My ESSENTIAL Travel Tech and Bag - After Flying 300,000KM+

Hey guys, it's Carl. So this video is all around traveling. I actually just got back from another trip. I was in New York and before that, San Francisco. Looking back at the end of last year, I broke all my records over 220 hours spent on a plane, 300,000 plus kilometers traveled. So this will kind of touch on all the cool little tech gadgets and things that helped me through all those times traveling, because I think it really adds up in the hours and to streamline that process is super important. So the first thing that you'll need, obviously, passports. I think a lot of you know, I am based in Toronto in Canada, have my main Canadian passport, but I also have my Dutch passport as well, since I did live in the Netherlands for a while. So kind of depending where I travel, if I'm in Europe, I stick to my EU since I can bypass lines. Everywhere else, I usually stick to my Canadian. That's the most important thing. Without these, you will not get onto a plane. But moving on to the luggage selection first, and this combo is from a company called Carl Friedrich, which specializes in luggage, funnily enough, same name, just different start to the letter. And for all my trips, I try to do carry on only, just to once again, save that extra time. I know that every airport across the world has struggled in the past couple of years with baggage, just delays upon delays, losing luggage is the worst. And cool story about this luggage company, other than having a very similar name, they do sponsor the Scuderia Alfa Tauri team, the F1 team. I know those guys travel a ton across the world. So if it's good enough for them, I think it's good enough for most people. Like I said, most luggage fits handily. So I typically fill one side with all of my clothes, all of my underwear for the week. And on the other side, I have maybe one extra pair of shoes, my toiletry bag, and some tech, which we'll get to in a because all they have to keep stuff, I guess, secure are these little drawstrings. But once you have everything packed and it does close via these two clasps, and obviously the wheel mechanism is super important. They haven't failed on me yet. And what's nice with the combo, I actually have their little backpack here, which is a nice, obviously genuine leather. It actually combines perfectly as it has this little slot on the back of the backpack that you can put right through the little hand carriage thing. And once this is in place, this backpack isn't going anywhere. And with this combo, this is what I kind of wheel around. And the leather has worn really nicely over time. You can see how it's patina nicely. And I'm sure as I use this more over the years, it will just get nicer and nicer. It comes in a couple of different color options. I've just got mine in a standard black and on the inside, it is large enough to hold a 16 inch MacBook Pro, which we'll get to in a sec. And of course, all my other tech accessories inside. I've been using this backpack and suitcase combo for most of my flights now, and I can't see myself changing anytime soon. Once again, more so on the luxury end and still super functional for being a leather backpack. So depending on which passport I travel with, they're in this little leather passport holder, and it does hold one extra card, which saves a ton of time. So if you're in North America, you're familiar with a Nexus card. So Canada, US and Mexico, I believe this just gets you a TSA pre-check. It just lets you skip past most custom lines, highly, highly recommend getting this little card. I don't have to deal with half of those things. And I think that's one of the biggest, biggest time savers. So that's obviously on deck on that side. Another cool little card that I've actually been using a ton because I was at actually CES, I'm about to head to MWC. It's this little card right here. So this is the OVU card. If you're familiar with CES Consumer Electronics Show or your business professional, if you're a creator, you know, when you meet like-minded people on trips, when you travel, it happens all the time. You get that weird question, you know, do you have a business card? How do we swap info? This is kind of a smart business card where everything's built in. You no longer need to carry stacks of business cards. You can just whip out your OVU card. And since it's NFC based, you just need to tap onto your smartphone or the person that you're exchanging info with. And depending on what information you have stored on your OVU card. So I have all my social media stuff, my YouTube, my Instagram, my Twitter links, even my contact info, all of that can kind of appear on an NFC tap where they can even scan the little QR code as well. I've scored some pretty great brand partnerships as well, and all initiated through us swapping my info with this little OVU card. So if you're looking to exchange info, looking for something at cool techie to start up that conversation, I think these are perfect. They're super