My Travel Photography Gear (And Why I Actually Use Every Single Piece)

People ask me what travel photography gear I carry, so here it is, all of it, in one place.

This is not a “best gear of 2026” roundup scraped off three comparison sites. Everything below has been dragged through airports, dropped, rained on, covered in vineyard dust and used on actual shoots. If it made this list, it’s because I reach for it, not because a brand sent it to me.

Fair warning before we start: I am rough on my equipment. I move countries every few months chasing harvest seasons, my bag gets thrown into utes, hostel lockers and the back of vans, and I have a genuine talent for dropping things. So this is less a shopping list and more a survival report.

If you only take three things from this page

I know how these articles go. Seventeen items, your eyes glaze over around number six, you close the tab. So let me save you the scroll.

If you are building a travel photography kit from zero and you want the three pieces that do ninety percent of the work, it’s these:

The body. Sony A6400. Compact, brilliant autofocus, files that hold up in RAW. Around 1000 USD.

The lens that lives on it. Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8. Constant f/2.8 across the whole range for 600 USD, which still feels like a pricing error.

The sky. DJI Mini 3. 249 grams, fits in a jacket pocket, flies almost anywhere without paperwork. 380 USD.

Everything after this is refinement. Useful refinement, and I’d genuinely miss most of it, but that’s the core.

The whole kit at a glance

The camera I actually pick up

Sony Alpha 6400

My main body for a year now.

Honest confession: this is the first interchangeable lens camera I ever bought, and the first time I put real money into one of my passions. I thought about it more than once before pulling the trigger. Scrolled the same product page for weeks, closed the tab, opened it again.

It’s not the newest body on the market and I don’t care. It’s compact, which matters enormously when you’re moving as much as I am. The autofocus is rock solid. The image quality and the grain you get shooting RAW are genuinely exceptional for what this costs.

It’s not full frame. I wasn’t ready to drop thousands of euros on a first camera, and honestly I’m glad I didn’t, because it means I take it everywhere without that constant low-level fear of destroying it. I still worry. Just a lot less than I would with 3000 USD hanging off my shoulder.

The day I feel ready to level up, I probably will. For now I’m having far too much fun with this one. Currently sitting around 1000 USD.

Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8

This is the lens that stays mounted most of the time.

Constant f/2.8 across the whole focal range, at this price, still feels like somebody at Sigma made a spreadsheet error. It’s the one I reach for when I want flexibility without giving up brightness: landscapes, street, events, anything where stopping to swap lenses means missing the shot.

If you’re only buying one lens for this body, buy this one. Only 600 USD.

Sony SEL50F18, 50mm f/1.8

My portrait lens. The one I started with, and I still use it constantly.

At f/1.8 it isolates a subject with ridiculous bokeh, even when the light is nearly gone. It’s tiny, which makes it perfect for travelling and for street photography where you don’t want to look like a production crew.

If you’re just getting into this, start with a 50mm prime. It’s the perfect beginner lens and more versatile than people give it credit for. The one exception is group shots, where you end up backing so far up to fit everyone in frame that it becomes a comedy sketch. That is exactly why I eventually caved and bought a zoom. Around 335 USD.

ND2-400 Variable ND Filter, 49mm

A variable density filter that replaces a whole set of fixed ones, which is the entire reason it’s in my bag instead of four filters I’d have to sort through.

I pair it with the 50mm for long exposures on landscapes, or for any situation where the light keeps shifting on me and I don’t want to rebuild my settings every ten minutes.

Compact Mini Tabletop Tripod

For long exposures, for the self-portraits nobody is around to take, and for steadying a shot when I’m on my own. Which, let’s be honest, is most of the time.

It fits in basically any side pocket, so there’s no real argument for leaving it behind.

iPhone 15, 128GB

My second camera, and the one I mostly use for video.

Always in my pocket, always awake. It gets the stolen moments and the stories, all the situations where pulling out the Sony and waking it up would just take too long and the thing I wanted would be gone.

