Technology has dramatically changed the way we travel, from helping us get more work done on the road to escaping transit boredom with entertainment to having more fun and being more active while doing activities when we arrive at our destination. It’s easier than ever to stay in touch, bring home memories and explore while on the road. This is great news for the traveling dad, and even better news for those who need to buy him a gift. But not all travel tech is created equally, and if you want to get Dad the very best, lightest, fastest, newest and highest performance gear for Father’s Day, look no further than this curated guide to the very best of today’s technology and digital gear for travel. Many of these selections are new upgrades released in just the past two months.
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless Earbuds: I’ve long sworn by Sennheiser’s full size, over-ear noise cancelling headphones for a total in-flight entertainment immersion into theater quality sound and privacy from fellow passengers (read more here), but these may be too big for some travelers. Light and easy has driven the recent popularity of wireless earbuds from Apple, Samsung and other phone companies, so why not take the concept up a quality notch for Dad with one of the world’s leading audio specialists? The Momentum True Wireless have Sennheiser’s 7mm audiophile driver technology with superior stereo sound performance. Other features include 2-mic noise cancellation beamforming technology, Bluetooth 5.0, and a smart control app available for Android and iOS. They are fully functional for phone calls and have fingertip touch control on the side housing, an intuitive interface to control music, answer phone calls or access voice assistant with a single tap or swipe. touch control. Ergonomically designed for perfect fit, they come with four different ear tip sizes, are extremely comfortable for all day wear, water resistant for travel and include a very compact portable charging case that acts as a battery and extends life to 12 hours, complete with gold plated magnetic charging connectors that snap into place automatically when placed in the case ($300).
Best Travel Smartphone: Frequent travelers have specific needs in a smartphone, most importantly the screen (for watching TV and movies in-flight), camera (for capturing memories), battery life and chargeability, followed by extras like connectivity, processor speed and memory. I recently did a lot of research into determining what the best current phone for travel is, and unequivocally came away convinced it is the Samsung Galaxy S10 and its brethren, the bigger S10+ and cheaper S10e.
This lineup is rated by most experts first or second on the market in all of these key areas, and pretty much every reviewer agrees it has the best screen ever in a smartphone (and as a bonus it is also appreciably easier to use in bright sunlight). It was named Best of 2019 by Wired, Android Central, Tech Radar, and T3. It comes with arguably the best earbuds (AKG) included with any phone and has excellent sound (Dolby Atmos and built-in equalizer), but because it is one of the few remaining ultra-thin phones with a jack, dad can use his existing over the ear noise cancelling headphones (or the Sennheiser earbuds above). It has four camera lenses (five in the S10+), including selfie, normal, telephoto and the best available ultra-wide at 123°, but it also just takes really high-quality photos, has standout autofocus and panoramic, plus various special modes. Its stated battery life is a full day, 24-hours, and even when heavily using GPS and other power sucking features, reviewers just could not get it to run out in a very long workday. Samsung sped up the wireless charging from the previous Galaxy 9 series, and added Power Share, which turns the phone into its own charging pad with wireless charging between devices. The cheapest configuration still includes a generous 128GB, but unlike many others, it also has a microSD slot, for basically unlimited memory. In this vein, Samsung did not leave out any bells and whistles, from earphone jacks to memory to virtual reality to a great ultrasonic fingerprint sensor to being the very first phone on the market with faster Wi-Fi 6 and HDR10+ video. You can learn a lot more in my long and detailed S10 review here.
Best Travel Tablet: If dad likes to travel, he’ll love a high-quality tablet. I fly a lot, and I’m a heavy video watcher when I have the leisure to do so, although sometimes I need to work on planes. For either, a better tablet gives better results, with a bigger, better screen than a phone, and a more streamlined, lighter way to do real work than a laptop without carrying an extra device. When it comes to this dual-purpose travel combo, a great pure tablet with an optional but fully functional keyboard and all the computing power you need to do real work with a suite of programs, you cannot beat the Microsoft Surface lineup. For a dad who wants something more portable than a traditional laptop, mainly for entertainment but also with the flexibility to double down on serious business, the less expensive Surface Go is perfect ($399), with a killer display. If dad is doing more business, but still loves a great screen and video, the Surface Pro 6 ($899) combines a full powered work laptop with personal tablet entertainment use. The Pro 6 is a standout in the hot 2:1 device category, and standout features include long-lasting battery life for long flights and the newest Surface Pen, with premium “pen to ink” feel.
