What’s really necessary in your bag?

At age 35, I’ve become a shameless overpacker. I’m rounding off a two week stint in Europe, and I traveled with a 55-pound checked bag, an overnight duffel, and my messenger bag. Most of that, embarrassingly, is clothes and shoes (I travel with 5 pairs, counting the ones on my feet — I want options). But when it comes to gadgets, I’ve developed a pretty standard “long term” loadout.

• Laptop (MacBook Air 15)
• Camera (Fuji X-T3) + 18-55mm lens + 50-230mm lens
• Steam Deck and Deck travel case
• AirPods Pro
• ANC headphones (Montblanc MB-01, an old journalist freebie)
• Apple Watch
• iPhone
• Bluetooth speaker (Sony XRS-XB33)
• Anker 737 24,000mAh portable battery
• Charging kit (USB-C to Lightning x2, USB-C to Apple Watch, USB-C to C x4, MacBook power adapter, USB-PD 35W GaN mini plug, USB-PD 120W 4-port hub, Monster Outlets To Go power strip; all in large cable organizer bag. Optional: 1x universal plug adapter.)

One thing I’ve been pretty ruthless about banishing from travel is USB-A. I leave a couple little USB-C-to-A adapters in my cable organizer bag, but all of my cable redundancy is built around USB-C. When the iPhone and AirPods switch to USB-C this year, I will happily take the opportunity to yeet my two Lightning cables into retirement.

Every item in my loadout gets used (OK, maybe not all four USB-C cables… yet), and unless the trip is shorter than a week, I rarely pare this down.

My bulky Anker 737 battery has become one of the true workhorses — outlet placement in hotels and Airbnbs is often annoyingly inconvenient, and there’s never a guarantee of functional (or easily reachable) AC power while you’re in the air. I’ll use it to charge up my iPhone and Apple Watch in whatever room I’m using, and the massive capacity means I’ll probably only top it up once a week on the road. It easily powers the insatiable Steam Deck, extending playtimes from 90-120 minutes to four-plus hours. It charges quickly, too — using my large 4-port USB-PD power adapter, it will take up to 90 Watts of input, going from near empty to full in well under 90 minutes.

I used to try and cram all of this (minus the Bluetooth speaker, which is quite bulky) into my briefcase-style laptop bag, which was insane. But I’ve since split into a two-carry-on configuration, with either my overnight duffel or my Briggs & Riley rollaboard acting as the pack mule. In that bag, my speaker, Steam Deck, camera, and lenses are packed. My Peak Design Messenger — a fairly compact bag — barely clears the vast MacBook Air 15 in its laptop sleeve. The rest of the space is reserved for my cable organizer bag, portable battery, and ANC headphones. This makes for a manageable configuration, and one that prioritizes my access to power, which tends to be the most fiddly thing to get set up in an airplane seat or upon arrival at short-term accommodations. (This is very much playing to the strengths of my yes-clinically-diagnosed-ADHD brain. Putting all the pluggy-inny bits in Bag #1 ensures I actually set them up and gadgets don’t just get left out to die.)

With this, I have everything I need to access all the content and digital touchpoints in my life. I can capture, process, and upload photos. I can play my PC games on the Deck. I can listen to my music or watch a movie without it sounding absolutely terrible wherever I’m staying. I can prioritize drowning out ambient noise or portability with my personal audio. All of my stuff can be charged, and charged quickly. I feel this setup is pretty well optimized — I could have chosen a smaller laptop, a more compact mirrorless camera, or a less bulky speaker. There are ways to downsize, but almost all of them result in material compromise.

The future of travel gadgets is a point of great interest for me, because I do believe there’s substantial evolution still to be had. The proliferation of alternative lithium-ion battery chemistries is going to lighten up phones, laptops, tablets, and power banks considerably (provided you can afford premium chemistry gadgets). Chargers will also probably continue to shrink, clawing back yet more precious grams and centimeters. The gadgets themselves will become more efficient, requiring less frequent charging. It’s already almost impossible to drain my MacBook in a single day — I would have to actively try!

I doubt pro-grade camera systems will downsize noticeably on the same time horizon, though. And speakers and over-ear headphones tend to be physics-constrained unless you want to seriously compromise on the quality of sound; a fundamental scientific breakthrough would be required to make them meaningfully smaller.

The Steam Deck is an interesting case because it probably presents the least space-optimized item in my bag. Should that form factor continue to evolve (battery, chipset, fan design, weight, a folding display, perhaps?), it seems like there would be a lot of room for innovation. Right now, Valve’s gaming handheld is by far the standout in my collection for its usability limitations and ergonomic awkwardness.

Another identifiable leap would be the reduction in need for cables overall. I still travel with a lot of cords. Both because some gadgets use different cords (Apple Watch, iPhone, AirPods), but also because simultaneous charging is still a fairly frequent use case. A very big part of me yearns for a MacBook with a built-in charging pad for my phone and watch. Extending the effective life of these gadgets and uprating their charging speeds would be helpful, but also feels like a band-aid. Perhaps there’s an infrastructure-side (i.e., at the wall) change that needs to happen there. Anyway, cords suck and I would like to get rid of them.

It’s still pretty amazing that we’ve gone from using a laptop on an airplane being an extremely rate-limited activity to fully practical for long-haul travel. Lithium-ion batteries and modern chipset architecture are wild stuff, man. Making our lives mobile has become so convenient that the small inconveniences we suffer have become noticeable, and that’s a big shift from even 15 years ago.