iPhone Only on vacation? Why it’s not a good idea to bring your laptop or iPad on vacation.

I just got back from a “honeymoon” with my wife. We took a romantic trip to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary. We try to go on a getaway like this every year and almost always succeed. While we’re gone, my parents take care of our girls, so we can spend some time alone. This time we decided to go to Italy and we didn’t take our laptops. I just took my iPad Pro.

Note: The following article appeared first in the 5/2016 issue of iMagazine - the leading lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts in Poland. I’m a regular contributor and write my monthly productivity column there.

Why did I bring along my iPad Pro?

Good question. I took it because I had to write an article; because I always travel with my iPad; because I’m “iPad Only” and in case I needed to do some work, I could do it on my iPad; because if there aren’t any interesting movies at the hotel, I can watch something on Netflix on my iPad; because it’s much easier to book a hotel or read a tour guide on iPad’s bigger screen…

There are many reasons to travel with your iPad.

Really?

We stayed in Italy for 10 days. I hardly used my iPad. Yet, I had to take it everywhere with me. And what’s the point of carrying it if my iPhone Plus is more than enough?

Here are all the reasons why the iPhone Plus is great. Because it’s essentially an iPad Nano.

• Booking a hotel? I fired up Booking.com on my iPhone.
• Reading about Rome? I opened a guide on Kindle or read some articles on Wikipedia, and since I had my iPhone with me, I used it.
• Renting a car? Most companies have websites adapted to mobile phones, so it was not a problem.
• Playing some music? My entire music collection is on my iPhone, not on my iPad.
• Finding a place? Both Google Maps and Apple Maps are a lot easier to use on the iPhone.
• Running around the Vatican or Colosseum? I run with my iPhone and Runkeeper app anyway.
• Offline navigation in the car? The Navigon app was ready for action with all maps of Italy… on my phone.
• Displaying my boarding pass while boarding the plane? I added it to Wallet on my phone and showed it on my Apple Watch :-)

So, why do I need the iPad? Maybe for work at least?

• Correcting an article? I opened it from Dropbox in 1Writer on my iPhone, I corrected it and saved it… voilà!
• Checking something in my notes? Evernote runs great on the iPhone, so I was able to find everything I needed.
• Recording a new episode of my podcast? I plugged my Rode microphone directly into my iPhone.
• Receiving a task in Nozbe that I needed to take a quick look at? Well, our app works great on iPhone Plus – even (or perhaps especially!) in horizontal mode.

Ok… but how do I watch movies on the iPhone?

Well, most hotel rooms have modern LCD TV’s with HDMI ports. I always take a whole bunch of cables with me, including an HDMI and HDMI-Lightning adapter. Thanks to these cables I connect my iPhone to the TV and play movies from iTunes or Netflix directly on the TV’s big screen.

It’s a lot better than watching movies on the iPad’s relatively small screen (12” vs 42”).

When I’m on vacation I prefer to use my phone…

I think that the very fact that I’m on vacation discourages me from using the iPad because it reminds me too much of work. During my leisure time I prefer to use my phone which is always at hand.

As I’ve already mentioned, iPhone Plus is hardly a phone at all – it’ more like a mini-iPad, so it’s ideal for trips.

What’s more, there are many travel management apps and almost all of them are perfectly adjusted to the iPhone’s smaller screen.

I’m not even going to mention the look on people’s faces when I’m using my Apple Watch as a boarding pass. But that’s a bonus, exceeding the scope of this article :-)

Next time I won’t bring along my iPad, I’ll leave it at home. Instead I’ll take my iPhone Plus and cable set.

Question: What devices do you bring on vacation?