4 Essentials for the Traveling Content Creator

Traveling as a photographer and videographer can be an enjoyable experience; that delight further elevated by having the proper equipment. 

There’s nothing more frustrating than packing your gear and planning out your shoot — even going as far as to hash out your content calendar — for little things to begin chipping away at the experience. Bad batteries, autofocus problems, bogged down computers and lack of space on an external hard drive, for instance, are common for many creatives who are just starting — as well as amateurs and professionals on some occasions. 

They’re obnoxious enough when your close to home, let alone thousands of miles away. 

Though there is plenty of equipment that helps in various situations, the following list is essential for all creatives, from those just beginning to professionals with years of experience. 

Essential No. 1: Have a reliable camera and lenses

The first — and most obvious — essential item a traveling creative needs is a reliable camera. Whether you’re shooting just photos or video or a combination of both, a high-quality camera body should be what you invest in first. 

You don’t need to purchase the latest body — we’ve captured high-quality content with cameras released as far back as 2015 — but you should have a camera body that meets your needs. 

An example of this is our use of the Sony A7R III. Released in 2017, it provides high-quality content supported by a 42-megapixel, full-frame sensor and a lightning-fast processor. It can shoot up to 10 frames per second and can record footage up to 4K up at 30 fps. The important part, however, was that, because of its older release, it was an economical choice for our business. We upgraded from a Sony A7 II, the first camera ever used for our sports marketing work, after putting it through the gauntlet for three years. The switch was easy, as our work outgrew the camera and its age and wear began to show. 

This rule applies to accessories, too. While most of our travel requires a minimalist mindset, taking care of your lenses, tripods, SD cards, camera cages and recording equipment is necessary when you’re working on the road. There’s nothing worse than showing up to a shoot or being in the middle of an assignment when something easily preventable goes awry. 

Essential No. 2: You need a high-performance laptop 

The second essential item a traveling content creator needs is also obvious, and it can’t be overstated how significant a high-quality laptop is when working on the road. 

Your laptop is your virtual base camp — without it, you’re going to be lost in the wilderness. Further, if your base camp doesn’t host the tools you need to thrive in your new area, it’s nothing more than a place to twiddle your thumbs and wish you could put your ideas into motion. 

Though you’ll be shelling out more money for the brand, Apple’s MacBook Pros are one of the best — if not the best — options for the traveling creative. Even the older 2021 16-inch model with the M1 Pro Chip, with 10 cores of CPU (eight high-performance and two high-efficiency cores) and multiple memory and storage options, can help you begin producing spectacular content out of the box. It’s what we’ve used for years, as well as what our friends have used. It’s a great choice, and it will save you some money.

Essential No. 3: External hard drives are a must for traveling content creators

The third essential item for a traveling photographer and videographer can be easily overlooked, especially for those who buy a laptop with great storage. Despite that, you should never go on an assignment without one or two external hard drives. 

There are multiple choices for external drives, so we won’t try to convince you on which one you should buy, but most come with at least 1 terabyte of storage. This can provide you with a year of storage if used properly and also can save you headaches and, potentially, monetary losses. 

External hard drives are a lifeline and should be treated as much. One of our largest clients, a New Balance AAU basketball team, has three separate age groups that play up to four games each weekend. This means an extensive amount of footage and photos to sort, edit and deliver. While the nature of capturing sports content is that some highlights are missed for various reasons, it should never be the case that content is lost because it was carelessly deleted or corrupted. To prevent this, after each game, we dump our raw clips into folders on our external drive and upload photos into Adobe Lightroom. This prevents us from cannibalizing old content while also giving us the peace of mind that the footage is safe. 

Naturally, you need to take care of your drives. If you don’t protect them from falls, getting banged around in your bag or similar damage, there is a chance that the drive can corrupt and all your content can be lost. Additionally, if you know your drive is close to being full, you should have a backup drive with you just in case.

Essential No. 4: Buy a high-quality equipment bag or case to transport your equipment

Also paramount is the need for a solid bag or case to hold your equipment. Without apology, we’re obsessed with Pelican and Peak Design products and use them every day for our travel needs. We switch between two Pelican cases — one for longer assignments and one for daily use — as well as Peak Design’s Everyday Backpack for daily use and air travel. 

As noted, we subscribe to a minimalist mindset when traveling through airports, such as with the AAU team. Concerning the Everyday Backpack, we use the 20-liter pack for weekend trips as it provides just enough space for our camera body (with a cage), monitor arm, tech pouch and two lenses. We also have various tools, glass wipes and other small but necessary items in the many low-profile pouches. It also keeps laptops snug and readily available, is easy to take through TSA checkpoints and fits perfectly under seats. 

When we need extra space, are driving to assignments or need weather/water production, we combine the Everyday Backpack with one of our Pelican cases. It’s great to be able to have everything ready to go at all times, easily transportable and protected by high-quality materials. 

Final thoughts on the essentials traveling content creators need

While photographers and videographers are notoriously obsessed with buying the best or newest gear, there’s no arguing that these are essential items each traveling creative needs in their arsenal. We know it’s unlikely our setup will be exactly what you want, need or like, so make sure you do your own research, test out your equipment and enjoy creating on the road.