I’ve done a fair amount of traveling since starting Systecon, and in my jobs prior. In about a decade of work experience I’ve logged a little over 1M miles on United and close to 100K on American. This year I’ll hit 200K miles and likely log another 180 nights in hotels. Over the years I’ve refined, transformed, and completely started over several times with various carry on concepts.

With the amount of Coast-to-Coast travel I’m doing, I was forced to abandon the beautiful green leather briefcase I was using in favor of something a bit larger and a bit more utilitarian. After trying out a half dozen options (some of which were quite expensive) I settled on a very affordable and very highly rated eBags Professional Slim Laptop Backpack.

With the number of software demos we do on random projectors I carry a lot of adapters, chargers and cables. There’s a pocket or mesh compartment for everything keeping it all nicely organized.

Keeping connected on the road is a Lenovo Yoga 900. I have a love/hate relationship with this laptop. It’s damn light, runs our software, and looks professional. But I’m on my third motherboard in two years and I despise the charger. The two prong plug folds out directly from the converter brick which means it covers both outlets on a traditional wall socket and won’t plug into most conference room table outlets. So I have a 1 foot extension cord that also comes along in my bag. All in all the charger/extension cord weighs about as much as the laptop.

The laptop primary output is USB-C. So I carry around a USB-C to HDMI and an HDMI to VGA converter that I can daisy chain together for those customers who still don’t have HDMI input. Often times there is just a TV in the conference room with no connector, so I also carry an HDMI cable that I can just plug into the TV as well.

I carry two Anker backup battery packs to ensure my phone (a quick charging and quick draining Nexus 6P) stays charged. A pair of beats and an REI sleep mask make long transcontinental red-eye flights more manageable. I also have a pair on in-ear headphones for conference calls as the beats just aren’t practical for this purpose.

I also carry a notebook, two pens (a Sharpie ultra fine point, and a Pilot Varsity fountain pen) as I still prefer jotting down notes to typing list on my phone. The GPS watch and sunglasses make a post-flight hike possible.

I’m currently reading Guru Singh’s book “Levity,” an excellent collection of short parables. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for short chapters of highly spiritual and intellectual content.

I also carry a water bottle (to fill a the airport lounge) and an insulated coffee mug (to make the home espresso go as far as possible). Lastly, I have a collection bars, teas, and Bulletproof coffee Instamix to start the day. Nothing takes the edge off a red-eye like a Bulletproof quad espresso.