My Carry Bag Essentials (After Traveling 35+ Countries)

As they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That first crucial step is usually packing your travel bag. Hey friends, it's Andrew here. Hope you're all well. I've been fortunate enough to have traveled over 35 countries in my 20s and I'm currently traveling Asia for both business and leisure. So while I'm here at the moment, I thought I'd share what I like to pack into my travel bags to make traveling that much easier and more enjoyable. Let's start with the big piece first, which is the ever important luggage bags itself. I've recently ditched my almost decade old luggage bag and upgraded to the Carl Friedrich check-in. It has got to be one of the more distinctly better luggage bags I've used. For one, the unique design is super sleek, made of course with lightweight polycarbonate, but the handmade Italian leather detailing in chocolate brown here is what has me. When paired up with a leather initial tag for personalization, I've yet to see someone else mistake my luggage for their own, can't say the exact same for my previous luggage bags I've used. The wheels are made by the highly regarded Japanese manufacturer Hinomoto, the gold standard when it comes to silent luggage spinner wheels, while the dual aluminium locks essentially give you the choice of a 6 number TSA lock. Honestly, most decent luggage brands will get the job done as long as the build quality is there, but with the Carl Friedrich check-in, I feel like it gets the sleek design really right, especially with the Italian leather detailing. So that's my luggage, let's move on to my daily travel bag and all the essentials inside it. My go-to travel bag ever since I got it is the Bowen bag, also made by Carl Friedrich. It's small enough to take around day to day to most places and large enough to house a padded laptop area, several sleeves for other items like my hard drive and daily essentials. Because I take this bag around everywhere, the most important part of this bag is its build and durability and thankfully we have that with the Bowen. It's made of Italian Vergetti leather and a heavy duty Riccagni zipper. I've gone through plenty of bags while travelling in the past and I've even had a camera travel bag break on me at the time I was in Hawaii, that was pretty tragic. An expensive lens fell out and shattered so I learned from my mistakes. Invest in a good backpack if you plan to travel with it. Next up I have of course the laptop I take on the go which is currently the MacBook 14 inch with the M1 Pro chip and only 16GB of memory but it's more than enough as my daily driver whenever I'm abroad. It's housed in the Grams 28 114 leather folio sleeve, also made of Italian leather and monogrammed with initials. It's soft to the touch and quite versatile with plenty of internal pockets for accessories, pens and notepads. I like to store my passport in a holder for convenience, it saves me from fumbling around at the airport check-in counters and that dreaded security check, particularly at large airports such as LAX. So I've been using this one here for years and it's just from Typo. Speaking of airports and planes, one of my must-have travel items is just a good water bottle. The last thing I want to be is dehydrated while travelling or on the plane and unless I'm flying business class or consistently hassling the cabin crew, there's hardly ever enough water that goes around to keep everyone properly hydrated on the plane. So a small travel hack that I have is bringing an empty water bottle on planes and asking for it to be filled up before the flight actually takes off. My go-to water bottle is this Lark filtered bottle. On the surface it's an aesthetic water bottle that appeals to my design geek but it also appeals to my inner tech geek with its advanced filtration system. So the built-in and replaceable filter here removes foreign materials and water like lead, metals, chlorine and makes water taste that much cleaner in my opinion. It's able to filter up to 150 litres or 40 gallons of water so you'd be saving the environment from about 300 single-use plastic bottles with every filter. The detachable carabiner and pop-up straw makes it that much more travel friendly and I've got it paired up with a PureViz cap which features a very nifty UV-C LED light underneath to clean up to 99% of bacteria in not only the water but the entire bottle. So between the UV light filtration and physical filtration from the bottle's filter, I'm getting really clean water in a good-looking water bottle and it's a game changer when it comes to staying hydrated when on the go so I totally recommend the Lark filtered bottle for the travel conscious. Just in case you're confused about which cap to use like I initially was, whether that's the PureViz or the filter cap, they're actually made to be interchangeable so technically you should be using the PureViz cap to sanitize the water with that UV light which eliminates biocontaminants and then use the filter cap to physically remove pollutants so between the two you're going to get pretty clean water to drink. Moving on to the other travel essentials inside my bag is this Mark 1 pen by Studio Neat. Everyone needs a pen while traveling for moments like filling out custom forms on the plane and this one I've been enjoying quite a lot. It's a custom machined all metal pen with a ceramic exterior coating. This one here is in the white plus copper colorway and I just find it really sleek as heck. The custom click mechanism is also satisfying as heck. I have a couple of their tote bags thrown into the bag which are nice to draw on whenever I have an idea or thought to scribble out. Next is the Sonos Roam and really this one is more of a nice to have than essential but I personally can't go without it now because I'm always left wanting more when it comes to speakers in hotel rooms. The Roam is a simple, portable, waterproof smart speaker that sounds far more impressive than its size might imply. It's perfect for hotel singalongs or beachside tunes and my friends and family seem to really enjoy it too while we're traveling together. But when it comes to headphones, I still use the good old Bose QC35s particularly on planes. The noise cancellation on these remains second to none and it almost completely cuts out the monotone hum of the engine during long haul flights whether you're listening to music or watching a movie. Next up is probably my favorite purchase in recent times, the Fuji X100V. If you've seen my review video on this bad boy, I've called it the best travel camera I've ever used, a very big claim but it truly is. The photos that come out of this thing