Why Tech and Travel Have Always Gone Together for Me

Why Tech and Travel Have Always Gone Together for Me

At first glance, technology and travel might look like two completely different subjects for a blog. One is laptops, software, hardware, networking, games, and all the other things that come with being a developer and lifelong computer nerd. The other is hotels, beaches, mountains, long drives, flights, strange places, and figuring out what to bring with you.

For me, though, those two things have been connected for a long time.

I work full time as a software developer, and when I'm not writing code I still spend plenty of time around computers and games. Technology is naturally going to be a big part of anything I write. At the same time, travel has followed me through almost every stage of my adult life, often in ways that had absolutely nothing to do with vacations.

More importantly, travel has become one of the best ways I've found to disconnect from technology long enough to actually enjoy it again.

Travel Didn't Start With Resorts

Long before I was writing software professionally, I spent close to two decades working in construction. A lot of that work meant traveling to wherever the next job happened to be.

That wasn't glamorous travel.

There were plenty of nights in inexpensive hotels, off-brand places, and Motel 6-type rooms where the goal was mostly to get a shower, sleep for a few hours, and get back to the job the next morning. When you're working out of town like that, you start learning quickly what actually matters when you're away from home.

Is the bed decent? Is there food nearby? Can you keep your stuff charged? Too tired to worry about finding the Wi-Fi password. Though, not too many spots even had Wi-Fi back then. 

Those trips weren't vacations, but they taught me how much the little things affect a trip.

Then the military took that experience much farther.

I've traveled internationally and domestically for deployments, training, and other assignments. That has put me in places as different as Afghanistan and Ukraine, along with training environments in places like Michigan and the Mojave Desert.

None of those trips resemble a weekend at the beach, but they taught me something similar: the right equipment matters a lot more once you're away from home. Sometimes that means something as simple as having the correct power adapter for Europe. Sometimes it means figuring out how you're going to keep electronics working somewhere dusty, hot, cold, wet, or nowhere near a convenient outlet. Not that I always needed electronics, nor that I always was able to have them. When I could, these things were important. 

Regardless... 

Travel has a way of exposing which things are actually useful.

Wildland Fire Added Another Version of Travel

Wildland fire added another kind of travel to the mix.

I've been to Arizona for training more than once, and on one of those trips I ended up getting some actual fire experience along the way. I've also worked fires closer to home in southeast Oklahoma, including around the Potato Hills.

That kind of travel has almost nothing in common with checking into a resort.

You're thinking about boots, packs, water, weather, batteries, communications, maps, clothing, and whether the things you brought with you are actually going to survive being used outside instead of sitting neatly on a desk.

Camping in Arizona also makes you appreciate equipment very differently than reading its specifications online.

A device may advertise excellent battery life, but how does it perform after sitting in the heat all day? A charger might look perfect on Amazon, but is it still useful when you're carrying everything yourself? Does that flashlight, GPS unit, watch, or battery pack still feel like a good purchase after you've relied on it for several days?

Those are the kinds of questions I find interesting.

Then There Is Travel for the Sake of Travel

Of course, not every trip needs to involve work, training, or somebody telling me where I need to be.

I've always liked simply going somewhere.

Put me on a boat in Myrtle Beach watching dolphins and I am perfectly happy with that version of travel too.

There is something about getting far enough away from the normal routine that your brain finally stops thinking about whatever problem was waiting on your computer when you left.

That has become increasingly important to me since getting into software development.

Development can be mentally exhausting in a very different way from physical work. You may spend hours trying to understand why something is failing, tracing through someone else's code, solving a problem that doesn't have an obvious answer, or staring at the same project for days.

Then you go home and, if you're anything like me, sometimes open another computer.

Maybe you're working on a personal project. Maybe you're learning something new. Maybe you just want to play a game.

Either way, that's a lot of screen time.

Travel breaks that cycle.

