As the chaotic summer travel season gets underway, it’s more important than ever to pack efficiently and make sure you’ve got everything you need. This is our list of essential travel items, those things we always make sure we have with us when we go. Many of these items also make great gifts. Take a look, and let us know what you think!
Toiletries
Peak Design Wash Pouch
We’ve tried a lot of toiletry organization methods, and this one is our favorite. It combines a lot of well-sized interior pockets with a generous amount of unstructured space. It can sit open on a counter if you have the space, but it also has a hook to hang from a door or ring in small bathrooms. Peak Design makes great products, and this one is no exception; it’s sturdily built and should last a long time.
Aquasonic Black Series Electric Toothbrush
If you’re short on space or weight, you should take a manual toothbrush. But oral hygiene is important, and electric toothbrushes do a much better job. So when we have the space, we like to travel with electric toothbrushes. Aquasonic may not be a big name in the electric toothbrush space, but this toothbrush is reasonably priced and comes with a travel case and eight brush heads. More importantly, it has a lithium ion battery, which lasts much longer than your typical toothbrush battery; we’ve never had it run out on a trip.
Mavogel Cotton Sleep Mask
When you need to sleep on a plane or bus or in an airport, having a sleep mask is crucial. And you never know if your hotel or Airbnb or wherever you’re staying will have blinds or curtains that actually block much light. This $10 sleep mask is made of soft, comfy cotton. It blocks light very well, and comes with nifty travel pouch and carabiner so you stow it in your toiletry bag or clip it to your bag.
Matador Droplet Packable Wet Bag
Keeping wet clothes in your suitcase is tough. They smell, they get everything else wet, and they’re unsanitary. We’ve played the game of taking hotel laundry bags to store swimsuits and other wet clothes, but the Matador Droplet Packable Wet bag is a better solution. It’s a small dry bag that packs into a tiny case that will fit on a keychain or into a corner of a suitcase, so you always have it handy.
Matador FlatPak Soap Bar Case
If you like to travel with bar soap, you know that finding a way to store it is challenging. You can’t just toss a wet bar of soap into your dopp kit, and plastic boxes leak and get grody very quickly. We like the Matador FlatPak Soap Bar Case, a leakproof bag that allows your soap to dry, so that it doesn’t get mushy the next time you need it.
Matador Packable Shower Towel
If you’re staying somewhere that doesn’t provide linens, or going on an extended trek or backpacking trip, you’ll need to bring your own towel. Lots of travel towels don’t work very well, and they’re usually tiny. The Matador Packable Shower Towel is a full-size shower towel with maximum absorbency that packs down into a tiny travel case.
Food & Drink
Collapsible Water Bottle
With water filling stations increasingly available, taking your own water bottle can be convenient, not to mention good for the planet. Que makes a great collapsible water bottle, so it doesn’t take up too much space when it’s empty.
LifeStraw Water Bottle
If you’re camping or traveling in a country where the tap water isn’t drinkable, it can be incredibly convenient to carry a Lifestraw Go water bottle. You just fill it up, and the straw system handles filtration of the water when you drink, so you instantly have potable water whenever you need it.
Electronics
Portable Battery
You never know when you’ll need to recharge a device, and sometimes you won’t have an outlet handy. In those cases, a portable battery can be a lifesaver. We like Anker’s Powercore II line of batteries for their quality and quick power delivery, and we’ve found that the 10,000mAh capacity is a good compromise of size and juice. There’s a compact version and a slim version, so pick whichever fits your suitcase or backpack better.
Bluetooth Speaker: JBL Clip 4 or Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 3
It’s not always worth the weight and space to travel with a Bluetooth speaker, but when we do, the JBL Clip 4 ($40-$50) and Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 3 ($80-$100) are our favorite travel speakers. The Clip is smaller, lighter, and easier to pack. The Wonderboom puts out an impressively loud and high-quality sound, and it has a handy outdoor mode that optimizes the sound for open-air spaces, perfect for sitting on a porch, at a picnic table, or around a campfire. These speakers are waterproof, too; we’ve taken ours on a whitewater tubing trip (it was fully submerged on multiple occasions) and sea kayaking, and they still sound as great as ever.
