I recently posted on Bluesky about minimalist travelling. And once again, I find myself on the road with a 15kg checkin. It still seemed a bit much. Literally moments before I left, I was eyeing my carry-on, and a thought occurred to me. What if I could leave my laptop? I’ve travelled with an iPad before, but what if I used just a phone?

“David, can you actually use a phone as your principal computing device on these one-month motorcycle trips”, I asked myself. “Excellent and erudite question, Other David”, I replied. “I mostly take photos, do a little light on-road video editing and write..Oh, I also transfer video files from the DJI cameras to a hard drive for later backing up.” “Ok, good. So, leaving that last one aside, what do you need the computer for?” It was a good question, posed by an attractive man.

Let’s start with the writing. I write incessantly. Look, I’m doing it now! I used Evernote for years and I loved it. Then they started spiralling and more recently, charging people huge amounts for the spiral. I looked at alternatives like Nimbus (instantly regretted), and Obsidian (didn’t like it, and nearly as expensive as Evernote), and finally stumbled upon Joplin. It’s open source, it’s free if you want it to be, and it uses markdown, which I love. More importantly, it had an active team of developers. Even at home I write on the (desktop) version of Joplin. Over the years, they’ve improved the android version to the point that I think it’s now a viable on-road alternative.

Now, the video editing. We have a couple of action cameras (recently upgraded DJI Action 5s) and I edit footage down at home. But on the road, I edit them down to shorts. I looked around, guided by the TikTok king, my son Kristo and set upon Adobe Rush as a viable mobile alternative. It does things quickly and simply and has a large collection of music (though I usually use Envato Elements). We’ll see how it goes.

I take photos on my phone anyway, and honestly, the camera on my Pixel 8 is so good it rarely needs editing, and judiciously applied Google Photos usually sorts that out.

Which brings us to the fly in the ointment: moving videos around. I have a USB hub, but I don’t know if it provides enough power to a SSD drive and the (admittedly self powered) camera. Dalma has her aged surface here, which I may end up using. But I’ll charge the phone first and give it a go.

I also have a Bluetooth keyboard. To my delight, I can use a Bluetooth mouse with a phone. And I have a natty little brick that sits on the back of the phone charges it wirelessly, and acts as a stand. Neato.

So this trip will also be about testing the limits of mobile computing on the road. “Do you think it’ll be useful for months on the road, David?” I asked myself. “Probably not, Other David,” I answered. But it has the potential to free me up for shorter periods and carry less.”

And in the end, that’s what it’s all about with minimalist packing.