Hey,
It’s Pete Matheson with a new issue of Experiments in Progress.
Most packing-light advice online ignores one thing: the tech.
People talk bags, clothes, toiletries but the gadgets are where most people are secretly hauling dead weight.
🎒 The Best Travel Gadgets for People Who Pack Light
I've been refining my own setup quite a lot recently. So here's exactly what's in my bag right now, and why.
🎒 The Bag: GRAMS28
My current one is the GRAMS28 — a premium Italian leather travel backpack.
It's not the lightest bag on the market in terms of the bag itself, but it's incredibly well-designed for keeping things organised without overpacking. Once you've got a bag that forces discipline, everything else gets easier.
🎥 Camera: DJI Osmo Pocket 4
It's small enough to go in a jacket pocket, genuinely versatile, and the footage quality is well beyond what you'd expect from something this size.
4K/240fps — proper slow motion without needing a cinema rig
Three-axis mechanical stabilisation with ActiveTrack 7.0
107GB internal storage so no fumbling for SD cards
1-inch sensor, 14 stops of dynamic range
It shoots great video, it's quick to pull out, and you don't feel guilty about how little space it takes up.
Source: CNET
🌐 Travel Router: GL.iNet
The GL.iNet Slate AX is a pocket-sized Wi-Fi 6 travel router.
You plug it into the hotel ethernet, or connect it to hotel Wi-Fi, and then all your devices (phone, laptop, watch, everything) immediately connect as if you were at home.
No logging in on every single device. No hotel captive portals. It just works.
Works on hotel ethernet or Wi-Fi repeater mode
Supports VPN passthrough (OpenVPN, WireGuard)
Genuinely pocketable
It's one of those things that sounds like a nice-to-have right up until the moment you're in a room with three devices trying to navigate a hotel login page on each one.
Source: GL.iNet
💳 Wallet: Magbac Magnetic Wallet
Lightweight, MagSafe-compatible, sticks to the back of the phone.
Some hotels still require a physical card to check in, so it earns its place even when I barely touch it otherwise.
💻 Laptop: MacBook Air (M4 or newer)
I switched from a MacBook Pro to the MacBook Air specifically because of travel.
The thing is, the weight difference sounds marginal on paper. After a week of carrying the Pro everywhere, it doesn't feel marginal.
The Air is significantly lighter, and with the M4 chip (or the M5 if you're buying now) the performance gap between the Air and Pro has basically closed for almost anything you'd do on the road.
If you travel a lot: get the Air. The Pro weight adds up.
🔋 Power: Two Modes
Here's how I handle charging on the road now:
When I know I'll be away from power for a while I pack a full-size Anker power bank.
It’s the big one with the attached cables, USB-A and USB-C ports, and enough capacity to charge my laptop. It's heavy, but it means I'm completely covered: phone, laptop, watch, everything.
When I just need a phone top-up: Anker Nano Power Bank
I've been using the Anker Nano Power Bank — the ultra-slim 5,000mAh MagSafe-compatible one. It's 8.6mm thin, Qi2-certified for 15W wireless charging, and snaps straight onto the back of my iPhone Air.
Gives me roughly a full charge and then some on the Air, which has notoriously mediocre battery life.
Source: Digital Camera World
🔌 Travel Charger: Foldable 3-in-1 Wireless Pad
I've stopped using multi-country travel adapters.
Instead, I use a compact 8-way desktop charger — multiple USB-C and USB-A ports, solid wattage — and I bought it with five different country-specific power leads.
Now when I travel, I just pack the charger unit plus the one slim cable for whatever country I'm going to.
The charger stays the same. Only the cable changes.
🎒 Pack or Skip: Travel Gadgets Edition
If you travel with… | Take this |
|---|---|
Multiple devices and hotel Wi-Fi | GL.iNet travel router |
An iPhone Air | Anker Nano MagSafe slim bank |
A MacBook Pro | Swap it for a MacBook Air |
A bulky multi-country adapter | Switch to an 8-way charger + swap cables |
Big headphones | Try earbuds for once |
Long power-free days | Anker PowerCore (the big one) |
A camera bag | DJI Osmo Pocket 4 (ditch the bag) |
What's the hardest thing to leave behind when you're packing light?
📱 Enjoying this newsletter? Share it with a friend who’s as obsessed with tech as you are:
I put seven pairs of earbuds head-to-head so you don't have to.
AirPods Pro 3, AirPods 4, Sony XM6, Bose QuietComfort Ultra II, Pixel Buds Pro 2, Galaxy Buds Pro 4 and a wildcard that might just be the smartest buy on the whole list.
The full lineup ranked by price (before you assume which is best)
Design and comfort compared (because specs don't tell you how they feel at 11pm)
Which earbud actually won the mic quality test (it's not who you'd guess)
How noise cancellation stacks up across all seven in real conditions
Battery life compared and which ones you can actually sleep in
and more...