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Having the right travel gear can make or break a trip. With so much that can go wrong when traveling, nobody wants to have their travels ruined by forgetting to pack something or having bad travel gear. This can really ruin a trip, which is why we put together this list of the 7 Best Travel Items You Need for Your Next Trip.
These are high-quality travel items that will help improve your travels. We can guarantee that. Some are small, less expensive things you won’t want to forget to pack, while others are bigger, more expensive items that will become absolute essentials when traveling. You definitely will not want to travel without any of these pieces of travel gear ever again!
1. A Quality Travel Backpack
If you are going to invest in just one piece of travel gear, buy a high-quality travel backpack. Trust us. If that is somehow all you take away from MY Travel BF, we will be disappointed, but happy that at least your travels will be improve by this single piece of travel equipment.
We invested in high-quality travel backpacks years ago and still use the same ones today. They have gotten us through plenty of weekend trips around the US, one-week international trips, and an incredible 6-week trip across Europe without any problems or any inconvenience.
Buying a quality travel backpack will improve your travels by leaps and bounds. You will be way more comfortable getting to your travel destinations, traveling once you are there, and you will still be able to pack everything you need in your backpack no matter how long you are traveling for.
There are plenty of travel backpacks out there and thousands of reviews you can read comparing and contrasting them, so it can be difficult to chose the perfect travel backpack for you. Feel free to do your research and find the best one for you, specifically if you are looking for certain specifications.
Our recommendation for the best travel backpack is the Osprey Farpoint 40 or Osprey Fairview 40. We are not sponsored by Osprey and got these backpacks before we ever had a blog. They are very durable, reliable, versatile, and well worth the price.
Now, if you are totally against a travel backpack for whatever reason and prefer rolling luggage, investing in some quality travel luggage is a good option too.
2. Microfiber Towel
Showering is generally something most people want to do when traveling. However, traveling with a regular towel is super annoying because a standard towel is cumbersome and takes up a ton of space when packing your luggage. This is why we recommend buying a microfiber towel for traveling.
A microfiber towel will change the way you travel because they are incredibly convenient. They do not take up a lot of space, absorb a ton of water, and dry really fast. If you’ve ever had to pack a wet towel in your luggage, you know how important a quick drying towel is.
Unless you are 100% sure that your accommodation will have towels provided for you, you will want to pick up a quick drying microfiber towel to make your travels that much better. We promise you that this is worth the investment!
3. Liquid Travel Bottles
We all know that you cannot travel on an airplane with over 3.4 ounces of liquid, and most people who have tried to travel with liquids know how annoying it can be when your liquid travel bottles leak. You lose all the shampoo, soap, conditioner, hand sanitizer, etc. that you packed, and everything around it gets the liquid all over it. This is a total mess.
GoToob travel bottles are perfect for traveling with liquid. They come in a variety of sizes, but they have one that’s exactly 3.4 ounces, which is perfect for travel. The bottles are extremely durable and don’t leak. They even have a lifetime warranty! So no more leaky travel bottles that you have to replace over and over. These are well worth the investment.
Again, if you’ve ever had liquids explode in your luggage while traveling, theses liquid travel bottles are a lifesaver and definitely something you’ll never travel without again.
4. Something to Take Photos With
Photography has always been a huge part of traveling, which is why you should consider something to take photos with a travel essential.
Luckily, there are plenty of ways to take photographs nowadays. You can bring anything from your phone to a GoPro to a DSLR camera. Each one has their own pros and cons. Initial price points, what type of travel you do, picture quality, and size and weight of the camera are all factors you have to take into consideration when determining what type of camera you want to travel with.
Check out our page on Travel Gear to see all the travel photography gear we travel with. We are by no means professional photographers, so we don’t haul around backpacks full of gear. However, we do appreciate quality photos of our travels, and we do take a ton of photographs.
5. Travel Adapter
If you are traveling to a different country where the outlets are not the same, a travel adapter is an absolute necessity. This is especially true in the age of technology.
We all know the feeling of our phone battery dying and the unreasonable fear and anxiety it causes us. Well, if you are traveling in a country with different outlets, you won’t be able to charge your phone without a travel adapter. A quality travel adapter is worth the investment as it won’t break and leave you feeling hopeless, like some of the cheaper ones do.
We recommend the Epicka Travel Adapter. It’s a little pricier than other cheaper ones, but it’s high quality. There are also USB ports, so you can charge more than one thing on the same outlet at the same time.
If you are an international traveler, make sure you pick one of these up and just keep it around until your next trip. It’s an absolute must when it comes to travel gear because you don’t want to be scrambling to get one when you really need it.
6. Headphone Splitter
A headphone splitter is an absolutely essential travel item when you are traveling with your partner. Well, assuming you like the same shows or music as your partner.
Headphone splitters are super useful and very cheap, so it is not a travel item that you will have to invest a lot of money in. However, you will probably use it on every single trip because it makes watching a a show so much better. Using a headphone splitter will give you the full audio experience instead of only being able to hear the audio from one headphone.
This small, unassuming piece of travel gear is something that we could never travel without, now that we’ve traveled with it.
7. Day Pack
While your travel backpack is a necessary piece of travel gear that will make your trip so much better, we also couldn’t travel without a day pack. A day pack is a smaller backpack that you can carry around for the day.
Some things you will want to look for in a travel day pack are comfort, lightweight, size, convenient pockets, and whether you want it to be waterproof or not. Obviously, you want the day pack to be comfortable if you’re wearing it all day, and you don’t want it to be too large. However, two of the most important things to consider are waterproofing and the pockets.
You will want pockets that are convenient for you. Do you want lots of separate small pockets or just one big one? What about a water bottle pocket? How big is your water bottle?
As for deciding if you need a waterproof backpack or not, that’s up to you. Think about what you carry in your backpack while traveling. Do you have expensive camera or video equipment? What about souvenirs or maps? Are you willing to risk that stuff getting wet? Where are you traveling? Is it rainy, or do you travel in all types of weather conditions?
If you don’t want to invest in a waterproof travel day pack but still want to protect some items in your backpack from potential water, you should buy a waterproof bag. This will go inside your day pack and can hold whatever you have that will need to be protected from water. They work super well and can be lifesavers when traveling in wet conditions!
We recommend the Osprey Talon 22 or the waterproof Arkadia Sea to Sky 24L Pack
There are thousands of travel items out there that are marketed as must-buys. You can read articles about them and how they’ll improve your travels by leaps and bounds all over the internet. It’s not that they won’t necessarily make your travels better, but it’s not always attainable for everyone to buy all of these things. That is why we tried to narrow down the list of the absolute best travel items you should not travel without.
Of course, we travel with more gear than this, which you can check out on our Travel Gear page. However, these are the most essential travel items that we could not imagine traveling without.
