The Creative Business Traveller’s Toolkit

By Diana Scully

Last year, I shared with you my tips for relocating yourself (and your creative business) overseas, based on my recent experience doing just that from Melbourne to Los Angeles, taking my interior design business with me.

To be honest, setting up a new home and establishing a new work lifestyle has not been as glamorous as I had initially imagined. Let me be clear, spending time in LA and the US generally has been incredible, exciting and a total adventure, but when your business is set up in Australia, a relocation to a new city brought along some new challenges.

But I've worked hard and want to share with you today my 'business traveller’s toolkit': a repertoire of essential services I needed to stay connected to my lifeline back at home AND remain flexible in the US. I hope these tools will offer the support you require to travel with simplicity, enjoyment and greater peace of mind - for short or long periods of time.

Your essential gear.

These items may appear obvious, but if you aren’t accompanied with the right tools to travel, stay organised and be more flexible, it’s going to be a long unproductive day - every day - on the road. Seriously.

1 / A light-weight, reliable laptop. The market has so many good options so its up to you to choose the right one for you. If international travel is on your agenda, consider an Apple product as their warranty covers you worldwide. Last year, when my computer completely shut down one morning (who knows why!), I was able to visit my local Apple store in Santa Monica and receive assistance on the spot. The issue was rectified immediately (including my streaming tears) and didn’t cost me a dime.

2 / Another obvious one, but a reliable mobile phone that allows for international data roaming and sufficient storage for all the apps you’ll need (see below). Make sure you activate international roaming before your departure to avoid having to sort this out when you arrive in your new location.

3 / A hard disk drive to back up everything! I set up reminder on my laptop to back up my work on a weekly basis. It has been a lifesaver, especially when my laptop shut down completely that one day. Also, a hard drive is a good place to store your ever growing travel photo collection (rather using up valuable storage space on your laptop). You’ll need as a minimum 1 TB of storage.

4 / A good pair of headphones with premium noise reduction feature is a must. For the many occasions I found myself working in public places like cafes, co-work spaces and libraries I needed my headphones to block out any distractions. My headphones also came in handy listening to music and podcasts in long lines, on road trips and in airport lounges.

5 / The final piece is the ultimate bag. Depending on your style, make sure its comfortable to wear for long periods of time and large enough to factor in cords, adaptors, drink bottle and lunch! For me, this was a back pack with padding for extra support.

Your essential online services.

Now to the good stuff. Here’s the essential digital services I found most useful while away from home. You may already be using some of these, but hopefully you’ll discover a few good new ones to add to your own toolkit if travel is on your agenda this year.

1 / Skype - No explanation needed here. This was my direct line back home either for telephone or video calls. A great option for my clients who called to show me the progress of their home.

2 / WiFi Finder App - Prior to my departure to the US, I never envisaged having difficultly finding WiFi in the US, particularly LA and NYC. However, proven wrong in the first week, access to free WiFi was not as readily available as I had hoped (plus I didn’t find the interiors or the coffee at Starbucks the must conducive to a good day’s work!). Luckily this app helped me locate both free and paid WiFi services on the go.

3 / Dropbox - A place to save and store all your work using their cloud storage system. Firstly, if you ever need more storage, you can simply buy it online (without having to buy another portable hard disc drive). Also, you can create public links to your files to share with clients and travel photos to share with family. The collaborative nature of this service is a winner.

4 / Xero - This is a brilliant service to manage all your accounting and business finance needs online and via a mobile app. When I incur any business expenses as I traval, I simply take a photo using my phone and upload it immediately into my Xero account. Goodbye paper trail! Also, my accountant is able to log into my online account and manage any issues from her own office. This real time aspect allowed for issues to be dealt with in a timely manner and avoid unnecessary phone calls at unusual times of the day. While its not a free service, the various fee options available are very reasonable and certainly a worthwhile investment.

5 / Desk Time App - There have been some times when I can’t fathom working another day in another cafe all alone. So I loved to search for co-work spaces nearby using the Desk Time app. If your budget allows it, a co-work space is a great opportunity not only to give you access to reliable internet and amenities that you’ll need for a great day’s work, but an opportunity to also interact, network and meet new people. While in Santa Monica, I had the opportunity to work at Google’s old headquarters (which is now called ROC). Whilst here, I met some wonderful people, including future clients and one of the celebrities from the US TV series, The Bachelor! I also heard that Jessica Alba had her own private office here, however, I unfortunately never ran into her.

6 / Hoot Suite App - A popular online service to plan and prepare all your social media platforms in advance. While I’m the type of person who likes to prepare social media posts only a day or two ahead, when my husband and I decided to take a road trip along Route 66 for two weeks, I knew that access to WiFi was going to be limited, especially in the desert!

7 / Trello - If you love lists and tools for keeping organised, then you’ll love Trello. This online service allows you to organise projects into boards and even access those boards via a mobile app (which I found perfect when I wanted to snap a photo of a cool armchair and upload it immediately to a client project board). Trello also allows you to invite team members, clients and family to your boards to add comments and upload images.

8 / EventBrite - Prior to leaving for the US, I jumped onto this site to see what events, seminars and gatherings relating to design were on in LA. Fortunately for me, at the time, one of my favourite design bloggers was holding a seminar at her studio on social media and blogging - So I grabbed a ticket and a month later, I was in her studio in LA talking with her! So exciting! A great platform available in many countries around the world to connect you with events in a new city.

While this list of services is not exhaustive (I am yet to find the ultimate app that locates for you the best coffee in the US), they’ve all been super helpful in keeping me connected, organised and productive with work commitments and my nomadic lifestyle. With just about everything now being available online, it meant I could travel more lightly and freely, which is the ideal way to travel (trust me, I learnt this the hard way).

If you have any other great online services to recommend then please share them with us via Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. I’m back in Melbourne at the moment, but off to the US again this year and this time I'm feeling a little more prepared and ready! I hope that these tools empower you to feel in control and secure with your travel/work adventures too.

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Spaces by Diana is all about designing beautiful, personalised homes that reflect the owners. Principal Designer, Diana Scully, is passionate about creating homes that offer good design without the price tag. Diana also has her own lifestyle blog, Spaces + Places, where she regularly writes about inspiring spaces, places to visit and recent travel adventures. This year she has plans to spend time abroad in the US. Follow Diana on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. 

{Images via Death to the Stock Photo}