Are you planning on travelling anywhere during the upcoming holidays?

Use our Five Tech Savvy Travel Tips to become a tech-savvy traveller and make your travels smoother, cheaper and have what you need to deal with the unexpected.

Five Tech Savvy Travel Tips:

• Travel light Do you really need to lug your laptop with its charger, your tablet and smartphone? If it’s a short trip maybe you can do everything you need on your smartphone or tablet? A digital luggage scale is an invaluable tool to have when you travel.
• Use Cloud apps that allow you to still work offline.
  • Microsoft OneNote is great for keeping lists and notes but you can also use it for much more. Use OneNote to take photo’s of your important documents, receipts and other material. Once your device has synchronized, all of this material will be available offline in your apps or online via any Internet-connected device (eg the airport lounge or hotel lobby PC). Another great thing about OneNote – it’s free and it works on Apple, Android or Windows!
  • Apps such as TripIt are great for keeping all your flight and hotel bookings in one easy to find a place.
  • Microsoft OneDrive is a great service to use for uploading and keeping a backup of your photo’s. If you install the OneDrive app on your phone or tablet you can get any photo’s you take to automatically upload whenever it detects your device is online. Just like OneNote, OneDrive is free and works on Apple, Android or Windows and you can access your files from any Internet-connected device!

• Stay Charged and Connected Before you fly think about what you need to stay charged and connected – cables, international power adaptors, etc. Add them to your luggage and weigh it before you leave home to avoid extra costs at the airport for overweight luggage.
• Data Do some research to discover the most cost-effective way to buy data and voice on your travels. Or give itro a quick call to find out how you can avoid the excessive bills of international roaming fees.
• Keep your laptop/tablet easily accessible At every security check you will need to get out your laptop or tablet to screen separately, so save yourself time and have them easily accessible. It is a good idea to have your device and charge cable in hand luggage so you can use it at any time (eg, watching movies or killing time in an airport lounge after you have checked your luggage). Airport lounges can be a great time to reflect on things and come up with new business ideas or catch up with your emails.

What I learnt travelling around Asia

I’ve spent most of the last eighteen months travelling and working throughout Asia. Travelling light and still having what I needed to stay connected and do my job was of paramount importance. My wife and I both took our Microsoft Surface Pro tablets and our Smartphones. This was everything we needed to stay productive and entertained! The Surface Pro was the perfect tablet that I could use for movies in mid-flight or hotel room and at the click of snapping on the keyboard became a powerful laptop that ran the full Windows experience.

I’ve learnt from past experience that using my Telstra SIM abroad is a recipe for HUGE bills. Nowadays I make it a practice to buy a pre-paid local SIM whenever I arrive at my destination. Sometimes this can be a challenge with language barriers but it’s really worthwhile. If you can’t be bothered with this, contact your Telco or call into Australia Post before you go and buy a Travel SIM from them, it’s not quite as cheap but at least you can carry out the transaction in advance.

Next time you travel, let us know your plans and requirements and we can help you plan ahead for your travel technology requirements.