There are many things that I find indispensable on the road.
COMPUTER. Because of my website, I always travel with a laptop, a Mac Air. It takes up little room. Doing so many things is easier on a computer compared to a Smartphone. Accessing files is easy.
KINDLE. I have travelled with a Kindle for decades. I didn’t use to use a cover and am now on my 12th Kindle. Amazon used to send a new Kindle anywhere in the world for free but it no longer offers that service. I have hundreds of books on it or in the cloud. Reading only paper books would also overload my carrying capacity. I used to get my Time and Atlantic subscriptions on my Kindle so kept up more easily (they are now on my computer which is not as convenient). It is easy to read in bright sunlight and if backlit at night.
Get free books using your Kindle email address, but I usually pay for them.
• Salvador, Brazil 2022. I was using an Uber and had stopped at a convenience store to buy cigarettes. The driver left – with my daypack with my computer and Kindle in the pack. I hadn’t paid the fare and couldn’t believe he had left. He didn’t answer my calls. Uber’s drivers are personal contractors and Uber has no disciplinary ability. Even with his license plate number, the police were of no help.
I can’t function without my computer or Kindle and returned home. My COVID PCR was positive and I spent my 10-day quarantine in Mexico City, one of my favourite cities.
SMARTPHONE. This is obvious as phones are so useful for everything. I have lost so many phones, I have lost count. I buy the cheapest Android phone I can find. And usually end up with a better phone with more features. I don’t take photos so have none to lose,
Camera. Digital photography has revolutionized photography. Improvements in lenses and functions allow good-quality photography.
Snapshot photography doesn’t appeal to me and I rarely use my camera except for some interests (I take photos of stained glass).
Another irritation is the selfie culture. I don’t understand why people are so narcissistic that they have to insert themselves into every photo. I have never taken a selfie.
Apps. The number of apps is unlimited – from taxi apps to document and QR code scanners. I would be lost without Google Maps and Translate.
CONVERSATION AND DATA
SIM cards in each country. I use an unlocked phone and purchase a SIM card in every country. In most countries, a new SIM and data are extremely cheap. I rarely buy talk as I use Skype to phone cheaply. On Skype, all 800 calls are free and I use that the most. I have been on hold to contact my bank or others for hours for free. Their purchase plans are purposely confusing – I recharge with $10 which is automatically added with a credit card.
International SIMS. I have never used one so have no advice. When I looked at them years ago, they were relatively expensive and one would need to find the network you use. Flexiroam covers 120 countries. Numero eSIM app provides virtual phone numbers for +80 countries and eSIM data for +150 countries. With virtual phone numbers, you don’t need international roaming, and with data plans, you can access the internet wherever you are and use communication apps to connect with your people.
I’m always amazed that some travellers demand to use their home phone number and thus roam. Many Americans use T-Mobile roaming and swear by it, but I don’t know the rates.
Skype Phone Number. For about US$60 yearly, I access data wherever there is WiFi. Security checks and receiving access codes are so common that it is indispensable. Note that you can only receive texts with a US Skype number. I live in Canada and my number has a Florida area code. It is also my WhatsApp number. +17724103590
Skype, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Facetime are free for chats, video calls and sending attachments everywhere.
GOOGLE MAPS. I have a love-hate relationship with this app. Without it, I would be hopelessly lost most of the time. I have learned most of its quirks. It is the only mapping app with 99% of the many destinations I use to find the thousands of NM sites I visit.
In some places (mainly Africa), some travellers prefer MapsMe as GM requires its users to correct mistakes. Many of its errors have not been corrected here.
I enter all my waymarks from the NM region on my computer relatively quickly into Google Maps – red hearts (Favourites) for World Heritage Sites and Regions, green flags (Want to Go) are for National Parks (Wonders of Nature), towns, cities, islands, XL, and yellow stars are for everything else. I then connect the dots in the most efficient way to see all my destinations. The waymarks are then on my phone for daily use.
But it has some quirky habits.
Wrong turns. When you make a wrong turn, I have virtually never heard “Make a U-turn” and GM instantly reroutes you often taking several kilometres to find a turnaround spot. This is practical on divided highways where a U-turn can’t be made. It is also often good in cities for the same reason. But just about everywhere else, a simple U-turn is easy.
• Italy March 2018. The most ridiculous occurrence was in Italy where I drove 140 km to return to the same spot!!, a street I could have U-turned on immediately. Fortunately, it makes a small sound telling you of the new route as the change is so fast, it may not be noticed. If the U-turn is not obvious or the road it is taking you on is terrible, change the scale to check where it is taking you.
