I love traveling! And although I may not be able to do much of it during this pandemic, that doesn’t stop me from daydreaming about it or planning my next vacation in my head. My travel bucket list is brimming to the top with exotic holiday destinations. And, as any experienced traveler (not that I am one…YET) will tell you, having a set of handy and trusty travel accessories is essential! These are the nifty little gadgets and products that can help you out in the most impromptu and sudden of situations, and you’ll never regret having packed them in your suitcase. So, we’ve curated a bunch of travel accessories that we think you will absolutely need in your travel kit when you’re jet setting across the globe next! They’re sure to make your next vacation much more comfortable and easier.

Designed as a pair of pretty massive earmuffs that also double up as a neck-support, the Sleepmuffs can be worn in bed or while seated, making them perfect at home or while traveling. Made with high-quality foam (among other materials), the Sleepmuffs aren’t just comfortable to wear, they do a pretty remarkable job of blocking sound too. With as much as -33 decibel attenuation, the Sleepmuffs are arguably better than a pair of earplugs, or even your passive noise-canceling headphones. The foam helps conceal you in a bubble of quiet, allowing you to easily sleep in most noisy conditions – whether you’ve got a flatmate who decides to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 3am, or whether you’re on a plane or bus right next to a two-year-old.

The TIC Travel Bottle comes from a realization that those miniature shampoo and conditioner bottles you pick up at hotels are never safe in your suitcase. A little manhandling by airport staff and the bottles open up inside your bag, potentially ruining your clothes and your belongings. The TIC Travel Bottle holds all those liquids inside separate containers that sit inside the bottle’s hard outer shell. Designed to be much more than an organizer, the TIC actually lets you easily access your toiletries too, with a pump mechanism that is as easy as pressing a lever to dispense your shampoo, conditioner, or body-wash. Perfect for using in the bath when your hands are wet and you can’t really see well enough to fiddle with bottle caps, TIC lets you access everything in one solid avatar.

There’s a rustic charm to Luft’s travel-friendly version of chess, which involves not precisely carved wooden, ivory, or plastic pieces, but small rocks with position-specific headgear on them! Drawing back to chess’s roots (in the Indian subcontinent), Luft explores playing chess with rudimentary objects rather than with fine, finished models. The board is a flexible leather mat, while the chess pieces are, in fact, tiny pebbles that you collect from around you while you’re outdoors. Just put the silicone bands around the pebbles and you’re ready to play crude, creative chess!

In every way, the Voyager is what the Google Glass project should have aimed at becoming. Designed to enhance the tourism experience by augmenting it with everything the internet has to offer, and to make you self-sufficient in a foreign city so you don’t have to awkwardly ask people for directions, the Voyager is a goggle-shaped mixed-reality headset that lets you explore new cities like never before. The Voyager connects to your phone, bringing elements of smartphone functionality to the mixed-reality space. This means you can navigate cities by seeing directions projected on the road ahead of you, can click pictures and capture videos of everything you see through the glasses, and can interface with real-world objects and buildings like your hotel, restaurants, tourist spots, and heritage monuments.

The Travel Decanter was built for two things. Travel, and taste-preservation. A specially-crafted hand-blown decanter holds 500ml of whatever you pour into it, be it a special spirit, or a cocktail of choice. Unlike metal or polymer-based containers, the glass decanter doesn’t alter the taste of the drink within. The result is a truly well-preserved libation that doesn’t have any plastic-y taste or metallic notes. A wide neck on the decanter allows you to easily pour drinks into it, and even add a few ice-cubes of your own, while a stainless steel stopper with a silicone seal ensures your liquids are preserved in a spill-proof, air-tight environment. The decanter then slides into a double-walled stainless steel outer casing that keeps your drink chilled as well as protected from accidental bumps and spills courtesy the butter-fingers that handle our luggage at the airport.

Edge is a compact 2-in-1 appliance that gives you more than your toiletries. It consists of three parts: ‘Multi Handle’, ‘Edge Hairdryer Module’, ‘Edge Iron Module’. ‘Multi Handle’ has a button to control the product for using and both modules work with ‘Multi Handle’. Specifically made for those who have meetings on-the-go, the hairdryer and iron help to wash away the weariness of travel and smoothen the wrinkles so you look fresh (or should I say profesh?). “We have adopted a slide structure for intuitive and easy combination of each module. This not only allows the user to easily combine the modules but also reduces the risk of the module being easily detached while using the product” says the team.

