I just got back from a week-long vacation. We were staying in Tel Aviv, Israel, which meant lots of walking and cycling (I took my Brompton), plus day trips. Which in turn meant traveling light.
The iPad is perfect traveling companion, and the iPad mini is even better. But if you want to take lots of photos with an actual camera, or – worse still – a camera that shoots huge RAW images, you need to plan ahead. And as I didn’t want to take a Mac with me, I needed a few tricks to help out.
This post isn’t about how I managed my photos on the trip (although I will mention that side of things a little in terms of the hardware I used). It’s about the gadgets and apps that help you work around the limitations of the iPad when you’re relying on it away from home.
It’s not much bigger than a (large, fat) thumb — but this PhoneSuit Flex battery has more juice than all but the very, very largest iPhone battery cases. While it’s been available in 30-pin and Android/micro-USB flavors for months, it’s now also available for the iPhone 5.
Eton’s new BoostSolar a) is here just in time for sunny summer and b) solves many of the problems usually present in solar chargers. It also looks pretty cool, and less like the utili-hippy designs beloved of rivals.
Lifehacker’s Adam ”never seen without a beanie" Dachis has come up with an ingenious solution for the gadget-laden traveler. Instead of messing around with travel chargers or any other gadget-by-gadget solution, he built a mobile charging station out of a giant portable battery and a USB hub.
Call it the Dracula of iPhone chargers: the ChargeBite doesn’t charge your iPhone by juicing it up from an inclosed battery pack, but by sucking precious electricity from a friend’s iPhone and siphoning it into your own.
Quirky’s Pickup Power wants the be the last power-strip you’ll ever need. It houses AC outlets, USB chargers and – the best part – a detachable battery pack that’s always charged and ready to go.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – You’re stuck in the dessert. You are thirsty, hot, and – worst of all – your cellphone is dead. You discover that you have a teaspoonful of water that you had previously overlooked. Do you a) Drink it? or b) use it to recharge your phone.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – Pssst… don’t tell anyone, but I just saw Mophie’s new Juicepack Air for the iPhone 5. After months of abusive complaints in forum and comment threads the world over, the Air is now finally… almost… available for the slim new iPhone.
Enerpak Vault by Unu Category: Battery Pack Works With: iPad, iPhone, any USB device Price: $80
This is the Unu Enerpak Vault. It’s an excellent spare battery pack for any of your portable devices, and it is even powerful enough to almost (almost) charge the thirsty, thirsty Retina iPad.
But what it does the most (apart from get you out of pretty much any charging emergency) is show the amazing difference between the batteries inside out iDevices.
Unu’s Ecopak is about as simple as an iPhone battery case can get. And as this also means that it is thin and light, and that it will work with not only the iPhone 5 but any gadget than charges via USB, that simplicity is perhaps its best feature.
The Ecopak consists of two parts. The thin, snap-on shell-style case, and the. Battery pack itself. Let’s take a look.
![Traveling With An iPad And A Camera: Batteries, Backups And Bags [Feature]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
![Traveling With An iPad And A Camera: Batteries, Backups And Bags [Feature]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/IMG_1285.jpg)
![Sneak Peek: Mophie’s JuicePack Air For iPhone 5 Launches Tomorrow [Mobile World Congress 2013]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/1361734745.jpg)