It appears to use the shortest distance often to save only a few metres. The quality of the road is not factored in and you can end up on backstreets, roads with many speed bumps. gravel lanes, terrible streets and occasionally 4WD roads.
Major highway interchanges can be very confusing as you may not have time to check the many possible lanes. Look at the route and follow the signs. This irritates me the most as missing a turn here can mean many kilometres of driving to get back to your route.
Impossible routes. I have been directed down railway lines at least three times. Once in Albania, I hit a long stretch of new highway construction that you could drive on. It was odd to drive cross country. GM wanted to turn on watercourses.
Saving Waymarks. iPhones don’t save yellow stars and Android phones only save red hearts (Favourites) and green flags (Want to Go). Not infrequently you lose one type of waymark completely. When you click Saved, only one type of waymark is shown and then often disappears. It drives me crazy as my routes are all waymarked and I use them every day.
When GM is not saving waymarks, I write all my destinations in order in a notebook. If it has been saved, the destination is shown.
Offline Maps. For every region I go to, I download all the offline maps and make sure to update the map as required. When offline, it still gives driving instructions but other transportation. I can still navigate ok.
Areas Where GM isn’t Available. Kosovo, southern Turkey next to the Iraq border and Iraq are the most well-known. It is astonishing when you lose GM within one foot of crossing the Kosovo border. Here you still have a map but no navigation. Use the map in Preview and move the map along, refresh, and change the scale manually as needed.
South Korea has absolutely no GM function. You have no offline maps or Preview. Even if it had GM, it is better to use the Naver app as it notifies you of every speed camera. SK has more speed cameras than any country in the world.
Correcting errors (like not saving certain types of waymarks) seems impossible. I have emailed GM several times, and as they never respond and the error is never corrected, I am never sure it even gets the message.
People Who Can’t Use a Map. It is astonishing how much of the third world can’t understand maps. They can’t find any destinations in a city they have lived in all their lives. Most have never heard of mapping apps. Taxi drivers don’t catch on to “follow the blue line”.
I never ask women for directions as the instructions are poor. As a group, they also don’t know how to use maps.
Garmin Drive Assistant. I am writing this to show that no mapping service is perfect – and this app is much worse than GM. This was the mapping app that came with my VW California. I have developed a love/hate relationship with it. Indispensable to drive around big cities and find your way many times, it can take you to some of the most amazing places – impossibly narrow streets, down staircases and the wrong way on one-way streets. I had a near-death experience in Noto and another one in Marineo where she took me to the base of Rocca Busambra. She prefers the big autostradas and then the most out-of-the-way back lanes.
I need to pay closer attention when she threatens to take me in crazy directions – but she sounds so confident!
GOOGLE TRANSLATE
GT has every translation method possible. Download the language and communicate with text only when you have no data. With data, scan text or use voice, both are useful (especially with illiterate people). It is amazing how stunned some people are – it has occasionally taken me five or more attempts to get people to talk into the microphone. They must speak relatively quickly after the microphone appears. Some people never catch on.
PERSONAL WEBSITES. I need somewhere to record all my travel and experiences. In 2013, I started my website www.ronperrier.net. My travel is on the Travelogue Page listed in chronological order since 1996. It is my diary. The Travel Page has everything I could think of on travel information. I also have pages on Hiking, Kayaking, and Diving. The About Page has a cookbook, a book list and this eBook. The Ideas page includes articles on anything that interests me. I have also written two books: High-Functioning Asperger’s Syndrome and Hiking & Climbing the West Kootenay of British Columbia. In May 2024, I decided to write a travel book called Travel Nomad. It includes a lot of information on travellers and vignettes of many of my travel experiences.
Maintaining my website necessitates travelling with a computer. I have always used Mac Airs because of their size. When travelling, I spend a few hours every day creating and adding posts.
POWER BANK. I have a small and efficient power bank made by Anker. It is useful when I walk around cities all day as my power rarely can last that long.
Nitecore NB10000 Gen 2 may be the best power bank available. It has an extraordinarily high capacity-to-weight ratio (7.3 Wh/oz), is encased in carbon fibre and has electronic circuitry that powers some of the most efficient (lossless) PD circuits. With the right cables, it powers devices quickly, reliably, and efficiently.
PD USB-C cables are essential to get the most out of your battery (less energy wasted). For iPhone and AirPods users, a modern USB-C to lightning cable is a must, but there’s a lot of garbage out there. Many are counterfeit (sold as name brands), slow (sold as PD but aren’t), and not durable (failed to charge after just a few uses).
