Several of you have asked us how much and what kinds of technology we’ve taken with us on the road. Here’s your answer! But first, a word of warning: we are not gadget people. We owned a VCR until surprisingly recently. We don’t have smart watches. (Actually, we aren’t quite sure what those are – do they help with your homework?) So even when we had ten times more stuff we probably didn’t have anywhere near as much in this category as you do. Here – unlike food stuff – is an area where we really truly do feel like minimalists.
Computers and Tablets and Phones
We each have a Dell laptop, and we each have a wireless keyboard. As it happens, we haven’t used the keyboards as much as we thought we would and we’re wondering if they’re worth keeping. John has a wireless mouse as well, but he always uses that. And there’s an hdmi cable, plus a couple of splitters and a handful of disks for on-site backup.
We have one iPad and one android tablet. John uses the iPad but Laurel does not much use the tablet. Perhaps when we move more fully away from paper books she will read from it more often.
We each have very old Samsung phones. Like so old they are in the single digits (they seem to be making them in the twenties now). And we have chargers for these, three of them just in case.
Other Technology
- 2 sets of BOSE noise cancelling earphones. These are worth any amount of money: take the amount of money you would pay to have them when you are on a dreadfully noisy airplane and divide that by four and they are still a bargain. Note: they seem now to sell only earbuds, which are even lighter.
- A crappy pair of earbuds, just in case
- JBL Harman outdoor Bluetooth speaker. Ours is a Flip 4 which seems to have been replaced by the Flip 5. This is heavy but we love it: it means we can listen to music on a real speaker and makes a world of difference. It was a present (thanks again, cuz!).
- Various plug adaptors; we’ve got one each for the UK and Europe, plus a multi-outlet one that switches out by country.
- Small IKEA clock that looks nothing like that picture (ours is twenty years old) but costs the same. And it’s lasted us twenty years.
- Tiny flashlight, in case of bears.
- A thermometer that also tracks humidity. Because we’re always on foot, we keep this by the door to make sure we’re prepared.
- Luggage scale, pictured in a previous post on packing. This is a recent purchase, but a good one.
What We’re Missing
Nothing, actually. This seems like a lot to us. We can stream movies on the computers or on TVs when we have them. Phones take pretty good pictures these days (iPad even better ones). We might get rid of some of this stuff before our next move. What would you need if you were us?