cheap. They're simple. So if you're serious about networking, you got to grab yourself an OVU card. I'll have a link down below in the description. And if you use the code KC10, you can get 10% off with your purchase. Obviously the next thing that we'll chat about is a smartphone options. So I typically am an iPhone user. I'm rocking my 14 Pro Max, but since I do test out multiple smartphones, I was actually just in New York. Like I mentioned, I was using the OnePlus 10 and right before that I was in San Francisco for the Galaxy S23 launch. I know that smartphone choice is super subjective, but if you're looking for kind of best in class, either the 14 Pro Max or S23 Ultra, you can't go wrong with either. One thing I do love about the 23 Ultra using the S pen, signing some of those documents and those contracts, like I mentioned, just having the ability to actually sign your signature instead of an e-sig is always nice. I know that most documents nowadays are electronic, but I have been to airports where I still have to fill out a pen and paper form. So always in my bag, I do have a pen, some sort of stationary, just in case I need to jot down some notes or sign some documents because some places do still live up kind of in the past. So the next important thing on anyone's tech list, especially when you're traveling is to have your devices juiced up because most of us can get by working solely off of mobile, just having a little charger handy. So I keep this outside of my little tech accessory bag, which we'll get to in a second. I keep this in my pocket. So when I'm on the plane, I can just, you know, stick this into an outlet and I can charge up multiple devices. So this one specifically from Samsung, it's a fast charger. It gets a 65 watt charger as well as a 25 watt. So it's got two USB-C ports, one classic USB-A in case I have any relic pieces of tech that still use an older USB-A cable, but lightning USB-C can charge up both devices. And since this is 65 watt, it can still charge a big laptop, not recommended for the size, but it will still trickle charge and slowly juice up a larger laptop. And especially on a flight for six, seven, 10, 15 hours, just having something slowly charging is better than nothing. So I always have this in my pocket and moving on to this little tech accessory bag. So this one's from Peak Design. I've actually had this for, I think, close to five years. It kind of keeps all of my loose accessories in one place. So it's not floating around in my backpack or in my carry-on. So when you open this up, you can actually see some things here. So of course I always travel with a nifty little mini tripod. Being in the tech space, I can mount my camera to this. I can mount one of my smartphones, just super, super handy. $25 for a little mini tripod that I can vlog on. This thing is a no-brainer. I've got my larger 96 watt charger for my MacBook Pro. So once I get to my hotel, this is the thing that will juice up my laptop. Like I said, this thing doesn't have to be with me necessarily on an airplane, but I do keep it in this little pack. I've got the MX Anywhere 3 mouse. I think anyone that travels knows your workstations can vary from hotel room to a coffee shop to hotel lobby. Just having a little mouse that you can actually be productive with. It's small, it's compact, it fits easily into a bag, and it's way easier than using your track pad, which I know a lot of us try to get away with. But if you want to have a real productive session, using a handy mouse is always better. Last three accessories. This one is obviously super specific to what I do. So I've just got a little hard drive. This helps back up all of my footage. I can just kind of keep this in here. This one's from SanDisk. It's also a drop resistant as it's in this nice little rubber. I also have a little USB dongle. Even though I am rocking my MacBook Pro, I find that some of the ports, especially the SD card slots, don't work all the time. So just having this handy just in case it matches the color of the MacBook Pro in space gray. So that's nice. This one is from CalDigit. And just because of all the stuff, a lot of the video that I shoot, I just have this little portable aperture light. It's actually magnetic. So I can slap this onto anything metallic and it will stick. I've just actually got something off frame. I'll bring that closer and you can see that it just kind of slaps on with magnets. And it's nice if I'm filming in usually dimly lit locations like hotel rooms, like showroom floors. Just a handy little aperture light to kind of carry around. All this stuff kind of zips up in this little Peak Design bag. And once again, this kind of will either live in my backpack or on my carry-on depending how much extra space I have. I typically don't touch these in flight and this really comes into play once I get to a hotel or in my actual location. Moving on to something super important. So I think my superhero skill, I kind of joke about this with all my friends, is my ability to sleep