∞ Traveling with an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air

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I’ve been traveling with a backpack full of electronics for more years than I care to remember, but with Apple’s recent offerings, things are getting a whole lot easier.

[ad#Google Adsense 300x250 in story]In years past, I would back a bag with a camera, maybe a video camera, phone, and a 17- or 15-inch MacBook (or PowerBook, if you remember those). To say that made for a heavy bag and a sore back would be an understatement — and that was just going through the airport.

After days of walking around a tradeshow or lugging everything to endless meetings, my back was ready to call it quits.

Last month, I went to Anaheim for the anual NAMM music show, but I packed a little different. Instead of lugging around all of those heavy electronics, I took an iPhone, iPad and a MacBook Air.

Here’s how I used them.

iPhone 4The iPhone was my always-on checking email on the show floor device. I could easier check my schedule for upcoming meetings, add meetings when I needed to, and generally keep in touch with people.

Of course, the iPhone was also used to make calls, text and find where companies were located on the show floor using the NAMM iPhone app.

This year, the iPhone also took the camera and video camera duties as well. For the Web, the iPhone’s camera gives me everything I need, so there is no sense packing extra gear for nothing.

With its GPS capabilities and sheer number of apps available for it, the iPhone helped me find restaurants, shopping and pretty much everything else I needed while on the trip.

While I have written stories on the iPhone in the past, it’s certainly not the best device to write on. That’s where the iPad came in.

When I had a few minutes, I would leave the show floor and find a quite spot outside to sit down. During this time, I would try to write a couple of stories just to get ahead of the work I would have to do in the press room or the hotel.

The iPad was perfect for this. It’s small, but powerful enough to get the job done. I used Apple’s Pages on the iPad to write the stories and then just transferred the work to the computer when I got back to the hotel and continued writing.

Of course, I could also check email and the Web during these breaks, but writing was my main focus.

If I had an hour or so to spare between meetings, I would go to the press room, grab a coffee and sit down. While this was time off to rest to my weary feet, it was still time to get some work done.

This is when I would pull out the 11-inch MacBook Air. This is Apple’s newest computer and one I highly recommend for anyone that travels.

The Air’s long battery life, power, great display and compactness make it a no brainer for anyone that travels.

I would take the time in the press room to finish any stories I started on the iPad, post stories, work on photos and other tasks that I would rather do on the computer.

Some people reading this may suggest that I could have left the iPad or the MacBook Air at home and save even more weight and space. You’re probably right.

If I was on a family vacation, I may have left one of them home, but since I was working and I had a specific use for each device, I decided to take them both. They are both so light and weigh almost nothing, it really didn’t make much difference.

I now have my travel backpack ready with the perfect set of devices for traveling. I’m sure I’ll perfect it even more over the next few months, but right now the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air is the perfect way to travel.

You can follow me on Twitter @jdalrymple


  • Anonymous

    I travel with the exact same kit. I justify this by using the iPad mostly on the plane, for reading, playing games etc. I still can’t shake the feeling that since getting the 11″ Air, I should leave the iPad at home – but then my iPad is not 3G, so maybe with the wireless on that, I’d use it more – although the Boingo mobile plan fills in a lot of the gaps with wifi.

    Another good reason why the next air needs to include a programmable 3G/4G sim for worldwide data. Apple cracks that and I’m all in.

    • http://www.loopinsight.com Jim Dalrymple

      3G on the Air would be incredible, I agree.

    • Ali

      I do internet tethering from my iPhone 4S to macbook air. Works perfectly fine for me!

  • Anonymous

    Traveling with a 17″ MacBook pro can have its challenges for sure. When I have two camera bodies, five or six lenses, two flashes, assorted chargers, wireless controllers, etc., and the 17″ MacBook Pro all in a backpack, that can be quite a bit to carry day-to-day. And when traveling in third-world countries, some of the flights are in airplanes that are pretty small, and the luggage that fits in full-sized planes can become a challenge. And when my total weight limit is 35 kilos, and my cameras alone weigh half that, then there’s not much room for a big laptop and my clothes. (Spending four days in Africa without my suitcase showed me just how important a change of undies can be.)

    So I’m definitely in the market for something that can handle my 16-20 gigs of photos/video a day. I’m thinking a MacBook Air with a Thunderbolt port and a LaCie Little Big Disk with two 250 gig SSD drives in an RAID-0 setup (and a 500 gig NEXTO DI for backup) along with my iPhone and iPad would seem to be very liberating for my travels.

  • sri

    I wonder why you need iPad and macbook air? Can’t we travel with just one of these? If you must pick one, what would you pick?

    • Peter Cohen

      Hijacking Jim’s thread here, I have the same setup (in fact, I got the MacBook Air after discussing it thoroughly with Jim).

      The iPad isn’t as good as the MacBook Air for a couple of reasons. As a blogging tool, for example, the iPad is completely inadequate – I can’t write nearly as fast on the virtual keyboard, ingest and edit media files or do other things I take for granted on the MacBook Air. Application switching on iOS is painful compared to Mac OS X multitasking. And the blogging and text editing software out there for iOS is absolutely execrable compared to what I depend on with my MacBook Air.

      Having said that, I prefer to use the iPad as a simple communications tool – checking e-mail quickly, microblogging via Twitter, posting Facebook updates, even reading news.

      Different tools for different tasks, essentially. But the MacBook Air has completely replaced my bigger, bulkier MacBook as a streamlined system for doing what I need to do to actually work.

      I don’t see it as an either/or proposition. I need (and use) them both for different things.

  • Surfbits

    At Macworld Expo I took only my iPad to SF along with a smartphone that was half the phone that my new Verizon iPhone 4 turned out to be. If you follow that, you’re doing well.
    Anyway, I agree with Peter that the keyboard on the iPad slows down my typing and text handling in general. I now have a Sena Keyboard Folio for the iPad with the built in Bluetooth keyboard in the iPad folio. It makes typing so much easier and efficient then the virtual keyboard on the iPad did. I would consider that all I really need on trips in the near future would be the iPhone 4 and the iPad with the Keyboard Folio.

  • Anonymous

    I am considering selling my current MacBook Pro and MacBook Air and buying a mid-range up-to-date 13″ MacBook Air. I think I could do fine with just that, my iPad and iPhone.

  • ag4eng

    I have the similar travel bag setup but still use a Canon G12 for better photos. The question boils down to – should I take both ipad2 (wifi only) and 11″ macbook air? I find the air more useful when I need the ethernet port and access to the file system for work, but the ipad is just better for reading books, news and games. For now the best answer is both. I like to have all 3 (iphone, ipad, air).

    I gave my folks (in their 70′s) an ipad and they call it addictive.