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Hi!
How are you? Me, Iām packing for a trip down south (itās not as dramatic, nor as warm, as it sounds) to attend my little sisterās wedding, and get some much-needed vacation. Itāll be good to see my parents and siblings, itās been a while, as youād imagine.
Oh, and itās Easter, too. Thatāll make it a joy to travel through half the country by train, Iām sure… I do hope to get some reading, writing, and researching done on the train, though, so thatās good. Sometimes, being confined to a certain space, and limited as to what you can do, is great for productivity.
Iām traveling light. That means Iāll bring my 11ā iPad Pro, and not that many other things.
Traveling light
I always try to travel light, and for this trip, itās almost as light as it can be. Thatās in part because I donāt expect to do any design or development work, so thereās no need for an emergency MacBook, or the Intel variant for the client whose IT department are firmly rooted in… old… things… And should the worst happen, I can do just about anything from my iPad, itās just not particularly pleasant sometimes.
Iāve decided to go with the 11ā iPad Pro (M1 version) for this trip. Itās big enough for writing and light editing, but small enough to fit in my Hunterās Satchel from Peg & Awl. This is a great iPad, with plenty of storage, so I feel confident dumping photos from my camera onto this as a backup. Extra storage for photography sessions is one of the perks of the 11ā iPad Pro, compared to the new iPad Air, which also sports the M1 chip. That said, when I do professional photo work on the field, I tend to bring backup drives. The LaCie Rugged series in particular is nice, because it does automatic backups of SD cards as you insert them.
But again, Iām traveling light, and I donāt expect to need additional storage at all. My camera of choice is the Ricoh GR III, which is a street camera that takes wonderful photos, and suck at video. I love this thing, and I look forward to going through all the photos Iāve taken on the train back home next week. And again, my 11ā iPad Pro will have the storage for all this, no matter if I go with RAW, or decide to shoot in JPEG.
So, weāve talked about the 11ā iPad Pro, and the camera. Iām going to bring the iPad in its Magic Keyboard, obviously. This makes for a decent writing experience, despite the somewhat cramped size. Itās better for US or UK keyboards, than it is for me, because I have additional keys that are half-sized. These are for Swedish language characters, so it should come as no surprise that I prefer to write in English on this keyboard. The apostrophe is, unfortunately, a half-key as well. That said, itās a fair price to pay for the smaller form factor. I type fast enough on this thing.
Yes, Iāll bring an Apple Pencil. Itās almost boring to talk about these things, these days, because every list of things your iPad just must have, for the sake of humanity, is a Magic Keyboard and an Apple Pencil. Everyone says this, and while the former isnāt always true, the latter most likely is, if youāre a pencil-person.
The little bits
Iāve got a tiny canvas pen-case that I picked up at Muji a couple of years ago. It fits most of the little bits you need when out and about. This is what itās in it for this trip, and most of the time, to be honest.
- USB-C 16W charger brick.
- USB-C cable.
- USB-C to Lightning cable.
- inCharge 6 keychain cable, for those odd situations.
- Satechi USB-C magnetic Apple Watch charger.
- Sandisk Dual Drive 512 GB memory stick.
- USB-A to USB-C adapter (no-name).
- Micro-USB to USB-C adapter (no-name).
- A small microfibre cloth.
- AirPods Pro.
- 8BitDo N30 Pro, in case I feel like playing some retro games on the train.
Thatās slightly more than I need for this trip. I donāt foresee any situation where a micro-USB adapter would be beneficial, but itās so small, and sometimes I bring my Kindle Oasis with a really short micro-USB cable, so thatās why itās in here. The inCharge cable is somewhat redundant most of the time, too. If it supported faster charging, Iād love it, but it doesnāt so itās for those times where I need an extra cable for whatever reason, or just want to convert something.
Most of the time when traveling, Iāll wear the AirPods Pro, and the Apple Pencil will sit in the case.
This is a simple setup. I like to keep things simple. It could be simplified even further, surely, but I like to be ready. As long as Iām bringing the canvas pen-case, then I might as well keep adapters in it, is my reasoning. What I really would like, is to get rid of cables. Since Apple still wonāt sell me an iPhone with USB-C charging, I need a Lightning cable. The inCharge cable supports USB-C to Lightning, so itās a solution, but it doesnāt support fast charging, and sometimes you just want to juice up the iPhone real quick. Iām happy that my camera both syncs and charges over USB-C, that saves me another cable.
Right, itās about time I get serious about the rest of my packing. The gadgets are under control. So, what to wear to a wedding, then?
ā Thord D. Hedengren ā”