Equipment, Preparation

Travel technology

Posted by Alex on

As much for my own sanity as for the benefit of the readers here is a list of the planned packing in the technology area.

Hardware

  • My Nexus 4 mobile phone will be taking all the SIM card I’ll be finding along the way hopefully providing me with internet in between WIFI enabled sites. I was considering taking a backup phone to house my UK SIM just in case, but I suspect phones will be Nikon-COOLPIX-P520plentiful and cheaper in Africa so I might just cross that bridge…
  • A Nikon COOLPIX P520 including: 2x Lexar SDHC 600x Speed cards [I got the 16Gb ones as that was expensive enough thanx], Polarising filter [one of the compromises you have to make when getting a bridge camera is that they are not made for filters, I guess they assume that all the filtering will take place in post production, so I have to get a filter adapter too], ND filter? [not yet sure about this one], GND filter? [neither this one]
  • I am still thinking about a video camera, if I get one it will be a GoPro Hero HERO3 White. The reason for getting it is obvious, while I can take videos with the COOLPIX, the shots that I’m likely to want to take more are action shots and the COOLPIX is not so suited to that. The reasons not to get it is the imperative of simplifying life. We’ll see which one will prove to be the better angel.
  • Garmin Hedge 200 for track recording [using a combination of GPS Babel and Bikemap.net I’m planning to have all the individual rides on line.
  • Lacie Rugged USB drive 500Gb. I know that I could take up to 2Tb with me but this is the one I already own and there is no point in wasting money as: first this is a backup device and second I’ll come home way before this gets full.
  • MacBook Air 13in
  • fuse 10W 2Fuse 10W Solar Charger [including: MacBook adapter. This is a bit bulky but the saving grace is that it has all the adapters I need so there will be no need to be without electricity at any point in the trip. Neatly it also has a compartment that fits perfectly the MacBook. I plan to take my Overboard 30L Backpack on the back rack and the Fuse will sit onto it, while charging, and into it when a bit more discretion is called for.]

I need to make a special mention for the people at Voltaic this is the reply to my first enquiry email:

Hi Alex, I see that you are fundraising for the trip (sorry, Google search). Please use the code ***** for a 30% discount towards any of our products.

This is what I call nice people.

  • The iPod Classic [they don’t make mine anymore] 80Gb is the one I have had for a long time and I see no reason for getting a different one, only down side is that I need to pack an extra cable.
  • 2x mini USB cables, 2x micro USB cable, iPod cable

Software

The MacBook comes with most of the stuff I need to operate off-line but the two things I will add are:

  • GPS Babel to translate the output of the Garmin to a format that I can use on Bikemap.net
  • Adobe Lightroom 5 and the excellent jf Plugins for Flickr and PicasaWeb [Have not quite made up my mind but might end up using them both for different things.]

Web Services

Naturally I’ll be doing the bulk of the work in the Cloud. This assumes that I will find a way to get onto it from time to time, but both reports from previous travellers and a bit of reading around have convinced me that Africa is more connected that one might think. Anyways, the list is as follow:

 

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