Do you ever read about business owners that travel the world and work from anywhere? Wonder how they did it (and feel a bit jealous)? Here’s how I did just that.

I live in Arizona while my family resides in Pennsylvania. This past holiday season, I flew to Pennsylvania in December and returned to Arizona in January. I did not ship anything ahead for my business nor did I pay any excess baggage fees.

How did I do it? My business has been paperless from the start. What I don’t scan and file myself, Shoeboxed does for me. Clients share documents with me via Dropbox and any paper that does come my way is scanned and shredded (mostly). This eliminated carrying piles of paper with me.

So what did I carry with me?
• MacBook Pro
• iPad
• wireless mouse
• wireless keyboard
• 3-4 folders with documents that I needed hardcopies of
• 2 wire-bound notebooks
• Calendar/Planner
• assortment of writing utensils
• iPhone
• bluetooth headset
• and of course the chargers for all of the above

And it all fits in this Mobile Edge laptop backpack.

I like this laptop backpack because of its slim design, but the best feature is it is TSA friendly. That means I just unzip the laptop compartment and send my bag through the scanner without taking my laptop out of the bag.

While using my iPad as a second monitor to view documents, I was able to work very efficiently. And with my Bluetooth headset and Join.me screen-sharing, meetings were a breeze.

I will admit to some trepidation at traveling so far away for so long. What if I forgot something important? Having the right tools made all the difference. In the end, there was nothing I had left behind (documents or other) that caused any sort of panic and I had a pleasant stay with my family.

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