The Best Tech All Nomads Should Have
Harley Dixon The digital nomad is a new type of working that has become increasingly popular over recent years. The basis of this kind of lifestyle is being able to travel semi-permanently while also earning an income that covers all relevant costs. The popularity of a digital nomad lifestyle exploded with the global pandemic, and today there are more digital nomads than ever before.
Trying to work and travel at the same time can take some serious adjustment, especially for those that had previously worked in an office environment and had everything they needed. Fortunately, being a digital nomad has been made easier thanks to the following gadgets and tech.
A Good Laptop
Not every single laptop is going to be up to the task of constant travel. Take a top-of-the-line gaming laptop, as an example. It’s a great device to have when you want to enjoy the latest AAA video game, but these are power-hungry devices that can eat through their batteries in under 2 hours in some cases.
On top of that, these kinds of laptops also tend to be a lot of heavier than business or casual laptops. Most digital nomads agree that the Dell XPS 13 is the best travel laptop on the market right now. It’s light, has an excellent battery, and some of the best hardware that money can buy.
Decent Headphones
It might be tempting to go out and travel the world with a cheap pair of earphones, right up until you find yourself in an extremely noisy plane while trying to get work done. This is where a solid pair of noise-cancelling headphones can make all the difference, even more so if they also use Bluetooth.
Good noise-cancelling headphones can block out all ambient noise completely, allowing for distraction-free work. A quality set can be quite expensive, there’s no doubt, but they are often worth the investment for the ability to work for a few hours without any serious interruption.
VPN
A Virtual Private Network is a service that allows all internet traffic from a device to be passed through an encrypted tunnel. This is good to have in terms of digital privacy, but also useful when in countries that might have national firewalls or other means of controlling and monitoring the country’s internet usage.
If you’re in the Middle East, for example, having a VPN can allow you to watch certain blocked media or see the latest Cricket World Cup odds. A good VPN service will provide a means to get around that, but it’s important to choose a reliable service. Proton VPN and Mullvad VPN are two of the most highly related and privacy-respecting privacy services around.
Portable Router
Using a smartphone as a hotspot is fine, but it will cost more and quickly use up the device’s battery. Instead, consider investing in a portable router. These make use of SIM cards and can broadcast high-speed internet to devices using Wi-Fi technologies, a must for those that tend to travel on a frequent basis.