A few travel choices I made that I was very grateful for during my entire trip:

International data plan

In another lifetime when I was a cab driver — 1999, specifically — we were given phones on the Voicestream network that we could use to text dispatch and other drivers. (Texting was not really a thing yet, and I felt very cutting edge. I was proud of my ability to tap out messages with my thumb without looking, e.g. two taps on the 1 key for the letter ‘b’.)

Voicestream was bought by T-Mobile, which remained my carrier until I bought my first iPhone in 2008, when AT&T was the only available network for iPhones. I stayed with AT&T through my second iPhone in 2010, not paying enough attention to my plan and realizing shortly before I switched carriers again that I could have long ago been paying less for more and better services.

By 2014, upon purchasing my third iPhone, I was traveling and I went back to T-Mobile, drawn by their offering of international data, a default of every plan. What a life-saver! Not needing to buy a SIM card or rely on the hope of finding wifi hotspots in order to navigate my way around is an essential component of my travels.

Packing cubes

On Amazon Prime Day (which has its critics) in 2017, I bought some packing cubes made by eBags. I’d heard they can save space in one’s luggage, and oh boy did that turn out to be true. Total game-changer.

What they did for me on this trip was something else entirely, though. Most of my stays were 1 to 2 nights, not really enough time to unpack and get settled. Except with everything compartmentalized, it was very easy to unpack and repack!

I always knew where everything was because I’d categorized: one large cube holding leggings and outerwear, one large cube holding tops and outerwear, one medium cube holding undies and socks, and one medium cube holding my laptop, battery, and chargers.

These four cubes filled my 21″ roller suitcase to the brim (and then I packed shoes on top), and I can’t even imagine trying to manage all my stuff without them.

Portable battery

For Christmas 2015, I received a small portable battery for my iPhone. I didn’t use it much until I traveled to Barcelona in the summer of 2017, and I found that it really helped supplement the power consumed by photos and navigation.

Having become a devoted user of the video journal app 1 Second Everyday since then, I would be taking more videos on this trip than any previous one. The small battery had stopped holding a charge, so I had an opportunity to buy a bigger and better one for my big trip.

I chose this one from Anker and loved it. Compact, not too heavy, holds a charge for days, can power up my iPhone almost twice over. It was a life-saver on my long days of touring about.