As the summer holidays approach, you need the best gadgets and tech to ensure any trips away are the best they can be. In this blog, I will be discussing our top 10 recommendations for the holidays.
Here in the UK, our school holidays have just hit, and many people are preparing for a trip away. Maybe you’re going on your first trip abroad since covid hit, or you’re going away to another part of the UK. Either way, you can use tech to ensure your holiday is a success in this day and age.
PackPoint
Unfortunately, holidays don’t start by magically teleporting you to a poolside. (although I think we all wish they did!). Careful planning and packing must be completed before you can set foot on the beach.
PackPoint is an app that can help with all the boring stuff. Enter your destination, the dates you’ll be going, and what activities you will be doing while you’re there. PackPoint will check the weather forecast and give you a handy list of items to pack.
FlightAware
Flights and Airports can be very stressful, especially catching more than one flight. The last thing you need is to miss your flight, so we recommend FlightAware to keep you on track.
This app enables you to be able to see a live map of flights, check any delays and cancellations, as well as gate changes.
Now the airport stress can melt away, and you can enjoy your time in Duty-Free!
Reading
It’s always lovely to set yourself on the deck chairs and dive into a good book. However, taking books with you can heavily weigh down your luggage, and you don’t want to pay extra for the added weight.
One of the best devices for reading is a Kindle, but if you want to keep the devices you take to a minimum, the Kindle app is available on Android and IOS.
If newspapers and magazines are more up your street, why not try the app Readly. You can browse hundreds of publications using your device or phone and use a month free!
Film Streaming Apps
There’s nothing worse than being stuck on a plane for 3 hours with nothing to do, so why not download a few films onto your device to watch while you fly?
Netflix and Amazon Prime have a vast selection of TV and film. These applications are available as apps, and prices start at £7.99 a month! Whether It’s a few hours of zoning out or popping on a TV show to keep the kids quiet, you can rely on them to keep you endlessly entertained.
Sky Go
Just because you’re away from home doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the football or an episode of Love Island. Why not download the sky go app so you stay in the loop.
You will need to use a VPN if you’re planning on travelling abroad as sky Go doesn’t like people using it away from the UK. We recommend Nord VPN to get a UK IP address so that Sky Go thinks you’re still in the UK but didn’t hear that from us!
Charging Devices
Whatever devices that you use for your apps, these devices need charging. A USB station can hold multiple devices simultaneously means you don’t have to take turns charging your appliances and electronics. Make sure you use one with an EU plug, not the UK one if you’re abroad, and ensure that it has USB and USB-C charging ports for newer Apple devices.
Money
How do you handle your spending money when you’re away? Cash can be risky, and using debit or credit cards can result in an expensive fee.
With starling Bank, you can say goodbye to withdrawal, transactions and account fees abroad.
It is an online bank operated by an app on your phone. So simple and easy!
Tile App
The worst thing to happen while going on holiday is losing something essential. Especially if it is something such as a phone, wallet or keys, we recommend checking out the Tile app.
It works with small Tile devices that you buy. These then connect to your keys, phone, wallet, or anything else you may not want to lose. This is all run on your phone, and the tiles are tracked via an app.
Internet Security
While on holiday, you may be tempted to do remote work or check your banking app to complete some transactions or payments. But how secure is your internet access overseas?
It’s a well-known fact that open WIFI is not secure, but even hotel and airport Wi-Fi that requires a password can be very weak in security, meaning they may as well be open.
This lack of simple protection, proper data encryption, and a hotel’s worth of potential victims makes wireless networks open to cyber-attacks, identity theft, and data snooping.
There are two different methods you can use to protect your data.
Firstly, connecting to a hotspot on the phone with IOS 15 or higher is much safer as it offers WPA3. However, it could use up a lot of your data, and there may be additional charges to your phone bill for using it abroad.
The second option is a VPN. The one that we recommend for this purpose is linked Here.
Out of Office
Our final tip to ensure an excellent and well-deserved holiday away is putting your email and team accounts on ‘out of office’ so that everyone is aware you are uncontactable. So you’re not being hounded by work calls or emails. You can even set your LinkedIn to out of office!
Whatever your plans are for the summer, make the most of your holiday.