in a plane. My favorite seat to get if I'm not flying in a pod is just anything against a window. I just stick these on. If I can just crouch into a corner, I'll jam my head, hopefully with a bit of a pillow against the wall. And I am out like a light. Like I can sleep for 10 hours sitting down on a plane. Like I said, God's given gift. My ability to sleep on an aircraft is kind of unmatched to any other ability that I have. I feel like it's why I can do my job, why I can travel so much. I'm super lucky. And having a pair of noise canceling headphones, I test so many throughout the years. The best that I've found are the Apple AirPod Pros or AirPod Maxes. AirPod Maxes, forgive me. So these are actually painted in a custom color way. These are done by Colorware. They're super unique. I love them. Orange is obviously my favorite color. I haven't seen anyone else with these, so I'm going to say that these are a one of ones. AirPod Maxes, they're on the pricey end. I wouldn't recommend them in terms of a price category, but comfort. Their ear foam is so nice, especially if you're traveling for over five to six hours. Ear fatigue is a real thing. And I do find with, say, Bose's or even the Sony's, I find that the ear pressure that I get adds up over time. And around five, six hours in, my ears are actually sore from wearing earphones. These drown out sounds of crying babies. Like I said, I can barely hear anything. And my song of choice, I'm a big Harry Potter fan, so I listen to my Harry Potter audiobooks on kind of repeat. I love them. It's like a lullaby to me. But getting a solid pair of noise canceling headphones, either AirPod Maxes. I know that the Gen 2's, Apple is kind of teasing them. These haven't got an upgrade in forever. I would probably hold off and wait until we see an upgrade. But even the Sony's, the X1000 Mark V's, the Bose Quiet Comforts, all of those are good headphones. Invest into a pair. They will save your life. And the last two items that I travel with in my tech bag. So obviously, content creator, I make all of my stuff over on this device. So this is the brand new M2 Max MacBook Pro. I originally unboxed and reviewed the M2 Pro, but because I had the M1 Max from last year, this is a true upgrade. This is essentially a Mac studio in a portable format. For most people, this is overkill, but I would recommend the MacBook Air with the M2. But for my line of work, I still can't even scratch the surface. I'm just shooting in 4K most of the time. This thing can handle multiple 8K streams if it wants. It has 96 gigs of RAM. It churns through everything like absolute butter. I get giddy over this stuff. And obviously, I'm lucky that Apple sent this out to me. So obviously, I would recommend the MacBook Air with M2. For most people watching, it's thinner. It's more portable. For traveling, it makes a bit more sense. But because I'm making content on the go all the time, this for me is my mobile powerhouse. And obviously, the thing that enables me to shoot that content. So other than my smartphones, which I said which do shoot a lot of my portrait stuff, I still try to take high quality stuff with my Sony. So this is the Sony a7S III. I'm rocking the 24 to 105 G Master lens. I like it because it has the versatility of that focal range, but also because it has optical steady shot. One thing I would say as a tip, I think most people kind of already know this. If you are traveling a lot, stick to one particular airline or alliance. So because I do travel Air Canada, I'm kind of shunted on over to a Star Alliance. All my flights, I try to coordinate and book through there with my frequent flyer number. I obviously am in super elite status. I easily racked up over 100,000 miles. So that just gives you the extra perks with that status. So you get preferred check-in or priority check-in. You get preferred upgrades. You're the first one to board the plane. So you can snag a spot for that carry-on luggage because those fill up really quickly. You get access to all Star Alliance lounges across the world. And trust me, traveling isn't that glamorous, especially for work. So this just helps the unglamorous side become a bit easier on you. Anything that can make your life easier when you're waiting in an airport. It isn't the greatest place to wait, but just to make your life a tad bit easier, it makes all the difference. Trust me. Get Nexus with TSA PreCheck. It makes your life and security a lot easier. Go with carry-on only if you can, especially if you can go for under a week in just one small suitcase. It just makes the headache of losing luggage and having to check anything kind of off of your radar. And I hope you guys learned some tricks. I will leave everything that I listed kind of linked down below. All of it has been super useful and I hope you get some cool tips. Let me know where you're traveling to next. And as of this video, I am traveling next week, Barcelona for MWC. I'll catch some of you there and hope to catch the rest of you in some of my next vids. Peace!