I'm just going to be upfront and honest. I love my tech. From an early age, it was a bonding point between my father and me and I have held onto the love ever since. When Laura and I first started planning this adventure could you guess what one of the first things to come to my mind in planning was? Yes, tech. Of course, my wild ambitions got the best of me and created a knowingly unrealistic amount of items in size, necessity, and cost. When it comes to tech and really anything that feels extra in our lives, Laura and I have made the agreement that for the most part if something comes into our lives something then also needs to go. This is much easier in idea than practice but in actuality, it's also how we have kept minimalistic as possible and kept our costs down because as consumers we will always want something.

Early in my research, I was watching a lot of youtube to see what others were doing. Youtube, of course, can be a great tool and helped us quite a bit in the beginning months but very quickly it made me feel that this trip wasn't going to the be the best it could without all of the gear. I needed a GoPro, but then also needed a microphone because the onboard mic wasn't good enough. Then, of course, you need a proper mount to hold it...and batteries. What about those sweet aerial shots? We'll need a drone for that. Enough about the video though, how about some great photographs? We should get a new camera for that too. We'll need a better computer to handle the editing. The. List. Goes. On.

Time to go back to basics or I was going to spend all of the money on getting ready FOR THE TRIP. How often do I do anything with the footage I take on my phone? Never, why would I think I would with a GoPro? Drone? I don't know how to fly one of those. We want to enjoy this trip, not become Youtube stars.

So here is what I came up with, which is still more than we need but I still love tech: 

Overall Tech:

• Bose on-ear headphones. I already owned these and they are slim enough to still be good for minimal travel
• 2019 Macbook Pro 13in. I sold my previous 2015 Macbook Air because it was slowing down enough for photo editing and programming. I was toying with getting the 15in but the extra cost and weight/size made me rethink it. I'm insanely happy with my decision.
• Olympus OM-D EM-10 markii. With 14-42ez pancake lens and 40-150 telephoto lens. Camera sites will quickly make you feel like you are worthless if you are spending under $2000 on a setup. Since I'm just still learning I decided to start simple since I'm not naive enough to think the expensive cameras make you instantly a better photographer. The camera and 14-42 kit lens were refurbished from Olympus for $350 and the 40-150 is the budget model found for $80. Not bad for an entry-level setup and the micro 4/3 style makes it much smaller to carry
• Peak Design Tech Pouch. Peak Design is where I mostly splurged during this planning. I love their gear as its incredibly well thought out and quality built. Its often not the cheapest option but the tech bag is the gold standard at the moment for tech organization with its accordion design. I think it's my favorite piece of gear. You can also connect a strap to it to make it into a carry bag which I sometimes do on the plane.

Inside the Tech Pouch:

• Kikkerland travel adapter. Currently, we have only one. I'm starting to feel like we each need one but we'll see.
• 250gb SSD in an external enclosure. I wanted to get a slim little USB-c 250gb-512gb SSD hard drive but in the end, it just didn't feel like a good use of money. While this is a little larger, its something I already had on hand and works just fine.
• 4gb flash drive to hold copies of travel documents and forms.
• (2) backup small sd cards
• Jackery 10050mAh battery charger. I bought it several years ago and love it due to having both lightning/micro USB cables built-in.
• Amazon basics 5 port earphone splitter. Thought it may be helpful if we all want to watch a movie together on the computer
• Anker USB-c hub. The downside of the new Macbooks is that they are only USB-c which means you need one of these to connect your sd-cards, HDMI or older USB devices. I got this cheap on Amazon.
• Peak Design Camera Clip. I love this thing. You connect it to your backpack shoulder strap and then connect the camera directly to it. It helps with both safety and to free your hands when you don't need it at the moment.
• Pen. For doing pen stuff.
• USB-a multicable. Got this free at a conference and allows for a variety of devices to be hooked up.
• (2) camera batteries. Cant take photos if you don't have batteries.
• Mac 30w charger. Bringing this because it's small and it helps get the devices charged quickly.
• Bitboy Pocket-Go. A Little handheld emulation device to play a variety of games. Nice to just pick up and play once in a while and it was very affordable at $40.
• 60w Mackbook charger. I need to keep the computer charged!

It all fits together in the tech pouch with even a little room to spare.

With all of this tech together in my main backpack my bag still only comes out to 18lbs which is under almost all budget airline carry-on weight limits. I'll be doing a followup post on the rest of the packing.

-Jonathan