Posted on Thursday, June 20th, 2013 at 7:52 am

Summer is in full swing and many international students will be making their way back home or doing some exploring. Either way, we will all be traveling this summer and so we thought it would be a perfect time to put together our top list of travel gear items to make your trip easier!

Technology is changing, styles are changing – and if you have not looked at the latest and greatest travel items in the past year or two, you might actually be surprised at what you can get now. So here are our top 5 summer travel gear items available today:

Timbuk2 Messenger Bag

Probably some of the coolest bags available at the moment, the Timbuk2 messenger bags not only hold everything you need – such as iPads, Laptops, and documents – but they are also customizable through their website. They are certainly our bag of choice whenever we travel at the moment – comfortable and practical!

GridIt Travel Organizer

What better way to keep all your items together than the GridIt travel organizer. It saves you just throwing everything into your bag, and then having to go digging to find what you need. The grid keeps everything in place, and will save you time when you need to find something.

Sim Cards/ Phones

We all know international travel and your mobile phone do not play nicely, you will either find an extremely large phone bill or you may lose access to the world if you switch your phone and data off. There are new affordable solutions – for example global sim cards if you have an unlocked phone – and if you don’t have an unlocked phone, there are cheap unlocked android phones that now cost around $100. For sim cards, check out the range here and for a cheap android unlocked mobile phone, we use the Sony Xperia EC 1604.

EyeFi WiFi SD Cards

Lets face it, when you travel abroad you are constantly taking photos with your camera and then backing them up to your laptop or tablet whenever you get a chance so that you do not lose anything. Now there are WiFi enabled SD memory cards that connect to WiFi networks when you are in range and automatically back up your photos and makes them available on your smart phone or tablet through the dedicated apps. You then have them at your fingertips to instantly share with friends and family, and you have no need to worry about clumsy wires anymore!

Travel Medical Insurance

We all know that we need to get insurance, but when it comes down to it, it’s hard to find the time to do the research. In most cases your credit card’s insurance plan will not pay the benefits you need – or provide you with the assistance in case something happens. Save time now and do your research in advance and learn about international travel medical insurance and trip cancellation insurance and learn about which one you will need.

Wherever you are traveling – enjoy your time abroad and if you have other travel gear suggestions, let us know in the comments.

Posted by Ross Mason

Ross is the Vice President of International Student Insurance, with over 15 years experience in the international education arena. A graduate from the Nottingham Trent University in the UK with a First in BSc (Hons) Business and Technology, Ross has lived all around the world including LA, New York, Boston, London, Hong Kong, Florida and Germany.