Flashlight
A good flashlight is a crucial tool in so many travel situations, whether you’re hiking at night or sweeping the corners of a hotel room to make sure you didn’t leave anything behind. Our pick for best travel flashlight is the ThruNite Archer 2A V3, which is compact enough to carry and boasts a powerful beam and long runtime. The AA battery power source is easy to replace if it dies on you (or carry an extra rechargeable AA). It’s about six inches long, though. If you’re looking for something smaller, the ThruNite T1 is only about 2.75 inches long, and it recharges over USB.
Power Strip
You never know if the place you’re staying or laying over will have enough outlets for all your gadgets. Or maybe your hotel placed the only usable outlet all the way across the room from the bed behind heavy, immovable furniture. So it’s worth bringing your own power strip. We like this Anker Power Strip with a USB-C connection. It’s compact and lightweight, and it has 2 full-size, three-prong power outlets for your laptop or other large devices, plus two USB-A ports and one USB-C port. The cord that connects it to the wall is five feet long, so you don’t have to be all that close to a wall outlet to charge your stuff. If you don’t need the full-size outlets, the 543 charger is a smaller alternative with two USB-A ports and two USB-C ports, and one of the USB-C ports charges at 45 watts, enough to power many laptops. The 543 charger also uses a two-prong plug, so you plug it in anywhere, including into most travel adapters.
Alternatively, if you need even more juice, the Anker 727 charging station is about the size of a smartphone but packs in two full-size three-prong outlets, two USB-C ports (including a 100-watt port, enough for the most power-hungry laptops), and two USB-A ports.
Device Chargers
Anker makes the best chargers on the market. They’re compact, convenient, and have a number of configurations that should match whichever devices you’re traveling with. The 726 Charger is compact and ideal for travel, has two USB-C ports for charging multiple devices simultaneously, and can deliver up to 65 watts, plenty for most laptops. If you need more ports or juice, the 735 Charger and 736 Charger are only a bit bigger, but they add a USB-A port to the two USB-C ports. The 735 can crank out 65 watts, and the 736 goes up to 100.
Noise Cancelling Headphones
Traveling can be loud, whether you’re on a plane or train, at a busy airport. Noise cancelling headphones can be a lifesaver, so you can disappear into your music, movies, or podcasts. If you have the budget for them, we love Sony’s headphones, which have best-in-class noise cancelling and great sound. We think Sony’s WH-1000XM4 is the best option for travelers. It’s actually the previous generation model of Sony’s flagship headphones (the WH-1000XM5 is the newest version), but the WH-1000XM4 has most of the same key features, and it folds up into a compact case, which the newest model does not. The WH-1000XM5 is also more expensive, so we recommend saving some cash and getting the folding model.
On-ear headphones are comfortable and offer the best noise cancelling, but they’re also big and bulky. If you prefer earbuds, Sony’s WF-1000XM4 are the best noise cancelling earbuds you can buy. They’re much smaller and more convenient than the on-ear headphones.
There are also some great budget-friendly alternatives out there. Our pick for over-ear headphones is the Anker Soundcore Life Q20. For earbuds, we like the Anker Soundcore Life P3, or the smaller Soundcore Life A3i.
Mouse
If you’re working (or just using your computer a lot) while traveling, taking a mouse with you can make the experience much more pleasant. Our favorite travel mouse is the Logitech MX Anywhere 3, which packs impressive ergonomics, a great sensor, and very long battery life into a portable package. If you need a smaller mouse, the Logitech Pebble M350 is a good option. It doesn’t have same ergonomics as the Anywhere, and its sensor isn’t as good, but it runs for a long time off a single AA battery and will save you some space.