My Travel Gear

This is what I actually wear when the destination is hot. The SunHoodie does the job its name promises — it blocks sun without the sweaty, clingy feel of a normal long-sleeve, so I can skip sunscreen on my arms and neck for most of the day. The Vent Joggerish pants are the trouser equivalent: they look like normal travel pants, not hiking gear, but the venting keeps air moving even when I'm walking through a market at midday. Between the two, I've stopped packing a separate "hot weather" and "presentable" wardrobe — this is both.

These are my one-pair answer for trips that move between extreme heat, water, and cooler weather. They can get soaked and keep going, they're genuinely tough, and they're comfortable enough that I don't think about my feet even on very long days. I wore them for the 80 km Arbaeen pilgrimage in 45–50°C heat. In mildly cold countries such as Belgium, I just add socks — they still look fine, and I don't need to pack a second pair of shoes.

A travel router does one simple but valuable thing: it turns a single hotel or airport Wi-Fi login into your own private network. I log in once on the router, and every device I'm carrying connects to it automatically — no repeated captive portals, no per-device login limits, and no sharing a network in the clear with everyone else in the building. It also runs a built-in VPN, encrypting everything at the router level rather than device by device.

I chose the Beryl 7 over GL.iNet's older models mainly because of where I actually use it: busy hotels and airports, where dozens of other guests are fighting for the same wireless airspace. Wi-Fi 6 and 7 routers handle that congestion far better than Wi-Fi 5 — they can talk to multiple devices at once instead of queuing them, they route around interference from other people's routers on the fly, and they let a phone's radio sleep more between updates, a nice side benefit for battery life. The Beryl 7's WireGuard VPN speed is also well ahead of GL.iNet's cheaper Opal and Slate AX models, and for only a small premium over the Slate AX, that made it the easy choice for two of us traveling with phones that need to stay both fast and private.

I charge my phone from this power bank and nothing else. It sounds excessive until you think about what a phone charger actually is: a small device with full access to whatever you plug it into. Hotel USB ports and random airport charging stations are not something I want my phone talking to directly, so the power bank is the only thing that ever touches a wall socket, and my phone only ever touches the power bank.

The 737 charger's job is just to refill the power bank fast — usually about an hour for a full charge — so I'm rarely without a topped-up battery for long.

The set covers every country, but I don't carry all twelve. I pull out just the plugs for wherever I'm actually headed and leave the rest at home — they weigh almost nothing individually, so the bag stays light and I'm not carrying adapters for countries I'm not visiting.

This is the light I carry instead of using my phone as a torch. It's bright, lightweight, and small enough to clip to the peak of my cap when I want both hands free, or I can release it and hold it like a normal flashlight. That means I can head out on dark streets or paths without draining the phone battery I may still need for maps, tickets, and communication.

This is the only bag I travel with. It's waterproof and genuinely tough — the roll-top material is thick enough that it's effectively slash-proof, and because the only way in is through that single top opening, it's about as pickpocket-proof as a daypack gets. No side zips, no easy targets. It's not a stylish "travel" bag in the influencer sense, it's just a commuter pack that happens to be the right size and durable enough to survive years of hard use.

A simple, well-made sling — one large central pocket plus a smaller pocket at the back where I keep my passport. Inside the main pocket I use plastic envelopes to keep things sorted, since the bag itself doesn't have internal dividers. It's the bag that stays on me all day when the Ortlieb pack is checked or stashed.