Top 10 Gadgets to Take on Holiday

Smartphone – this may seem like an obvious one, but it is among the most important as it will allow you to keep in touch with friends and family, but also find your way about when on holiday, and planning your activities. Make sure your phone will work wherever you are going, and you’ve installed any apps you think will be useful before you go. It can also be useful to pick up a waterproof cover to go with it, to minimise the chance of any unfortunate mishaps.

These are really useful to use just before you go, as well as before you head back home, to ensure you don’t go over your luggage allowance and have to pay extra. It is also useful to check how much those purchases actually weigh before you buy them! You can get analogue ones, but digital ones are smaller and lighter and just as cheap.

This is essential if you are going abroad somewhere that has a different type of plug socket to your home country, otherwise you won’t be able to charge any of your devices. Make sure you get the right one for where you are going to, as there are several different types.

It is obviously important to take a charger with you to plug into the mains, but sometimes you find yourself somewhere where you can’t plug in, either because you are camping or somewhere else without mains electricity, or even the plug in your hotel room doesn’t like the adaptor you are using. Nowadays you can get power packs, such as the Anker Power Core, to charge your phone or other electronic device without plugging into the mains, so you know you can definitely charge them.

There often isn’t room in your luggage to take a laptop with you unless you are travelling on business, but finding space for an iPad or other tablet is really useful. You can use it to look at maps, plan where you are going, but also watch videos too. This is especially useful if you have children, because if you are travelling outside your own country the chances are there won’t be the channels that you are used to, if there are any in your language at all, so load up on their favourite movies and TV episodes before you go!

This is a really great gadget to take with you if you enjoy listening to music, it will make you feel more at home and give more volume than the poor quality speakers in your phone or tablet. You can get a portable Bluetooth Speaker very cheaply, with no need for any of those annoying cables.

These are particularly useful for noisy flights or train journeys, to blot out the noise from other passengers. Also useful to help you get to sleep if you have a noisy hotel room. You get what you pay for, it can be really beneficial to choose a well known brand and a model with good reviews.

This can be a great gadget to take, as you won’t have your toolbox with you on holiday. It's amazing the simplest things that you will need and not have to hand. Essentials for your multi-tool include scissors, a pen knife and a corkscrew, but many have lots more features. Check out the wide range of Victorinox and Leatherman tools for some ideas of what you can get. Top tip - check you can take it with you on the aeroplane, usually small blades can be taken in your hand luggage but if in doubt put in your suitcase in the hold.

A good torch can be really useful for finding your way back to your accommodation after an evening out when you are in unfamiliar surroundings, and often where you are staying won’t have the same level of street lighting you are used to.

If you like reading then a Kindle or other e-reader is a must, as you can take as many books as you want and it hardly weighs anything in your luggage. It takes the difficult decision out of what books to take. You can of course use your tablet or phone to read books, but the glare from the screen makes this impractical for the beach or by the pool. An e-ink reader doesn't show any glare, and are as good as paper to read in the sun.