No matter how you travel, it's a lot more pleasant when you're packing gadgets. Expand

No matter how you travel, it's a lot more pleasant when you're packing gadgets.

Before heading overseas, spare some thought for the gadgets you're about to pack as choosing wisely can make a massive difference to your entire trip. From keeping entertained to staying in touch, or even finding your way around, travel gadgets can be incredibly useful.

This said, rising aviation costs are seeing airlines charge the equivalent of Ghana's GDP for overweight luggage. The upshot of this is that packing an entire cabin bag of gizmos simply isn't an option so each gadget should ideally need to pass some tough criteria in order to qualify for a spot in your baggage.

Each gadget should not only be as light as possible but should also fulfil a real need, or even better still, multiple needs simultaneously.

Belkin F5L010au Travel Power Adaptor RRP$164.00
Belkin's travel adaptor may not be the sexiest travel gizmo, but it's easily the most useful. Packing a multitude of connectivity options, it'll work with nearly any laptop or gadget, and because it also incorporates built-in surge protection, valuable electronics won't get fried by dodgy third world electricity supplies.

Add in a USB port and it'll also recharge my cellphone, digital camera and iPod. With the bundled car cigarette light adaptor and in-flight power connectors, you're good to go no matter where you travel.

BlackBox M14 Noise Cancelling Earphones RRP$379.00
Flying long haul economy really sucks. Not only are you forced to get intimate with a complete stranger as you're contorted into economy seating, there's also dodgy airline food and mind-numbingly bad in-flight movies to contend with. The straw that breaks the proverbial geek's back is noise. If you're not sure what I'm on about, try this: Get a vacuum cleaner and stick it under your sofa. Now sitting on the couch, switching it on and watching TV, eating dinner or even holding a conversation. Multiply this by 8-12 hours, and you'll understand what I mean.

Thankfully noise cancelling headphones (which sample ambient noise using built-in microphones and use clever digital signal processing to eliminate annoying jet engine noise) let you hear music, movies or even take a nap in near-silence.

Locally designed, the Blackbox M14 noise cancelling headphones are amongst the best money can buy and make a huge difference, reducing the maddening roar of jet engines to a barely audible whisper. Powered with easily replaceable AAA batteries (which lasted forever), they come with airline compatible plug adaptors and a nifty travel case, making them dead easy to pack.

TomTom Go 930 GPS RRP$899.00

Getting from A to B in a strange country needn't be such a stressful experience. Renting a car in countries like Italy (whose roading was designed by Monty Python) or the US (where highway on-ramps need user manuals) without a GPS is just asking for navigation related in-car marital stress.