Hey Y'all !  Hope you had a great week. This week I want to talk about taking a photography trip and what you need for your trip. But I'm not going to talk about camera gear you probably already have that figured out but I'm going to talk about the accessories that you may need to support your trip. If you have never taken a photography trip before you might not have thought about these things before. I've been taking one or two big photography trips per year for the last 10 or more years I've come up with a checklist of things that I think you should take. Most of my trips have been taken in a car but a few have been while traveling by air and no matter how you travel these things will come in handy. So lets get started.

Electronics

2563e370f98e53afa59b4ddfed93f621 Computing. As photographers in the digital age we need some sort of computer to edit , manage and backup our photography. Laptops are the overwhelming choice for this but I use an iPad Pro that I can do the same thing that will do all of the tasks mentioned before and is smaller to carry. What ever you decide to take make sure you have all of the cords and cables you need to charge your device.

Storage. Extra SD cards is a must I like to have an SD card for each day of shooting. I take the spent card store it in a SD card wallet  and that's one of my backups. So if your taking a 7 day trip 7 cards. Some type of external drive to hook to your computing device. I have a 1 terabyte SSD (Solid State Drive) that I hook to my iPad and backup all of my photo's to. That makes two copies of my photo's. One on the SD Card and one on the SSD drive. I store these in separate places incase luggage is lost or stolen so I always have a copy no matter what. 

Chargers. Make sure you have a charger for all of your devices. Phone, watch, earbuds, batteries etc... A multi-port USB charger can come in very handy so you can charge more than one thing at a time. Nothing is worse than a dead battery when traveling. Another good tip is to take a small multi port surge protector with you. Hotel rooms or sharing a room with someone makes electrical outlets precious . So a 3 or 4 port surge protector allows you to charge many things at one time without hogging up the outlets in the room.

Earbuds , head phones or plugs. Having earbuds or headphones work great when your flying canceling out Podcast the noise of the plane. But they also work great to listen to music or watching movies or videos when traveling with friends. They may not
want to listen to your music . If your like me I get up way earlier than my travel companions so I use earbuds to watch the local news on my iPad  without waking others up. Ear plugs can come in handy if your sharing a room with someones that snores loud and still you can get a good night sleep.

Mobile Battery. A mobile battery charger is handy to have when you're traveling. You don't need a super large one but one big enough to recharge your phone a couple of times. Comes in handy in Airports especially. We keep everything on our phone's and nothing is worse than a dead phone when traveling. A 5000 mah or a 10000 mah will be large enough and can be had pretty cheaply.

Camera Accessories

Rain Gear. You never know what the weather is going to do. Rain gear
for your camera and you is a must when traveling. If it looks like rain take your rain gear with you. Something as simple as a disposable shower cap that you get at a hotel can save your camera gear. I always have one in my bag.

Cleaning Supplies. Keeping your camera clean while traveling is a must on getting good photo's. Taking enough microfiber cloths blowers brushes whatever you use to clean your camera stuff is a must when traveling. I always have a microfiber cloth in my pocket for quick cleaning .

Other Considerations

Clothes. Now this is one of the hardest things to do is pack for a week long trip. What I usually try to do is pack enough clothes for 4 or so days and have a way to wash clothes half way through the trip.  That will keep the bulk of your clothes down. Try to pack with layering in mind so you can peel layers off if it's too hot or add layers if too cold. I personally try not to pack cotton items because when they get wet they stay wet. I usually have polyester or blends to keep as dry as possible. A Puffy jacket almost always goes wherever I go. They are small and lightweight and can be compressed to not take up precious room in your suitcase. Comfortable shoes are more important than cute shoes. On a photography trip you may be walking for miles and miles and keeping blister free is a must. I also try to take an extra pair of shoes incase I get one pair messed up.

Toiletries. I'm not going to get into toiletries that you must take just make sure you have what you need and not any more. Use small bottles like the travel sized bottles you can get to save room and make sure you have enough medication that you will need for the duration of your trip. I also take stuff like tums  or aspirin for those upset stomachs or headaches that come from traveling.

Water Bottle. A water bottle or sealable cup is great to have traveling. If your staying at a hotel the free coffee in the lobby is much better than the coffee that is in the room and if your cup is sealable you can take it with you. Later during the day you can rinse out your cup and put water in it to make sure you don't get dehydrated which could leave you with headaches and weak.

Now is this everything you might need? Well no , everyone is different and have different needs. This is just some suggestions. I would also say sit down and think about what you might need on your trip. Make a checklist and have it handy if you think of something add it to the list. Before long you will have a good packing checklist and if you use it while you're packing you won't forget anything. Nothing is worse than being somewhere away from home and you have forgot something important because you rushed to pack and didn't take it with you. Like your Camera ! LOL Summer traveling season is coming up so get out there and travel and keep Shooting!