The Best Gear and Accessories for Travel Photography

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If ever there was a hobby and profession where it was easy to get carried away buying gadgets and gear, photography fits the bill. When it comes to travel photography, there are no shortage of “must-have” items…but which ones can you truly not leave home without? In this guide we’ll go over 13 of the best travel photography accessories that are truly useful and will come in handy in any travel photographer’s kit. Because we believe in saving money, we’ll always try to recommend things that balance cost with quality.

Travel Photography Accessory #1: A Good Camera Bag

Camera bags come in countless varieties, colors, materials, and with a nearly endless array of options. There’s a good reason for all this dizzying choice — a camera bag is your camera’s home, at least when it’s not being used, and a good camera deserves a good home.

A good camera bag for travel photography should have padded compartments to keep your photo equipment from bouncing around. The layout of these compartments (and how you pack it) matters too: a camera bag should evenly distribute your gear’s weight to reduce the strain of carrying it all day. When choosing a camera bag, you should realistically evaluate how much gear and accessories you have, so that you can pick an appropriately sized bag. For smaller camera systems, you might consider belt bags or camera holsters. If you’ve got more gear, you’ll want to decide between a backpack, sling bag, or messenger bag. If you’re the sort of travel photographer who walks for 5-10 miles a day, exploring in search of the best shots, a backpack is one of the best options for comfort, followed by a sling bag.

For other travel photographers like me who travel in a very minimalist style with as little extra gear as possible, any old backpack with comfy straps and preferably a waist belt can be matched up with a camera insert like the G-raphy Camera Insert, Tenba BYOB 10 Camera Insert, or Ape Case Cubeze 33. If you need to bring along a big pile of camera gear, you’ll likely find that a backpack or shoulder bag or your best options. For city exploration, shoulder/messenger bags are great choices, but if you’re going to be wandering around on uneven terrain, you’ll get more comfort from the even weight distribution of a backpack or the comfort and convenience of a slingbag. Camera backpacks like the Lowepro Photo Sport 200 AW II are a solid option for travel shooters with a bit more gear to tote around: the big, padded waist belt is a great bonus that helps take the strain off your back and shoulders and distributes a lot of the loaded bag’s weight to your hip/waist.

Travel Photography Accessory #2: Lightweight Travel Tripod

Good cameras deserve good tripods. Even though great travel photos can be taken with the camera hand-held, tripods are incredibly useful. A tripod reduces vibration and camera shake, ensuring sharp details in your photos. Besides the obvious benefits, a tripod also encourages you to compose your photographs more slowly and deliberately; with your camera mounted on a tripod, you can’t just aim it in every direction as easily, and you’ll need to carefully frame each image. Good travel photography is all about composition and storytelling, and sometimes being forced to compose a bit more carefully can make a world of difference.

In general, you’ll have 3 materials to choose from: plastic, aluminum, and carbon fiber. Plastic is very inexpensive, but is prone to vibrations and isn’t very durable. Steer clear of the super-cheap plastic tripods and save up just a bit more money for an aluminum or carbon fiber model – carbon fiber offers the lightest weight and best vibration dampening, while aluminum construction is often the best budget choice, offering affordability while still remaining quite lightweight and stable. Tripods can be bought legs-only, meaning you’ll need to buy the head separately or use one you’ve already got, or in a kit, containing the legs and a head. (A tripod head is the part that attaches the camera to the tripod legs: they come in a few different styles, offering different methods of adjust the camera angle and orientation)

In a travel tripod, you’ve got a few things to consider: 

• The weight of the tripod. A tripod that feels nearly as light as a feather mysteriously seems to get heavier as the day wears on. For active travel photographers, every ounce adds up.
• The folded length of the tripod. The smaller a tripod can pack up, the easier it is to fit in carry on baggage and in a camera bag.
• The extended height of the tripod. A good rule of thumb when choosing a tripod is to look for one that will allow you to easily position your camera at eye level. While some travel tripods boast incredibly light weights and tiny folded lengths, if it only reaches waist heigh when set up, it won’t offer as much flexibility when you’re composing photos.

Tripods are a lot like cameras – there isn’t one that’s best for every photographer, so you’ll need to do your research before buying to find the one that suits your needs best.

If you’re after one of the top of the line travel tripods and budget is not a limiting factor, the following three carbon fiber tripods are manufactured by some of the top brands and offer impressive specs:

• Gitzo GT1545T Series 1 Traveler Carbon Fiber Tripod with Center Ball Head
• Feisol CT-3441S Travel Rapid Carbon Fiber Tripod with CB-40D Ball Head 
• Really Right Stuff TFC-14 Series 1 Mk2 Carbon Fiber Tripod

If you’re on more of a budget, here are a few highly rated tripods that come in at under $200:

• MeFOTO Classic Aluminum Globetrotter Travel Tripod/Monopod Kit
• Vanguard Alta Pro 263AB 100 Aluminum Tripod with SBH-100 Ball Head
• Oben CT-3535 Folding Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod with BE-208T Ball Head
• Benro SLIM Aluminum Lightweight Travel Tripod Kit
• Slik PRO 340 DX Travel Tripod with 3-Way Pan Head

Travel Photography Accessory #3: Comfortable Camera Strap

If you’re anything like me, your neck and shoulders really ache after a long day of carrying around a camera using a neck strap. Even a lightweight compact camera that weighs less than one pound can cause plenty of discomfort when worn on an uncomfortable strap. My straps of choice are worn over the shoulder, rather than around the neck. This makes carrying around a heavy DSLR so much less burdensome!

