This
year’s vacation was a Baltic Sea cruise that left from Stockholm, Sweden and
ended in Bergan, Norway. We were delayed on the way to Stockholm when our
connecting flight got cancelled due to a drone over the Frankfurt airport. Flight
delays are always possible, and there wasn’t anything we could have done about
it.
But
maybe I could have foreseen and prevented the snag we faced on the way home.
Last
year I bought a small suitcase and made sure the dimensions complied with the
international carry-on restrictions. There was an outside, zippered pocket that
was perfect for my laptop and plenty of room inside for my camera bag. So when
we packed for our cruise, I used my new suitcase and a messenger bag as my
carry-ons.
That
worked fine on the trip over, where both legs were on international carriers.
Unfortunately, Bergan is a smaller airport and we had to fly from there to
Copenhagen to catch the flight to Chicago. The plane we got on at Bergan was a
small, domestic one, and my suitcase didn’t fit in the overhead bins, let alone
under the seat. The flight attendant checked it at the side of the plane, but I
had to take my laptop and my camera bag out first. The camera bag worked as my
second carry-on, so that was fine.
But
my laptop was a problem.
I
had been using a large laptop as my primary and only computer, and I used it both
at home and on trips. I had never been entirely comfortable doing so, however.
What if something happened to my laptop while on vacation? Although the most
important documents are backed up, I tailor my programs to my needs, and Word
especially is highly customized. Losing my laptop would mean downloading new
programs and spending long hours modifying them. I have considered buying a
tablet and taking it instead, but that isn’t a good fit for me. I prefer larger
screens and keyboards, and most tablets aren’t well-suited to the work I would
want to do on them.
Back
to Bergan, Norway. When I tried to fit my laptop into my messenger bag, it was
too big. I finally put it in with the short edge down and left the flap of the
bag open with the laptop protruding, but I knew I had to find a better solution
for the future.
My
older brother had purchased a separate, smaller laptop for use when travelling,
and I realized that might be my solution, too. In fact, I even thought about
using his. Donald has Parkinson’s Disease and some of the complications have
made it unlikely that he will ever need his travel laptop again. But when I
checked it out, I discovered several issues. First, Donald had customized it
for his needs, and they aren’t mine. Second, it has been a while since he
undated it, and I’m not sure how much of a problem that is.
The
biggest issue, however, is that Donald’s travel laptop has minimal memory and storage
space. Even when I cleared out everything I knew I didn’t need, I still
couldn’t download and adjust photos efficiently. Donald seems to have solved
that problem by storing everything in the cloud, but that wouldn’t work for me.
Some of our vacations are to exotic places that might not have WiFi access, and
I want to be able to download and adjust photos while I still remember what
they are. And there aren’t enough USB ports on Donald’s travel laptop to allow
me to use both a card reader and a thumb drive at the same time.
So
I gave up on that idea and went out and bought my own. This is a Dell XPS13
with 8GB RAM and a 256 GB harddrive. It wasn’t cheap, but it has what I need
and, at 12” wide, it fits into my messenger bag the long way. It has USB-C
ports rather than the more traditional USB-2 or 3 ports, but a $10 hub resolves
that issue. You can see the difference in size in the photo at the head of this
post.
Of
course, I will have to copy documents and photos between my home and travel
computers, but I can limit the process to the documents I expect to work with
while on vacation and the photos I take there. And I won’t worry as much about
losing my laptop when my primary computer is safe at home.
I
still plan on using my current carry-on suitcase for international travel, but
if I run across another small plane as I did in Bergan, it will be much easier
to take out the travel laptop and transfer it to my messenger bag. A travel
laptop isn’t the perfect solution, but it is the best for me for now.
Because
a computer is one of my most important travel accessories.
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