Reliefband 2.0: From cruises to fishing trips to SCUBA diving, many travelers worry about motion sickness - and not just at sea but also on small bush planes, helicopters and even car trips. Reliefband offers sensitive dads a wearable technology motion sickness solution, using neuromodulation (the alteration of nerve activity through targeted delivery of a stimulus to specific neurological sites in the body) to fight nausea. The wristband looks like an activity monitoring band and delivers electric impulses through his wrist. It’s been very well received for two decades, and unlike in-advance medication, you can wait until the last minute and see if the cruise or fishing trip is making you sick before using. The Reliefband 2.0 ($175) is streamlined, has fast USB rechargeability, and will run for up to 17 hours on a single charge.
Golf Travel: If dad is a golfer who likes to play on the road, from true golf vacations to squeezing in rounds between meetings, there’s no better travel companion than the new Bushnell Pro XE Golf Laser Rangefinder. Forget about downloading course maps, playing courses that haven’t been mapped, or losing spotty GPS signal under cloud cover - laser works anywhere, anytime. For over a decade Bushnell has been the number one choice on the PGA Tour, and all other major professional golf tours, and the brand-new Pro XE is the best golf laser rangefinder they’ve ever made.
In addition to precise distance to the flag, and a slope function that adjusts the playing distance based on uphill or downhill altitude gain or loss, it is also the first device ever with “atmospheric adjustment,” compensating for temperature and barometric conditions, telling you exactly how far you need to hit each shot under any conditions. It is also the first and only rangefinder on the market with 7X magnification, making it easier to see and hit the pin, and it can register even a standard non-reflective flag from over 500 yards out - with accuracy within one yard. This new model now has visual confirmation of lock-on in the viewfinder, in addition to a physical buzz, while with most other brands, if you miss the flag you get an erroneous distance reading from things behind the green, but don’t know it. Also new to the XE is “Bite Cart Mount,” a magnetic mount built into the shell, so it sticks firmly to the vertical roof pole in a golf cart without a case or straps for super quick and convenient access, and it is fully waterproof. Finally, because the XE is one of the few models on the market with an on/off switch for slope, it is legal for both recreational and tournament play under USGA rules ($550).
Smartphone Supercharger: I’ve traveled with so many people whose phones have run out it is almost cliché. I’ve seen people sitting on the floor, desperate for a few minutes of plug-in charge, and I’ve also seen lots of folks forget chargers for even a short overnight trip and have to pay top dollar for one at the airport, or get held hostage by Apple’s proprietary, overpriced plugs. But there is simply no reason to ever have your phone battery go to zero on the road, and I know, because I’ve been using a Mophie Juice Pack charging case on my iPhone for years, and as soon as I got a new Android phone recently, the first thing I did was fire up a new Juice Pack. They work great, they are smaller and thinner than ever, and in addition to incredible battery life, they are extremely protective. Because today’s bestselling phones are so thin, often waterproof, and come in cool colors, many people assume they don’t need to protect them. Big mistake, as all those shops specializing in broken screen repair speak too. Several of my friends are now carrying expense recently acquired phones with already cracked screens, and it’s not hard to wreck the entire phone simply by dropping it. Mophie cases are strong and slim, but let’s get back to charging.
Mophie was the very first company to offer a certified “Made for iPhone case” more than decade ago and has been technological innovator ever since, with better batteries, longer life, cleaner power, better protection and more features. Consider this: a Mophie case will still have 75% of its battery power a year after charging. Wow! The new generation Juice Packs have wireless Qi charging, are slimmer, come in lots of great colors, and extend the life an iPhone to over 30 hours, even longer for phones with better battery life. They make specific fit models for all the current and recent iPhone models, from 6 forward, as well as Samsung Galaxy S8 to the current S10 series. All the Juice Packs are $100, but if Dad doesn’t want a case, Mophie also makes a full lineup of top quality, highly portable wireless charging pads, accessories and portable batteries.
