Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes, 37s.
In the reader survey I put out a little while back, a few of you asked about my “everyday carry”—what I carry around with me when I'm on the go. So here you go!
First, there's the bag itself. I've tried a lot of different bags over the years—from cheap messenger bags to fancy bags from Waterfield Designs. In this experimentation, there's one bag that I keep coming back to: the Lululemon backpack. I've had two different Lululemon bags and have loved them both. The company doesn't make the one I currently have—the Lululemon Everyday Backpack 2.0 23L—and that's a shame. (Out of what they currently make, this bag seems the closest.) I love my Lululemon bag for simple reasons: the bag is super light, holds a lot more than you would think, has a great strap for attaching it to a suitcase, and for whatever reason, whatever happens to be inside the bag feels lighter inside of this backpack than in anything else. There's some serious magical stuff going on with this thing. Seriously. I hope their current backpacks come close to this one, but I have a lot of faith in recommending them.
I keep a water bottle in one side pocket of the bag—a blue 22oz Takeya, which is the best water bottle I've found. It fits the side pocket of a backpack.
On the other side of the bag, I keep my fancy Davek Solo umbrella. Before you click the link to see the price of this thing, hear me out. I love “buy it for life” products—things I only have to ever buy once. Most umbrellas suck. They're disposable. They can't stand up to wind, and their build quality is usually questionable. They're basically a subscription service. Then there's the Davek umbrella. It comes with a lifetime warranty, is essentially windproof (I have fought intense winds with this thing), and fits nicely inside the water bottle holder in your backpack. This is the best medium-sized umbrella that money can buy. You don't even need to do any research. This is the one. There you go. I found it for you. You're welcome.
My over-ear headphones are the Sonos Ace. Here's a hot take for you: AirPods Max suck. Maybe my ears are sweaty and gross, but every pair of AirPods Max I have owned has suffered from the same condensation issue. I also find them heavy and uncomfortable (though their transparency mode is excellent for calls). Recently, I switched to the Sonos Ace headphones and have not looked back. These pair seamlessly with the Sonos Arc soundbar in our living room—I can press one button to hear TV audio through the headphones and not bother anyone else in the house if I'm watching something late at night. I like these better than the AirPods Max. Don't pay full price for these headphones if you decide to buy them; you can almost always find them on sale.
I also carry my favorite pair of earbuds: the AirPods Pro. These little things are a wonder. If you're in the Apple ecosystem, these switch effortlessly between all of the devices you own. And they sound incredible—including in their transparency mode. The new hearing test features are pretty neat—they're even certified as a clinical-grade hearing aid. Live translation features are also rumored, which will be great for traveling internationally. I love these things. A couple of my friends who have an Android phone use them and say great things as well.
I also always carry some analog reading material. Most of my work is digital, so I try to do stuff in the analog world as much as possible. Usually, this means carrying some academic papers that I'm curious about, as well as a book.
Then there's my phone. Phone upgrades are boring now, so for the last two years, I haven't found any compelling reasons to upgrade my iPhone to the latest and greatest. Hence, I'm still rocking my two-year-old iPhone 14 Pro—without a case, which is, in my opinion, the only way to use a phone. (Come at me, haters.)
Finally, my current daily driver laptop is the 14-inch MacBook Pro, along with a bag that holds all my cables (this is the one I currently use and like, though there are many similar bags out there). If I were in the market for a new computer today, I'd easily rebuy this thing—or a new MacBook Air if I didn't need so much power (most people don't, though I like how buying additional power better future-proofs the laptop). I love the MacBook Pro because the screen is stunning, the processor is blazing-fast, and the battery life is incredible. I bought this computer when it first came out in 2021, and it's still going strong. After replacing its battery, I hope to get a few more years out of it. I wouldn't travel anywhere without it. Or the rest of this stuff, for that matter.
