I spend a lot of time in my office, but I spend almost as much time on the road. The challenge, as you can imagine, is that while I’m on the road, I need to have everything (and I mean everything) with me as though I were in my actual office. This includes hardware, software, data, communication… everything. In today’s post, I thought I would take you on a tour of my travel bag. This bag is akin to the “football” for the President of the United States. It goes (almost) everywhere that I go. With that in mind, let’s take a look!
First, the bag itself. I use the Tomtoc Defender A50 laptop bag. It’s perfect for laptops around 14” and is slim, yet has enough storage to carry all the essentials items with me (keep reading).
My laptop of choice… the 14” Apple MacBook Pro. With the M1 system-on-a-chip (current models now offer the M2 SOC), 32 GB memory and a whopping 4 TB SSD, this is no only powerful enough to throw everything I have at it, but it has enough onboard storage to keep just about everything I have. I could upgrade to an 8 TB SSD, but for another $1,100 US, it’s not worth it.
Next up is my phone (which you can’t see in this picture because it took the picture). I use an Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max with 512 GB storage. I LOVE this phone! Need I say more?
You’ll also notice in the above picture an 11” iPad Pro. If my laptop isn’t within arm’s reach, my iPad is. This is an incredibly powerful device for lots of different things, as you can imagine. Some creative ways that I use mine… as a second display for my laptop on the go as well as sharing slide decks while on Zoom calls (so that I can keep my primary display focus on what matters most… seeing people’s faces.
I don’t technically travel on a daily basis with my Apple AirPods Max (that’s what my AirPods Pros are for), but I use them quite often both at home and when I travel by air. These are the best noise-cancelling headphones I have (runner up is my Bose 700).
I always carry at least one SanDisk Extreme portable SSD drive because you never know when you will need more storage! The one pictured above is the 4 TB version. I also have a couple 2 TB models floating around.
The Logitech Spotlight is the BEST presenter’s remote, hands down. This thing is USB-C chargeable with a battery that seems to last forever and packs a ton of really great features like it’s digital laser pointer (which you can use to magnify certain portions of your screen).
In order to ensure I know where my bag is at ALL times, I have it geo-tagged with an Apple AirTag.
Other items worth mentioning… I always carry a small screwdriver set, branded stickers (hey, you never know!) and a few different charging cable to keep me powered up.
Have questions about my bag? Let me know using the comments below! Have some suggestions to make my bag even better based on your experience, let me know! While I feel like I have perfected my setup over the years, I’m always open to suggestions!
