As we come to the end of our amazing year, I wanted to take note of the various bits of technology that have helped make this trip easier. They’re in no particular order or grouping.
Leica Q
I’ve shot 80,124 photos on this camera since we left Sydney and have enjoyed taking every single one. There’s not much more I can say.
DJI Mavic Pro 2
I’ve been shooting with drones since 2015 and with the Mavic Pro 2 I finally have a platform that I can take anywhere and get amazing shots. My memories of the Tuscan countryside will always be informed by what I saw with the Mavic. I only wish they were waterproof.
Adobe Lightroom
I’ve spent 63 hours in Lightroom this year, so I think I’m pretty qualified to say how good it has become. It manages to work (mostly) across desktop and mobile and still be relatively enjoyable to use.
Waze & Google Maps
It’s hard to imagine what it would have been like to try to navigate around Tuscany before GPS and mapping apps. Tuscany is crisscrossed with so many roads that I use GPS almost every time I get in the car. Waze tends to give better routing but Google has a better chance at finding obscure landmarks or addresses.
I also use Google Maps to save locations I want to go (or return) to.
Google Timeline is also great as a journal of where we’ve been (although it’s a privacy nightmare).
Google Translate
This goes without saying. It’s basically the reason we didn’t take Italian lessons. I write out what I want to say most of the time and use the camera mode for menus and signs. Mandi has had some funny moments trying to use its Italian voice to book haircuts over the phone (people generally hang up after about 30 seconds).
Amazon Prime
Living in a small town can make it hard to find certain products. Amazon is generally great, although the postal service lets it down. We’ve started sending our orders to a locker instead of relying on Poste Italia (where the chance of us getting a parcel when we’re meant to hovers at about 50%).
TransferWise
This lets us do all our bank transfers and card payments with minimal fees (1/3 of what a regular credit card or bank transfer would have cost). You can also create virtual accounts in any currency. Plus, the colour of the card gives us a 50% chance of striking up a conversation with anyone who sees it.
Physical Backup Drives
Internet connectivity is pretty unreliable in Italy so I can’t rely on cloud backup. I duplicate all of my photos onto two physical drives to avoid data loss. It lets me sleep at night.
Netflix
The only downside is that the content selection is different to Australia. The kids were not impressed when they realised they’d have to wait a year to watch The Next Step.
Plex
All Australian content is blocked in Italy (don’t tell me about VPN’s - I’ve tried. For anything local or anything that’s not on Netflix, Plex plus online storage provides a solution.
And the rest…
There’s a bunch of other stuff, from adapters, to cables, to tripods that have made this trip easier and helped us keep in touch with friends and family back home.