Anker makes a compact charging cable (available in USB-C to Lightning) that comes in a 12-inch length, offers 25k bend cycles, and true PD charging. This is a rare combination.
AUTOMOBILE AIDS. As I often rent vehicles, a phone holder is mandatory to safely navigate using mapping apps. I have a cigarette plug with two USBs and a tiny inverter that converts 12V car power into 110. It keeps my computer charged when I don’t have accommodation. I purchased a cheap, tiny one from Amazon.
VIRTUAL PERSONAL NETWORKS (VPNs) – where the internet sees you are from.
Whether it’s a business trip or a backpacking adventure, the last thing you want to worry about is the security of your internet connection.
A secure connection is created from the local computer system to a remote server maintained by the VPN company. That means all the information you send and receive over the internet is scrambled and encrypted before it heads along the information superhighway, keeping it safe from prying eyes.
As an added benefit, many VPN providers have servers all over the world that you can connect to, Connect through your VPN service and your IP address will be changed automatically. While there are ways to identify VPN connections, it is difficult if precautions are taken.
1. Surf Securely Over Open Wifi
Free open wifi is everywhere but comes with a hidden cost:. If there is no password to access the network, only WEP encryption, or a login/password combination at hotels and airports, your security and privacy are at risk. Your data can often be snooped and the information you send and receive is ripe for the taking. This could be e-mails, websites, files you send, bank account and credit card details, and passwords you log in with.
VPNs encrypt your data to provide a secure connection and protect your device from malware, phishing and spam sites. This is the most valuable function of a VPN.
Use a VPN when travelling in foreign countries to deal with nonsecure Internet servers.
2. Access Media Across Borders
If you try to connect to pay-for and free streaming services such as Pandora, Netflix, Hulu (which is available in the US and Japan only), satellite radio (Sirius/XM), Amazon VOD and ESPN3, Spotify, and many country-specific TV networks, your access is blocked when you’re outside your country. Your IP address gives your location in the world. Someone else might own the rights to broadcast in the country you are in,
By changing your IP address with a VPN to your home country, trick those services into thinking you are still at home on your couch. Watch your paid content anywhere.
3. Prevent Online Banking Lockouts
When you travel abroad, most of us know that it’s a good practice to call your credit card company beforehand and let them know. That way, when you pay for your hotel on the beaches of Brazil, they don’t freak out and block your card thinking it may have been stolen.
When you log into your bank online, they already know where you are by your IP address. If it happens to be that you’re somewhere new, you might be flagged and may be asked some security questions to verify that your account hasn’t been hijacked. At worst though, you might be locked out, requiring a phone call to the bank and some hoops to jump through before regaining access to your money.
Paypal has its share of horror stories. Their security was poor as it doesn’t use 2-step verification. Unlike your bank at home, PayPal isn’t a phone call away and has been known to keep thousands of dollars locked away until it sees fit.
With a VPN, you can connect to any number of servers and countries around the world, and the site you are visiting will see you from there. For example, you may be travelling in Burma (where banking sanctions are still in place) and be denied access to your account by your bank. If you connect your VPN through your home country, they see you as being there and not Burma, and it’s smooth sailing.
4. Bypass Censorship
Some governments dictate what their citizens should and shouldn’t see on the internet. The best example is China and the “Great Firewall of China.” which blocks all Google services, Facebook and YouTube.
Burma censors content like CNN. In Lebanon, access to this website was prevented (it said the IP address was blacklisted), but I had no problems when using my VPN.
5. Bypassing Country Locks of Select Services
Many countries block access to certain websites. Skype and other VOIP services are blocked in many countries by telecom providers afraid of losing revenue, or governments who wish to monitor calls. Uzbekistan blocks Skype. Arab countries block pornography. You may be able to log on and get minimal use but functionality is very impaired.
A VPN is crucial to travel in China, but only a few work. In 2023, the best was Let’s VPN.
Chrome is blocked but Safari and Opera worked well.
VPNs can bypass workplace censorship of sites like Facebook, Gmail and YouTube.
6. Privacy
Surf privately and conceal your personal information and your location.
BANKING. It is necessary to access your money everywhere. I have accounts in two banks and travel with four credit cards (and often have needed them all as hacking cards is so common). ATMs charge user fees, sometimes commissions but may give the best rate. Use accounts with free withdrawals. Be aware of black market money countries where using ATMs or credit cards can be extremely expensive.
Currency Conversion. xe.com is the best money conversion website. Before arriving in any country, check the rates to be prepared for money changers.