is much to learn to navigate all the tricks and tools this is capable of.
We source music for the videos from YouTube Library and Epidemic Sound.
Apps we rate for long-term travel
Some of these apps are absolute life-savers (picture trying to make your way through some of the busiest cities in Asia without any data connection… Offline maps are your best friend!).
I recommend you download these apps and test them out at home before you hit the road for long-term travel.
For the currency exchange apps you can pre-load the next currencies you need for your travels. I find these most useful for converting the cost of accommodation and getting a rough idea ahead of the next days travel for how much a taxi might cost (and how much you should be prepared to haggle).
- Uber (Free): Check which countries you are travelling to have Uber or similar rideshare service. (We used Dart in Brunei and Grab in Vietnam).
- Trip-It (FREE): Keep track of all your flight and accommodation bookings in one place. (Trip-It can also be accessed offline).
- XE Currency (FREE): The best app for currency conversion. Can save up to 10 currencies to check the conversion rate even while offline.
- Skyscanner (FREE): Our favourite flight checking app. This is easy to use and I have it set to NZD so it’s easy for me to immediately spot if it’s a good price for a flight (without having to change currency each time).
- Google Maps (FREE): Some map selections can be pre-downloaded to use offline. Great for use in bigger cities where shops and sites are all marked.
- Maps.me (FREE): The best map app for using offline. You can download entire cities and/or countries ahead of time.
- Spotify (FREE): An awesome app for all kinds of music. Easy to use. And if you upgrade to Premium you can listen to music while offline.
What did we remove from our electronics packing list the second time round?
- iPod Touch: This was initially useful for the kids to use to take photos on and store downloaded movies for travel days. We replaced this the second year with an iPad mini (and plus, the iPod really was near the end of its life).
- JBL Kids Headphones: We won’t take these this time round as for the amount of time they use them, the kids are old enough to wear over-ear headphones now.
What’s on our wish-list?
Alright I suppose this is time to confess (though lets not tell Gavin about this one!)… On my wish list is the Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM lens. (Definitely one on the wish-list and far from a need I know). But I would love to one day carry a broader range lens for family travel photography and videography.
And that’s about it!
It does sound like a lot to carry (it IS). But to be honest this is our refined electronics packing list after we came home from our first gap year and tweaked things that we hadn’t used or didn’t really need.
One thing we debate on carrying is the drone. This is definitely location-dependent in that some places are not recommended to travel with a drone (or even allowed). So this would be one large item we would reconsider carrying depending on where we travel too.
The rest we use on a regular basis and need to carry in order to keep everything charged and working!
What do you think? Is there anything you would change or something on your electronics list you can’t live without?
Useful links for your travel and travel-planning…
These are the companies we use while traveling fulltime as a family and that we would recommend to anyone planning and booking travel.
- Booking.com – The best all-around accommodation booking site that constantly provides the cheapest and lowest rates. They have the widest selection of budget accommodation and it’s easy to filter and sort into price and availability with all the extras you are looking for personally.
- Hostelworld – The largest inventory of hostel accommodation in the world.
- Skyscanner – This is by far our favourite flight search engine. They are able to search small websites and budget airlines that larger search sites often miss. We book all our flights through Skyscanner.
- GetYourGuide – Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace for tours and excursions offered all around the world including everything from walking tours, to street-food tours, cooking classes, desert safari’s and more!
- World Nomads – Travel insurance tailored for longterm travel and nomads (including those who have already left home).
Read more about packing for travel
- Packing toiletries, medical and electronics (plus all the rest).
- 10 Daypack essentials: When that daypack really is a daily pack.
- Our travel medical kit: Have you packed yet?
- Our packing list for full-time travel: 2 packs, 4 people.
- Our complete packing list for India: Everything you wanted to ask.
- Kids daypacks: What is actually in there?