Road trips: what’s in my Verizon bag

I had a series of road trips earlier this year and now that fall is here (festivals, college football, weddings), I’m ready to hit the road again. I wanted to share some products I recently tried out courtesy of the folks at Verizon.

Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation Duo

This little 2-inch by 4-inch device went in my bag nearly every time I left the vehicle, especially at events like Bonnaroo where I was taking lots of photos and video and my iPhone battery was quick to drain.

What I like most about it: you can charge two devices simultaneously, it has a special high-output battery that allows for ultra fast charging and it had 4 LED charge status indicators to let me know how much juice was left.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 4

On my 10-day trip to Tennessee, I was attending a music festival and researching a destination for a magazine article. I didn’t want to take my laptop but I wanted to have something with more screen space than my iPhone 5s. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 was a great alternative: more convenient to tote around and allowed me to check and write emails comfortably. It was lightweight, the screen was beautifully sharp and the battery lasted forever. The tablet also came to the rescue more than once when we needed to use it as a mobile hotspot.

Delphi Connect with 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot

Maybe I’m a little too giddy about this but I don’t usually travel with a hotspot. I was pretty amped about having Wi-Fi connectivity for the duration of the driving portion of our trips. It worked great as a hotspot but I was never able to try out its full functionality. The first vehicle we drove was not compatible with the features that turn the Delphi Connect into a voice for your vehicle – letting you know more about its diagnostics, location and past trips. I love the idea of using this device to find your car in a big parking area (uh, how about a festival with about 80,000 people) and tracking your driving statistics. We thought we’d try it out with our second vehicle on another road trip, but unfortunately that vehicle had an OBD port that would not accept the device without an extension cable. I didn’t realize this in time to order one.

For any of you who followed along on our #Schummer14 30-day road trip that covered 4,500 miles – trust me when I tell you these devices would have come in handy. Even for the weekend road trip, you’ll want to consider a few of these.

Disclaimer: Verizon provided loaners of each product for purposes of this review. Views of the products are my own. You can find more reviews of Verizon products and accessories on Instagram and Twitter by following the hashtag #vzreview.