The drone that changed everything

DJI Mini 3

249 grams. That number is the whole point: it’s the weight that lets you travel with a drone and fly in most places without declaring anything.

The Mini 3 fits in a jacket pocket, takes about two seconds to get airborne, and produces aerials that hold their own against drones released years later. I’ve had it three years, taken it everywhere, and I wouldn’t trade it.

It has also survived several falls it had absolutely no business surviving. I keep waiting for the one that finally kills it. So far, nothing. 380 USD with the screenless remote.

ND Filters for the DJI Mini 3

Non negotiable if you film in full sun and would prefer your footage not to look like a white sheet.

This kit is polarizing too, which cuts reflections off water and gives you those shots that make people ask what time of day you were flying. The answer is usually “the worst possible one”.

SanDisk 64GB Ultra microSDXC

The drone card. Far more space than I need for how I fly, which is exactly why it’s never once been a problem.

The unglamorous stuff nobody posts about

Nobody puts a screen protector in a gear reel. But this is the section that decides whether your kit is still working in six months, so bear with me.

SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO SDXC

My main card. I’ve never hit the limit, purely because I got into the habit of dumping everything every two or three days. Do that. Cards fail, bags get stolen, and the only backup that has ever saved me is the one I made before I needed it.

Apple USB-C to SD Card Adapter

For pulling photos straight onto the iPhone or the iPad. Simple, tiny, and genuinely fast, which means I can edit and post from a bus instead of waiting until I find wifi that works.

Sony A6400 Screen Protector

A tiny thing that saves you a lot of regret. The A6400 screen scratches fast without one, especially out in the field, and especially because the camera is basically always in my hands.

Camera Cleaning Kit

Between the travel, the sand, the dust and the vineyard dirt, my lenses take a beating. This compact kit handles all of it: blower, microfiber cloths, the works. It never leaves the bag.

Getting all of it through an airport

Hayayu Cabin Bag, 40x20x25

My everyday bag, whether that’s a hike, a flight or a weekend away. It goes everywhere with me and swallows all my photo gear without complaining, and it fits the cabin dimensions that airlines are getting increasingly aggressive about.

Sony Camera Bag Insert

This turns literally any backpack into a proper camera bag, which means I don’t have to buy a dedicated one every time I change bags.

The bonus is that it’s waterproof. And I can tell you from experience that when your water bottle empties itself inside your bag, opening it up to find everything bone dry is one of the better feelings available to a photographer.

Photo Shoulder Bag

The one I use most when I’m travelling and can’t face carrying a backpack. Removable dividers to organize the gear, and from the outside it just looks like a normal city bag, which matters more than people admit in some places.

Only real downside: you’re choosing between the drone or the camera. There isn’t room for both.

If I was starting from zero today

Here’s what I’d actually buy, in what order, based on what I use now.

Step one, the bare minimum, around 1335 USD. The A6400 plus the 50mm f/1.8. It’s a complete kit. You’ll be limited on wide shots and you’ll walk backwards a lot on group photos, but you’ll learn more with one prime lens than with three zooms.

Step two, the kit I’d actually recommend, around 1935 USD. Add the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8. This is the version of my setup I’d hand to someone who asked me what to buy and wanted one answer.

Step three, add the sky, around 2300 USD. The Mini 3 with its ND filters. It changes what you can shoot more than any lens upgrade at this price would.

And then there’s the boring hundred dollars or so that matters far more than it should: a proper SD card, a screen protector, a cleaning kit. Skip these and you’ll pay for it later, usually at the worst possible moment.

One last thing

That’s the whole bag. Nothing hidden, nothing I own and never touch.

If you want the rest of what I travel with, the non-camera half of the packing problem, that’s in my travel essentials packing list. And if you’d rather see what this kit actually produces than read about it, start with the Angelus Hut hike in New Zealand or the Amed guide in Bali.

Questions about any of it, come find me on Instagram. I answer.