Best Sports & Fitness Watch: If dad is a runner, hiker, biker, triathlete, serious athlete/trainer, or enjoys any of a host of other sports, it is hard to beat the brand-new Garmin Forerunner 945, just introduced. Garmin has long ruled the running/sports watch category, a big step up from basic fitness trackers, combining GPS location, directions and mapping with all sorts of tracking and smartwatch technology, and Garmin products, usually several models, make every “Best Smart Watch” or “Best Sports Watch” list from leading tech review sites. Techradar called its predecessor the 935 “simply one of the best multi-sports watches,” lauded its battery life, among the best on the market, and wrote, “Looking for a sleek watch that can, well, track pretty much anything? The Garmin Forerunner 935 is one of the best out there in terms of not only the sports it can track, but how it tracks them. There’s a barometric altimeter, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer and thermometer in there.” Another top tech site, Lifewire, also picked the 935 as the very best sports watch on the market and also loved its incredible battery life (over two weeks), and said, “If you want all the best activity tracking capabilities paired with plenty of smart features and GPS, then the Garmin Forerunner 935 is hard to beat. As a fitness tracker, the Forerunner 935 is our top pick, but do keep in mind that it lacks onboard music storage.”
That one fault has been erased for the new 945, which takes all the litany of features and tracking and GPS and adds music, along with more smartwatch functions like digital payments. According to a glowing review on Warebale, the new Forerunner 945 “keeps all the same sports tracking profiles, but is adding dedicated tracking for the likes of skiing, hiking and golf. There’s support for Garmin’s Coach training programs, which now adds plans for 10k and half marathon races.” Other upgrades include full-color maps, a Pulse Ox sensor to measure oxygen saturation, which can be used in conjunction with elevation features, and a 1,000-song music player. It is of course waterproof, and the optional dynamic pod attaches to the band and analyzes Dad’s running stride. Paired with a smartphone you can send and receive texts through the watch ($600).
Fitbit Charge 3: Maybe Dad needs a fitness tracker but isn’t quite to the point of using GPS maps and tracking his split times and oxygen saturation? If you want something more basic, the top ranked pick on the fitness tracker market today is the acclaimed ad beloved Fitbit Charge 3. It was number one for DigitalTrends, “The best fitness tracker for most people is the Fitbit Charge 3. It’s lightweight, boasts long battery life, and offers smartphone notifications as well as fitness tracking. It’s also very affordable”; Techradar, “the best tracker”; and ultra-critical Wirecutter, “we are confident that the easy-to-use and long-lasting Fitbit Charge 3 is the best activity monitor to help people achieve their health goals.” I’ve personally used a Fitbit for years, and everything I like about it is better in the Charge 3: it is slim and simple, totally waterproof, easy to use and set up, and is very accurate for the big three basics of fitness bands, step tracking, sleep tracking and measuring heart rate. It intuitively differentiates your activities, be it running, hiking, or even using the elliptical at the gym. It has a big all touchscreen display for its small size, offers more than fifteen exercise modes like run, bike, swim, yoga, and circuit training, can set and track goals, works with the excellent Ftbit app, and you can pair with a smartphone for texts and alerts end even GPS, and it has a full week of battery life. You simply will not find a better option for the price, under $150. Lots of optional bands are available in different colors and styles.
Real Camera: Increasingly travelers are using the fast-improving lenses in their phones to capture pictures of their trips, but there are lots of times when you still need a real camera. This is especially true when you need to get close up or zoom from a long way out, such as on safari where there is no substitute for huge lens, on the water, viewing space and the sky, at sporting events or concerts, or in many other cases of natural settings, or anything done from a distance. The traditional way to deal with this is to get a full blown DSLR camera body and a very expensive, very heavy/bulky and very long lens. The easier way to solve this is with a “superzoom,” the category of fully-featured but easy to use point and shoot digital cameras with extended optical and digital zoom.
But there has never been a model with so much oomph as the Nikon Coolpix P1000, with an unprecedented 3000mm lens - yes that’s thousands not hundreds (including 125x digital zoom). This is a camera that feels like a telescope - you can see the rings of Saturn through this lens. This thing has all the bells and whistles, such as a rotating flexible viewfinder that lest you shoot from any angle while seeing a crystal clear display, full production video ready4K Ultra-HD video with stereo audio, and rock solid stabilization to handle the zoom. It offers RAW, has time lapse function for shooting the night sky, fast f2.8 and ISO 6400, subject tracking, Wi-Fi, smartphone compatibility, dynamic fine zoom, macro modes, and all sorts of specialty scene selector modes. This is not a compact, it’s a full-size bulky camera, but it’s about getting great shots, not slipping in your pocket. I’ve been using an array of cameras for years on safari and other assignments and I’ve never seen a single do-it-all camera like this ($860).