The BlackRapid Breathe Sport Camera Strap is worn over the shoulder, with an underarm support that offers even more stability and security while shooting. This kind of over the shoulder padded camera strap is much more comfortable for most travel photographers to use than the traditional around-the-neck camera straps that usually ship with most cameras.

Travel Photography Accessory #4: Extra Batteries

There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of photographing something amazing, only to run out of battery. If you travel with just one camera battery, this situation is bound to happen sooner or later, especially if you also find yourself frequently shooting video as well. I always travel with at least three fully charged spare batteries, plus the one in my camera. Is this overkill? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I’d rather have the extra batteries and not need them, than need them and not have them. Some photographers insist upon using name-brand batteries: Sony batteries for Sony cameras, Nikon batteries for Nikon cameras. Personally, I’ve always had great results from aftermarket batteries which are often just a fraction of the cost of the original batteries. Wasabi and STK make very well-regarded batteries for most camera models, and Amazon even carries their own Amazon Basics version of the Canon LP-E8 battery, used by several cameras like the Canon T5i and the Nikon EN-EL5 battery.

It’s important to remember to not only bring your spare batteries along, but to keep them charged too. Lithium camera batteries will discharge slowly over time, so you’ll need to recharge them occasionally even if they aren’t being actively used.

Travel Photography Accessory #5: Extra Memory Cards

In my mind, spare memory cards an an absolute necessity. If you travel with only one memory card – even a high capacity one, it’s way too easy to find yourself in a tricky situation. Memory cards get lost all the time and can fail as well: having backups is just smart. While 512GB is the maximum memory card capacity currently, I recommend using lower capacity cards like 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB cards. They’re cheap and affordable and because they hold fewer photos (but still plenty for most photographer’s needs), you won’t be putting all of your eggs in one basket. There are far too many accounts out there of photographers who get a huge memory card and never bother to back their images up, just shooting and shooting until one day something happens to the memory card, and their photos are gone.

When choosing a memory card, you’ll have several brands and options to choose from. Lexar and SanDisk are the two big name brands, while Transcend offers very good quality at a lower price point and are my value-brand of choice.

When choosing a memory card, you’ll want to pay attention to the card’s speed. Read speed and write speed aren’t the same thing: read speed measures how quickly data can be accessed from the memory card and honestly isn’t a very useful number to know, unless you’re concerned with how quickly you can transfer images from card to computer. Write speed is the number to focus on — this tells us how quickly image data can be written onto the memory card; faster write speeds mean more images can be taken in a row before the camera’s buffer fills. You can learn more in our memory card speed guide.

Travel Photography Accessory #6: Polarizing Filter

Polarizing filters are easily one of my most used travel photography accessories. If it’s day time, there’s a good chance I’ve got one on my lens! What makes them so great? They cut the glare on reflective surfaces like water and glass, eliminating distractions that can take away from great photos. A polarizing filter also adds contrast in the right lighting, creating deep blue skies and bringing out vibrant colors on some semi-reflective surfaces like foliage and skin; they also add a stop or two of light blocking power, allowing you to shoot using a wider aperture or a slower shutter speed in bright sunlight.

It’s pretty easy to forget that you’ve got a polarizing filter on your lens, but when the sun begins to sink towards the horizon, remember to remove your polarizing filter.

Travel Photography Accessory #7: Portable Hard Drive

One of the most common errors most photographers make when traveling is not backing their work up. If a photo exists in only one place, it’s only one accident/theft/failure away from being gone forever. If you value the photos you take while traveling, a portable hard drive is a great way to create a backup. For short trips of just a few weeks or less, my travel photography backup strategy is to bring along a single portable USB hard drive and enough memory cards that I won’t need to format any until I get home. At the end of each day I back the images I’ve taken up to the hard drive and keep them on the memory card as well. This way, I’ve got two copies of every image — if the memory card gets lost or damaged, I’ve got the photo safely stored on the hard drive. If the hard drive gets lost or damaged, I’ve still got the memory card.

For longer trips of several weeks or even months, when bringing along enough memory cards to avoid reformatting them becomes less practical,  I bring along two portable hard drives and back everything up to both of them, creating a redundant backup. Storing the two drives separately reduces the likelihood of them both being lost, stolen, or damaged at the same time. My current drive of choice is the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive. I’ve used these drives for photo backups for more than one year of continuous travel without issues, but always recommend a multi-tiered photo backup strategy to avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket.