Designed like a backpack but with the spirit of a briefcase, the Flypack is a travel-carry with a touch of professionalism. Built with a custom-engineered fabric exterior that lends a firmness to the backpack, the Flypack isn’t a flimsy laptop bag that you stuff your clothes into. It comes with a luggage compartment that was designed to resemble the way you’d store luggage in a suitcase. Within the luggage compartment also lies a series of toiletry and accessory pouches to make travel easier. Adjacent to the luggage compartment is the storage compartment for all your work essentials. A padded laptop slot, individual pouches for your chargers, peripherals, cables, etc.

How many of us have travel anxiety? It could be restless tapping of your feet while waiting at the boarding gate or in-flight fidgeting with the controls, we have all been there. This cool conceptual tool is not only a travel essential but also a fidget spinner that doesn’t look like it came with a happy meal. While most multipurpose tools are a combination of cutters, this titanium variant brings a lot more functionality than opening up like Wolverine’s claws! I am sure we have all gotten beers or wine from a local shop only to come to our room and find that we don’t have a tool to open either – that’s when Tspin comes to the rescue. Or the time when we remember to buy the international sim card but forget that little pin to open the slot – another worry that is taken care of by Tspin with its dual nano-Sim card-holder and yes, that little pin!

The Genius Pack Supercharged basically builds on Genius Pack’s idea of the ideal bag. You’ve got a hard-shell suitcase made of PolyCarbonate, the same material used in riot gear, so it can quite literally withstand the abuse luggage usually sees at the hands of airline ground staff. The Supercharged also comes with a TSA-Approved combination lock and packs eight 360° spinner wheels, forming its robust outer build. The Supercharged, as its name suggests, also packs an integrated, removable 10,000 mAhpower bank. It also features perhaps the greatest innovation of all time… An embedded checklist with all possible products listed on it, so you remember what to pack.

This little device, Langogo, aims to be the ideal solution to this problem, as it houses the ability to translate 60 languages in less than one second, and allow the traveling experience to be even more enjoyable! Packed within its compact exterior is an AI Assistant that learns the way the user speaks; this is with the aim of ensuring that the translations are as natural and as accurate as they can be. Not only is Langogo a pocket translator, but it also features a second, arguably equally as important feature… Wi-Fi!

Air Cage was created to ensure your pet’s safety and ease your mind when you’re traveling with them. The concept was designed to be a rent-as-you-go service but it can also be opened to buying. You get your carrier in advance so your pet can familiarize themselves with it and have lesser anxiety during the flight. On the day of departure, your pet will be comfortable in the Air Cage which you can then handover to the attendants without any worry because you will be able to monitor your pet throughout the journey thanks to an in-built device. Apart from the real-time camera monitor, the carrier has many features to keep your pet comfortable – a water bottle, a pet bowl, and a bowel pad too!

The Cliffset tackles both these issues with equal importance. Designed to be a reusable travel cutlery set with a difference, the Cliffset doesn’t just focus on portability, it focuses on maintenance too, by being perhaps the only cutlery set I’ve seen that comes with its own cleaning tool to clean up after you’re done eating! Everything fits in a portable pouch that’s small enough to fit in your pocket or slip into a backpack, and is designed to be carried everywhere you go and be cleaned and reused over and over again, giving you the comfort of knowing that you’re using your OWN cutlery (as opposed to using cutlery in restaurants) made from reusable materials, which you don’t need me to tell you is a much better option compared to the use-and-throw plastic cutlery that pollutes our planet and oceans.

Air Deck 2.0 is a deck of of travel-optimized playing cards, and is the successor to the wildly successful Original Air Deck… and it brings with it some improvements! These changes center around the three new eye-catching designs, which consist of Classic, Warp Speed and Astronauts themed designs. Despite their compact dimensions, these cards are easy to work with; they each feature a slightly textured finish for better handling and a more enjoyable playing experience! Like the original Air Deck they are waterproof, making them resistant to spills and allowing them to be washed… however, they have now been designed to be even more resistant to wear and tear… perfect!