My tech journey expertise, 2026 version – Six Colors

Once once more, I’ve ventured out of my residence nation and winged my manner abroad.

This isn’t the primary time I’ve written about my journey experiences. I detailed some wins and losses from final worldwide journey in 2024 and even wrote a submit manner again in 2015, through which I used to be contemplating not touring with my Apple Watch out of fears it might get misplaced or stolen. Oh, how occasions have modified.

That mentioned, we have been trying to journey gentle this time: simply two stick with it baggage and two backpacks for 2 adults and one small youngster. And a part of that was minimizing the variety of gadgets that we wanted to hold and all their attendant cables.

Overall, I feel we did fairly effectively.

Power to the folks

One of the issues that I get most irritated about when touring is charging. I’ve a few tremendous fundamental plug adapters for Europe and the UK which are tremendous, if cumbersome. But I’d been looking out for a pleasant common energy adapter—ideally one that might match properly in my go-bag of chargers and cables.

This time round, I discovered it within the type of the Anker Nano Travel Adapter (affiliate hyperlink). What I like in regards to the Nano is first, that it’s not an enormous field: it’s solely about an inch thick, two inches vast, and a little bit over three inches lengthy. In that, it’s not too far off from my Anker MagSafe energy battery, which implies it matches completely into the aforementioned bag.

While it doesn’t have each single energy port recognized to humanity, it does a minimum of cowl among the most typical: Type A (US / Canada / Japan / China), Type C (Europe), Type G (UK / Singapore) and Type I (Australia). It additionally packs two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports, so you may cost your USB gadgets instantly, as effectively providing a plug passthrough if you’ll want to use a Type A or Type C plug.

It’s not the beefiest of prices: simply 20W max, or 15W for the USB ports when sharing them, nevertheless it was a lot to cost a telephone and Apple Watch in a single day. (I did run into one or two situations the place it looks like one thing didn’t cost accurately, although I wasn’t ready to determine precisely why).

I nonetheless ended up needing these additional energy adapters for some further electronics we introduced for my child, like his white noise machine and a child monitor for our Airbnb. (We additionally lucked out, with the house we stayed at in Paris having an influence strip that might settle for US plugs.)

One factor I ended up surprisingly not needing on this journey very a lot: backup batteries. I introduced three: the Anker MagSafe mannequin, an older Jackery one with Lightning and micro-USB connectors, and the beefy one included in my Away baggage. Of these, I feel the MagSafe mannequin received used a few times, however solely by my spouse. The iPhone 17 Pro’s battery held out simply tremendous for all-day utilization, together with loads of wayfinding and film taking.

Make positive you’re related

As I discussed in my 2024 piece, eSIMs have made it tremendous straightforward to remain related whilst you’re touring internationally. Apple’s continued to try to clean the expertise: after I activated my Airalo-provided EU & UK eSIM—limitless knowledge for every week for about $20—after arriving in France, I used to be prompted to make use of it as a Travel SIM, which might enable me to nonetheless get FaceTime and that iMessages by way of my U.S. telephone quantity.

That largely labored this time, although I did nonetheless run into a few bizarre glitches. For one factor, some contacts weren’t displaying up in numerous locations in iOS (Messages, Find My) with their names, however simply their telephone numbers. I ultimately concluded it was as a result of their U.S. telephone numbers weren’t formatted accurately in Contacts for some purpose.

And regardless of having my AT&T knowledge roaming off, I did discover that my telephone would obtain a kilobyte of knowledge each every now and then—perhaps 4KB whole over my complete journey. This type of “data leakage” isn’t remarkable, however I haven’t but been capable of finding out whether or not the service goes to attempt to cost me their worldwide charge—I suppose I’ll see after I get my subsequent invoice.

But between my eSIM and plentiful Wi-Fi, I by no means lacked for connectivity. And, because of my Tailscale community, I used to be even in a position to entry the U.S. model of streaming providers in order that I may obtain movies for my journey residence.

Tripping the sunshine improbable

I remarked on it throughout my final abroad journey in 2024, however Apple Pay has really modified the expertise of going to different international locations. Before I left this time round, I popped a number of leftover UK kilos and a few Euros into my pockets, simply in case.

I ended up by no means utilizing them.

In truth, I feel I solely took my bank card out as soon as, after I thought Apple Pay had failed, although on reflection, I feel it was simply because the terminal wasn’t prepared but. Otherwise, I used my telephone and watch to pay for all the pieces on your complete journey, from cafés to transit. The expertise was simply utterly seamless—a far cry from days of yore the place I used to fret about change charges or find out how to get money in nation.

Tap-and-go transit stays one of the best expertise; I used to be a little bit disenchanted with Paris’s system, which nonetheless requires you purchase tickets on its transit card, slightly than simply utilizing a contactless fee. It meant I had to verify to purchase a ticket each time I used to be about to make use of the Metro—not particularly onerous, because the Transit Card is supported by the Wallet app and you should buy tickets proper from there with Apple Pay, however one other level of friction. Especially in comparison with my journeys on the London transit system, the place I by no means needed to do something however faucet my telephone or watch on a gate or whereas boarding a bus and go.

(My thanks, by the way in which, to my pal Jeremy Burge, whose glorious compendium, Express Transit, ready me for what I’d expertise in each Paris and London.)

And whereas we didn’t get to take whole benefit of Wallet’s newest boarding go options, I had a straightforward sufficient time on each our flights and our one lengthy practice journey storing all of our boarding passes digitally. Honestly, the one actual problem was bodily juggling my telephone and passport—hopefully some day these Digital IDs can be acceptable for worldwide journey.

Left to my gadgets

I after all introduced my iPhone 17 Pro and AirPods Pro 2—I hardly ever go away residence with out the 2 of these. I additionally packed my Apple Watch Series 7—no worries about it getting misplaced or stolen, 2015-era me—and the Apple Watch Series 10 I exploit for sleep monitoring.

I additionally packed my M1 iPad Pro as a result of an iPad is a good system for watching video on the airplane. And I used to be very glad that my child had his personal iPad (an previous 10.5-inch iPad Pro that may, a minimum of, run iOS 17 and, subsequently, many—however not all—of the fashionable streaming apps and video games).

But past pulling out my iPad for the airplane and practice journeys, I didn’t find yourself utilizing it in any respect. I received much more mileage from my Kobo Libra 2 and even from—gasp—paper books. Though the iPad itself isn’t significantly heavy or cumbersome, I did discover myself questioning what if I didn’t must convey it. I largely received by simply tremendous with my telephone—all I’d miss is having a bigger display for watching movies.

You most likely see the place I’m going with this. What if I may simply unfold my iPhone into a bigger display for these few events, however the remainder of the time simply have a telephone? Hmm. It’s a compelling concept. I particularly like the concept of lowering the variety of gadgets I carry that require charging. Maybe in the future I can really get away with one system to rule all of them.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @[email protected] or reach him by email at [email protected]. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity’s Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]

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