without any sort of post editing is absolutely insane. It's thanks to the amazing Fujifilm simulations and I've tweaked a custom film sim that seems to work in almost all situations. That along with the amazing lens, absolutely beautiful camera body and compact size, it's been one of my go-to cameras that I take almost everywhere with me. Recently, I've added a Fujifilm lens adapter and added onto the threads a Cinebloom diffusion filter to take that film-like aesthetic to the next level. So the photos that have come out of this camera paired with this Cinebloom lens and that custom film simulation has been so so good. I'll probably get some of them processed as prints and if you want to check my shots, I have a separate Instagram profile for casual snaps abroad at aez.photos so check that Instagram out if you want to see more shots from this camera. I personally like to travel with at least one timepiece on the wrist and the one I've recently fallen in love with is the Cartier Santos. It's subtle enough to safely travel with but also iconic enough to be recognized by watch enthusiasts. I personally think it's one of the best proportioned watches aesthetically and its iconic square design and bracelet is absolutely timeless. If you also travel with a timepiece like myself, I highly recommend investing in a good watch roll so you can throw your timepiece into your bag or luggage without worrying about it getting scuffed up. This one here is from a local niche brand Banks and Sloan and it's pretty sturdy with a strong outer case made out of cowhide leather and in a soft suede lining. Because I don't want to be that guy who wears an Apple watch and mechanical watch at the same time while travelling, I usually take my Aura ring abroad. It's not the same as an Apple watch but at least I get sleep tracking and basic activity tracking while I'm out about during the day. The amazing thing about the Aura ring though is if I'm going on a short one week trip let's say, the Aura ring 3 is able to survive the entire trip on a single full charge so it makes for a great travel companion. I prefer carrying cards rather than cash while I'm travelling so I just purchased this simple GoYard card holder while I was in Singapore. Because there's so little bulk to this, it's really easy to travel with, pretty straightforward but it's a nice touch of subtle luxury while I'm travelling. Let's not forget about the phone I use. I still carry an iPhone, specifically the 12 Pro. I typically skip generational upgrades. I just personally don't see the benefit and the yearly hassle of upgrading unless there's a huge leap forward. But yeah, this works more than fine for daily use and while travelling because most shots I take are on the X100V anyway. Next is my Orbitkey Nest here, an SSD drive for a little extra physical and digital storage. This portable 500GB Samsung SSD drive here lets me edit and store videos and photos on the go and I keep it within the Nest for quick access items like the Apple Magic Mouse, batteries and things like that. The cool thing about the Nest is it doubles up as a 10W wireless charging pad when hooked up to a USB port. One of the last pieces of tech that I carry in my travel bag before we move on to things like toiletries and things like that is this Kindle Oasis. When it comes to travel and portability, it makes zero sense in my opinion to lug around paperback books because they're heavy, they tear and they're not waterproof. The Kindle solves all those issues. It literally holds thousands of books, you're able to take notes on it easily and the Oasis version is completely waterproof and super thin in design so I can throw it into the bowling bag and go. Though with all this tech, naturally there are a ton of cables and chargers I need to take with me so the easy solution here is to keep them neatly stored in a cable pouch. It's usually sitting in my home office, I just grab it and go while I'm travelling so I don't need to think about all the I need to bring. When it comes to travel toiletries, the Aesop travel kit here takes most of that load off my shoulders. I'm usually never a fan of in-hostel toiletries but I do love Aesop toiletries and this kit includes 9 different items from skincare to shampoos and toothpaste essentials. I usually throw in my hair wax in there as well. The one that I use is the Hard Styling Mud which is usually a really tough hold with a matte low sheen finish. I find it great for thick Asian hair like myself and it holds pretty well in hot humid climates like Singapore. Then it comes off really easy with shampoo at the end of the day. The other one that I use as well is the Brutal Hold Semi-Matte Mud if I want a bit of a shinier finish. Between these two, these are great travel companions and they work pretty well on my hair at least. Another thing I have in my toiletries bag is this Philips Sonicare Electric Toothbrush and this one's a must when travelling. After changing to an electric toothbrush, I just can't unsee them and I can't go without it even for just a day so I pack this with me on my travels. It's a little bulkier than a standard toothbrush but totally worth it. And then I have a good pair of sunglasses. It's an obvious staple. This one here is the Ray-Ban Clubmasters which are just a classic, clean silhouette and fits most outfits. They're also polarised which supposedly offers double the protection from UV rays. These with a button down white linen shirt and you're good to go to most tropical destinations. I also have this Philips Series 7000 Shaver just for general all in one grooming so I look somewhat presentable when abroad and that goes into the travel pouch as well. Keeping presentable and clean is sometimes a challenge when travelling because it can be very go-go-go when you're travelling but yeah, small all-in-one items like the Philips Shaver that comes with different sized hair clippers really helps. So guys, that is it for my what's in my carry bag essentials video. Those are the items that I try and carry around while I travel that enhance my experience. I find that being prepared in advance for travel to be so much more enjoyable when you do pack well and the little extra effort and time you put into packing essentials into your travel bag goes a long way. Whether that's staying hydrated or making sure all your items are well protected in sleeves and a good quality bag. If there's any travel essentials that you don't go without and you think I'm missing in my bag, please do drop a comment down below and again, thanks to Lark for sponsoring this video. Subscribe for more tech and business content, drop a like on this video and as always, thank you for watching.