Tech Travel Bag – The Top 7 Best Essentials in Ours

Do you guys have a tech travel bag? If not, then imagine this. Battery at 20%? Better get the power bank out. But darn it! I forgot to charge it. Luckily I am at this cafe and I have my charger with me. You’re working the whole day then you check your smartwatch, you notice it is down to 20%, and you still have a full night to go – either a dinner appointment with friends, a date with your wife, or a late-night gym workout. And, of course, you’re well prepared for that too!

Have you been in that situation before? Well, we did. With us, we had to carry massive bag packs and then you get messes of entangled cables to wrestle with…it was so frustrating! At some point, it just feels like too many things to carry with you. We found the best tech travel bag for this! And, you’d be surprised at how compact and easy it can be! So here’s a guide to our 7 Best Essentials must-have in our test travel bag to ease you in your day-to-day schedule.

The Essentials in our Tech Travel Bag

Before we get to what is in our tech travel bag we need a suitable bag. For our purposes, we went with a Mark Ryden Sling Bag.

Before we chose a bag we looked at several different options. There were several options. But in each of these cases, we found something lacking. For an in-depth comparison of the bags please stay tuned to our post on tech travel bag comparison. The most important thing you need to consider before choosing a bag is what the heck are you gonna put in it. For us, we wanted to fit our iPad in the bag. That meant we needed to find a sling bag that could fit a 10-11 inch tablet. Once we got the bag the rest of the items followed. Links to all our products are provided when available.

• Charging cables
• USB charger
• Smartwatch chargers
• Powerbank
• Pen
• Notebook
• Medical Pack

Charging Cables

Since we have both an Android (Nadia) phone and an iPhone(Mihu) we needed a USB-C and a Lightning cable. There are plenty of high-quality cables to choose from for both categories. This one came down to preference and cable length. Both of our cables are 2 meters long cables.

For the iOS cable, we chose this Ugreen cable. For the USB-C cable, we chose this Aukey cable. Both cables are nylon braided for durability. And both brands are trusted and get the job done. Both are USB-C cables as we are all heading toward using USB-C as a single connector future and our tech travel bag should be no exception. Unfortunately, the Aukey cable is not available on Amazon. You can substitute it with any braided Anker cable on Amazon.

USB Charger

For the USB charger our requirements were that it had to be small, must have more than 1 USB-C port, and should be able to charge our devices at full or high enough speed. That would be perfect to fit in our tech travel bag. For chargers, there is one brand that we liked more than the rest and it is Anker. Therefore we found the best Anker charger for the job. For a list of other really good USB-C chargers that would be good for travel take a look at this post.

This charger was perfect for us. It is a 40W dual USB-C charger. It is plenty of power to charge our phones, tablet, and whatever else we need.

Smartwatch Chargers

Don’t you hate it when you have to carry the smartwatch charger with the USB cable when you travel? Another cable to tangle in your bag. Therefore we decided to look for a portable USB-powered, USB-C if possible, smartwatch charger. And since we cannot agree on a smartphone/smartwatch ecosystem, believe me, I tried to convert Nadia to the Apple ecosystem, we had to get both an Apple version and Samsung version. Luckily we found such a charger on Shopee. So we bought both. An Apple version and Samsung version.

If you want to find something similar outside of Malaysia we also found a similar item on Amazon.

These two products work in the same way. The only difference is that the HOCE charger from Shopee has USB-A in addition to USB-C. And yes, these chargers also work by connecting to a powerbank. More on the powerbank later. So now we have both these portable chargers in our tech travel bag.

Powerbank

Sometimes when you travel you need a quick charge and you’re unable to reach a power plug. In those instances, the go-to is a powerbank. We decided to go with 10000 mAh capacity powerbank. It is USB-C of course. And it is magsafe compatible which is a bonus for iPhone users (Yay). It is a 20W powerbank which is useful to power the iPad in a pinch as well as both our phones.

Pen & Notebook

This may be the best essentials in a tech travel bag post but you cannot go wrong by adding some old-school pen and paper in the bag. Sometimes you just need to jot down something on paper. Nothing fancy here. Just a nice pocket-sized notebook and a reliable pen.

Medical Pack

This is an absolute must. Especially when you travel. Or if you have sensitive conditions that might need medication at any moment. This pack contains emergency band-aids. It contains Gaviscon, for indigestion. It’s got a sanitary pad if the need arises for the wifey. For anything that counts as a minor emergency, we got something.

Total Damage

Here is how the price breaks down for all the items in our tech travel bag including the bag itself when we bought them.

• Mark Ryden Bag – $15
• Aukey USB-C to USB-C cable – $11
• Ugreen USB-C to Lightning cable – $12
• Anker 40W charger – $35
• Apple watch charger -$6
• Samsung watch charger – $6
• Baseus powerbank – $27
• Pen & notebook – $4
• Medical pack – $15

Total = $131

So there we have it. For a very inexpensive price, you too can get a tech travel bag set. Believe me. This makes life so much easier when you need to travel, whether it be just to the coffee shop or an overnight trip out of state. What about you guys? Do you have your own tech travel bag? If so what do you have in yours? Let us know, we would love to hear about it.