Travel Photography Accessory #8: USB Battery Charger

Whether you shoot with a DSLR, mirrorless camera, or compact, a USB camera battery charger makes keeping your camera batteries charged while traveling easy. Most larger cameras come with a charger that plugs into the wall outlet, but these are generally bulky and, if you’re traveling to another country with different electrical outlets and current, you may need an outlet adapter and current converter. With USB, your charging options are much greater while traveling – many airports offer free USB charging outlets throughout the terminals and you can always plug it into your laptop or power bank. Many USB battery chargers even offer the ability to charge two batteries at once – the perfect solution if you take my advice to travel with multiple spare batteries.

Travel Photography Accessory #9: Portable Power Bank

One of my favorite travel photography accessories is a portable power bank – these compact devices house high capacity lithium batteries, with USB ports to easily charge your electronics on the go. There are even more power banks to choose from than cameras, making the decision making process pretty difficult.

With dozens of brands and a huge range of capacities and features, picking one is tricky: I like power banks in the range of 20,000 mAh because the capacity is high enough that it will last all day while charging multiple devices, but not so high that I’ll have problems bringing it aboard airplanes — airlines restrict usage of power banks to those 100 Wh or less, equivalent to about 27,000mAh. Personally, to avoid any issues internationally, it’s a good idea use power banks under 25,000 mAh. Here are three of my top picks for portable power banks that offer a high capacity with more than one USB charging port:

• Anker PowerCore II 20000 (20100mAh)
• RAVPower 22000mAh
• POWERADD Pilot X7 20000mAh Power Bank

Aviation safety regulations state that lithium batteries can never be placed in your checked baggage, so be sure to always carry your portable battery packs in your carry-on luggage. Most of the time airport security won’t make you remove your power banks from your bag, but in some countries they do: to make things easy, keep it in an easily accessible place where it can be quickly taken out if needed.

Travel Photography Accessory #10: Rain Cover

When I’m traveling to a rainy or snowy climate, I always bring along a rain cover. Umbrellas are handy, but it can be pretty tough to operate a camera and hold an umbrella at the same time…and rain has this pesky habit of falling on an angle too, coming in under an umbrella. The Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover is an affordable option that provides good access to the camera controls while keeping everything nice and dry.

Whether you’re traveling to wet and rainy climates like Central America and Southeast Asia, or snowy environments like northern Europe and much of North America during the winter, a rain cover is a great travel accessory to have, and they fold down to a small size when not in use, making it easy to carry around without taking up much room in your bag of camera gear. I’ve used mine around the globe, from the rainy jungles of Costa Rica to the snowy, ice covered landscapes of Arctic Canada and it’s helped protect my camera from getting wet in the elements, allowing me to keep shooting even when the conditions deteriorate.

Travel Photography Accessory #11: Sensor Cleaning Blower

If you’re shooting with a DSLR or mirrorless camera system, it can be pretty easy for your camera sensor to get dusty. Blowing on it with your mouth is a great way to get spit all over your expensive investment, but luckily a much more effective method for cleaning the sensor exists: sensor cleaning blowers like the Giottos Rocket Blaster Dust-Removal Tool. A few quick squeezes on the rocket bulb and you can gently convince any stray dust that’s settled on your sensor to vacate the premises.

Travel Photography Accessory #12: Lens Pen

I’ll admit it…I’ve got a dirty secret: sometime I clean my camera lens with my t-shirt. T-shirts are great, but they’re not really designed for keeping camera lenses smudge free. Dust, smudges, water drops, fingerprints…all these things help decrease image quality. A better option than a t-shirt is a lens cleaning pen – this set by LensPen comes with three cleaning pens, the miniPRO II, FilterKlear and LensPen, great for keeping your lens and filters perfectly clear.

Travel Photography Accessory #13: Electrical Tape

This one’s a bit nerdy, but I sure do love electrical tape. It’s cheap and versatile and has come in handy more times than I can count, and I never leave for a trip without a little roll of it in my bag. I’ve used it to wrap electrical wires on charging cords, cover light leaks on filter adapters and lens hoods, wrap around metal tripod legs in freezing temperatures to make them easier to grab, and so many more things. Sometimes you just need a bit of tape, and I find that electrical tape gets the job done and is easy to remove if needed. I’m also a fan of blacking out brand logos on my camera gear while traveling, and this black tape works perfectly for that too. It’s cheap and can be picked up at virtually any hardware store, on Amazon, and even at many discount chains like Dollar Tree.

Many photographers swear by gaffer tape as well – a little bit pricier but without a sticky residue. Gaffer tape is great for quick fixes of rips and tears and is waterproof. Broken lens hood? Slap some gaffer tape on it and you’ll be ready to go. For me, electrical tape definitely gets the job done when I’m traveling, but experiment with both and see what you like better.

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