Gadgets make your work life easier, your personal life more fulfilling, and they can even add to your overall experience when you are out traveling. “Because it’s important to find the best balance between living in the moment,” says the founder of Journey Beyond Travel, Thomas Hollowell, “it’s also important to balance your experiences with those you wish to record and share with your friends and families back home. We run various treks in Morocco’s hidden areas and we try to tell walkers that they don’t need 1000 photos. It’s just as important to have 1000 memories to hold onto.” But, for those traveling to distant lands, here’s some of our ideas on what you should consider to bring along.
GPS Trackers
GPS trackers are going to come in handy for a number of reasons. First, if you are anywhere you have to drive, they will point you in the right direction when you are lost. Second, there are a number of GPS trackers that will give you a map readout of where you went with timestamps. This means that when you get back from your travels, you will have a minute by minute map of everywhere that you went, and you can pieces together your journey for your jealous co-workers. For safety purposes, if other people can track you, they can find you if you get in trouble as well, for instance in bad weather.
Camera / Video Camera Combo
Some sort of camera/video camera combo is a necessary gadget if you’re out journeying. Preferably, you want to have a high-quality piece of equipment that does both, just because it is one less thing to lug around. To differentiate between the quality of your mobile phone and something more professional, it’s good for you to start researching the availability of one of the many DSLR packages that are out there. There are people in every walk of life who have reviewed these and posted them, so you shouldn’t have much of an issue figuring out which ones suit your needs and your budget.
Audio Recorders
It is not as common for people to bring audio recorders out to their tourist destinations, but there are some reasons that you should consider this. Most cameras and video cameras have sound recordings, but they are typically pretty lousy, and often recorded in mono. By bringing along a pro audio recorder, you can get full stereo sound in amazing quality, and even theater-quality devices aren’t much bigger than a typical handheld item. Give it a chance some time – record something with your phone, your camera, and a designated audio recorder all at the same time, and check out the difference in quality. Just playing back the sound of beaches, cities, or exotic locations can give you all the emotional spectrum you need sometimes, and when you close your eyes, your memories can be even more vivid that photographs or video that you took.