10 Must Buy Essential Tech for Budget Family Travel

With endless gadgets available to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start when it comes to tech. We’ve compiled this list of essential tech for budget family travel to help guide your planning process. If you’re travelling for any length of time (we travelled for 12 months) – it’s really important to put some time and thought into your tech.

Firstly, make sure have your tech sorted before you leave on your first flight. Sure, you can do it along the way, however, with things like multi factor authentication, roaming phone number issues, VPN’s – it can become really problematic to do it as you go. It wasn’t until we landed in Bali that I discovered my phone was not compatible with eSIM! I had assumed all modern phones would be and spent the next 12 months of our trip hunting for sim card deals every time we landed in a new country – a real avoidable hassle.

Expect things to go not quite as planned and make sure you have good travel insurance, so you don’t have to worry when it invariably does. We left New Zealand with 7 devices and arrived home with only 4. There were 3 unfortunate casualties along the way which is just sometimes unavoidable.

10 Essential Tech for Budget Family Travel

We consider these items as essential tech for budget family travel. Don’t leave home without them! We came to rely on them daily and for our next big trip we will definitely make sure we’re reviewing this list.

1. A phone compatible with eSIM. An eSIM is a digital SIM that is built into your phone and can’t be removed. Before landing in a country, you can purchase your data pack through a provider like Arilo so when you land you are all connected and ready to go – hail your first Uber and you’re off. Use our Arilo code for $3 off your eSIM. Yes, you can buy physical SIM cards at airports and the pricing can be similar or better. We found that after long haul budget flights – kids can be tired and cranky. Same with the adults having to manage kids on those flights. Do you really want to line up at the airport to buy a SIM card? We didn’t. It’s even better when you’re driving across a land border, and you can connect immediately. Streamline your travel with an eSIM.
2. Apple Air Tags. We travelled carry on only, so we didn’t have to worry about luggage going missing at airports, but kids on the other hand… Each of our kids had one of these on their wrist every time we were in a busy airport, train station, city, market etc. The peace of mind that comes with being able to track your kids on your phone is immeasurable. Once you’ve travelled for a while, you do relax a lot. It’s so easy for someone to stop to look at a stall at a market without other’s noticing and walking on. All of a sudden you look around and can’t find one of your kids that were just right there! We used these air tags, and they lasted well over a year.
3. A good quality Power Bank. You’ll be taking a lot of photos, videos, Uber’s, google maps, ticket apps such as Klook, Google Translate – the list goes on and on. There’s nothing worse than getting lost or separated with a dead phone – it happened to us more than once! Make sure you can charge on the go. We used this one from Snap and it was excellent and has adaptors for many countries. However, we misplaced it somewhere along the way and ended up buying cheap ones from various stores along our travels. We went through 5 power banks over the course of our travels – the cheap ones were all junk and ended up breaking or just not working well. They all ended up in the bin. I’d recommending investing in a good power bank (and not losing it!).
4. A good universal travel adaptor. We used this one and it made it the full trip around the globe in one piece, no complaints.
5. One device per child. Before we left, we simply gathered up whatever technology we had (it’s expensive right!) and brought it with us. Our 4 kids ‘shared’ 4 devices, depending on if they were doing home school, taking photos, watching YouTube Kids etc. And it didn’t work. They really needed a device each, set up for their homeschool needs and whatever digital entertainment you bring along. Make sure you have a set of ear pods or headphones and one fast charger for each device. We had so many unnecessary battles for who gets what device on this bus trip, who’s turn is it on the charger (a big issue once we lost the power bank), who doesn’t like which headphones… and so on. Anne had apple air pods – great, but expensive and seemingly indistinguishable from the pods like these that I had. If you’re near a MiniSo shop, their ear pods are great, we would highly recommend them. William and Phoebe used this style of headphone as the pods wouldn’t stay in their small ears. If you get them with a cord, you can plug into airplane entertainment for those flights that only provide ear buds or even worse, make you pay for ear buds to use the inflight entertainment. Also, make sure you have a sturdy case and screen protector for each device. We had 2 device fatalities due to smashed screens (the other one we lost was stolen in a car break-in). This might be our most essential tech for budget family travel!
6. Kindle. Or whatever eReader you prefer. We had 4 and used them daily. Our older 2 kids read many, many books. We signed up to Kindle Unlimited which was a cost-effective way to keep the books flowing. We did purchase a Lonely Planet guide, but it was little hard to navigate on a Kindle so we stuck mainly to novels. Buying specific Kindle books made excellent birthday and Christmas gift options for family back home.
7. An excellent laptop. This does depend on how long you are travelling for, and you can do it all on a phone. However, a bigger screen for managing the budget (we tracked every $ spent!), planning trips, sorting photos, and watching family Netflix shows really was worth it. I have a Surface Pro 6 and it’s amazing – it functions as a laptop and a tablet. I also had a wireless mouse but rarely used it.
8. Go Pro. We really wish we had one of these as there are so many situations where you just can’t use your phone easily, your hands aren’t free (riding a scooter), or you need a waterproof camera (snorkeling). We used these for snorkeling, they’re fun for the kids, but they’re no Go Pro!
9. Travel scales. When you need to stay under 7kgs for budget flights these are a must, they’re also cheap and lightweight.
10. Electronics Travel Organizer. I wish I had one of these! Instead, I used a packing cube which was not ideal – cords get tangled and it was always just a chaotic mess. Not great for something you use daily.

The Nice to Have’s

Whilst the list above we consider essential tech for budget family travel, this list we consider optional if you have the space and funds available. We could have done without all of these items.

• Selfie Stick. We just didn’t end up using ours at all. My arms are fortunately long enough for a family selfie, but it always felt like just one more thing to go into the day pack that we didn’t have room for, or often forgot about.
• Electric toothbrush. I really wanted to take my Oral B but when you’re limited to 7kgs per person something has to give. We also found there would have been limited opportunity to keep it fully charged along with everything else.
• Hair Straighteners. These are obviously personal preference; however, Anne took her GHDs and didn’t use them once!

Your Friendly Family gap year consultant

If you would like to chat with us about essential tech for budget family travel or to bounce around ideas for itineraries or help with more specific questions, feel free to reach out! Planning a family gap year is A LOT of work and internet research sometimes only goes so far.

Talking it though with someone who has been there before is something we wished we had done when we were planning. We had so many tricky questions that we stressed about unnecessarily and it could have been so much easier! Don’t just wing it – make sure you make the most of your precious travel time. We’ve been to 44 countries and spent over 3 years travelling on a budget – we know what’s really essential.

You can click here to make a time with Anne, she will be happy to help guide your planning where you need it. Our rates are $70NZD for a 30-minute call or $100NZD for 1 hour