How to charge your travel gadgets

I’m forever searching for the perfect backpack, completely packed with the lightest, smartest, minimal bits of kit for the ultimate adventurer.

Lately I’ve been looking into updating my charging system for all my travel gadgets in my bag.

I thought I’d share with you What I’ve managed to find and here are the results.

My Travel gadgets: An Apple MacBook Air, Amazon Kindle Paperwhite and an Apple iPhone 5, along with converters and power adaptors.

As I only travel with Hand luggage, Space does matter and thats why I wanted to do some shifting around.

This is my new solution I’ve come up with to charge all three devices on the road.

Introducing the NomadKey.

I’ve tested out this product by having it on my keys for a month and using it when I need to charge my iPhone, its a robust cable and easily twists to fit into place.

It takes up no space at all and fits nicely in my bag, in fact, it doesn’t even seem its there, that’s a massive step compared to all the tangled up cables I used to have in my bag.

I like the design of the product as it has travellers in mind during the development process and I have to say I’m rather pleased with it and it will be my main charging cable from now onwards.

You can also purchase a Micro USB version for Android phones or in my case for my Amazon Kindle.

I’ve decided to use two of these for both my devices, one Thunderbolt and one Micro USB

If you’re interested in picking yourself up one of these great cables you can follow this link here and all readers can grab 20% off your next order, magic!: NomadicKey by Nomad

NomadCard

From the same company you can also use a Card design which fits nicely in your wallet, this might be a better option for you, but sadly my wallet is too Bulky to fit this card in, I did test this item out but the NomadKey won me over so much that I’ve decided to go for that option for my cables, if you do have space in your wallet you can always check this out too, its built in the same robust way and might work out as a better option for you. Plugged in nicely to my Mac Air and did look great.

Readers also get 20% off this item as well by following this link: NomadCard By Nomad

TwelveSouth PlugBug

Carrying multiple charging solutions was a bulky pain, but now with the TwelveSouth PlugBug it’s solved all of this.

Rather than Charging three devices with 3 chargers, I can now do this with just one.

Not only this, but with the International power heads I no longer need to travel with a Power converter.

All the plugs I will ever possibly need are all in a nice easy to store string bag and takes up little space at all.

This allows me to charge all three devices as quickly as possible with only one plug.

What I’ve found in the past is the speed that’s needed to charge an iPhone or iPad, charging from the Mac Air’s USB port isn’t the most quickest due to the amps that the laptop gives off.

The plugBug USB port is 2.1 amps that piggy backs the power off the MagSafe and doesn’t effect the Mac Air charge as well which is a wonderful feature.

This ensures that I can plug into one wall socket and get all my devices charged as quickly as possible.

With the limited battery life you get from the iPhone and Mac Air, this device is a wonderful Nomadic tool to use on the road.

Found this video very useful when deciding to purchase:

Lastly Stop this from happening to you on the road

The worst thing that can happen on the road is your MacSafe cable getting damaged. If you’re travelling to remote areas, your be unable to charge your devices if this was to occur.

Sugru helps and prevents this from happening by covering the area that will cause this.

This material is a flexible putty that is both easy to install and will protect the area that’s most weak.

It’s a small investment that could help in a horrible situation in the future. Sugru is rather afforable as well on Amazon, be sure to check it out.

I’ve read of some travellers having this happen to them on twitter and the only solution was to to ship over a MacSafe charger before they could work again on the road. The Putty is very useful and reliable and handy to keep around, sort of the duck tape of tech.

Not only this, but it has many more multiple uses that you can find out about from the Sugru website.

I hope you found this blog post useful and picked up some useful tips, feel free to share below in the comment section if you happen to have anything to add to my list or if your currently using any of the above items in your backpack, wishing you many happy travels with your tech!