Travel Is One of the Best Ways I've Found to Avoid Burnout

I don't think burnout always comes from disliking what you do.

Sometimes it happens because you like something enough that you never really stop doing it.

That's easy to do with technology.

I can work all day developing software and then spend the evening building something for Goose Solutions. When I'm finished with that, I might play a game for a few hours. Every one of those things involves sitting in front of a screen.

Eventually your brain needs something different.

Travel forces that change.

You have to look up from the monitor.

You're driving through somewhere you've never been. You're trying a restaurant you don't have at home. You're standing beside the ocean. You're hiking somewhere. You're watching dolphins. You're sitting outside a tent in Arizona. You're wandering around a city trying to figure out where you're going.

Whatever the trip is, you're interacting with the world instead of a user interface.

I usually come back from trips actually wanting to work on things again.

That's probably the biggest reason travel belongs on a technology site for me.

Technology Still Comes With Me

The irony, of course, is that technology is also one of the things that makes modern travel easier.

I like finding gear that actually solves problems.

That could be a good power bank, a charger that replaces several separate bricks, the right plug adapter for another country, noise-canceling headphones on a flight, a phone mount for a long road trip, a rugged case, a small laptop, a smartwatch, or something as simple as a cable that doesn't fail when you need it.

The right answer also depends entirely on where you're going.

The electronics I care about for a week at a beach are not necessarily the same ones I'd choose for camping in Arizona. What makes sense in a hotel doesn't always make sense on a fire assignment. Something that looks great sitting beside a desktop computer may be a terrible choice when every ounce in a pack matters.

And sometimes technology becomes much more important than entertainment or convenience.

There have been times where reliable equipment mattered while working in remote places or moving through environments where communication, navigation, weather information, or simply keeping a device powered could be genuinely important.

You start looking at gear differently after that.

Good Gear Isn't Necessarily Expensive Gear

This is another reason I want to write about both travel and technology.

A lot of technology coverage becomes a race toward whatever is newest or most expensive.

Travel has taught me that the best piece of equipment is usually the thing that does its job reliably without creating another problem.

Sometimes that will be the expensive option.

Sometimes it's a $20 adapter that has been thrown into a bag for years and somehow refuses to die.

I've stayed in cheap hotels and nicer resorts. I've slept in tents and military accommodations. I've spent time overseas and driven across parts of the United States. I've carried equipment because I wanted it and carried equipment because I genuinely needed it.

Those experiences change what I look for when I buy something.

I care less about whether a piece of gear looks impressive on a desk and more about whether I'll still be glad I packed it three days into a trip.

Gaming Fits Into the Same World

Gaming is another part of my relationship with technology.

I still make time for games when I can, especially games where I can disappear into another world for a while. Give me something like Skyrim or Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and I can lose plenty of hours.

And, as a developer, I probably appreciate those games differently than I used to.

There are times where I'll stop and think about the systems running behind what I'm seeing. Someone had to program that AI behavior. Someone built the rendering system. Someone designed the tools that allowed artists to build the environment. Someone had to figure out what happens when a player inevitably does something completely ridiculous.

I have enormous respect for developers working at that level.

It's one of the reasons technology remains interesting to me even when I'm not working.

But, just like with programming, sometimes the best thing I can do is turn it off and go somewhere.

That's Why Both Belong Here

So, Goose Solutions covering both technology and travel isn't really me trying to run two unrelated blogs at the same time.

They're both parts of the same life.

I've gone from construction sites and cheap hotel rooms to deployments overseas, training around the country, wildland fire assignments, personal travel, software development, and plenty of nights sitting behind a computer trying to figure out why something refuses to work.

Along the way I've learned that the tools you carry matter, the places you go matter, and sometimes getting away from your normal environment is exactly what you need to appreciate coming back to it.

I'll probably write about laptops and software.

I'll write about gaming and hardware.

I'll write about places worth visiting, hotels worth staying in, things worth doing, and gear that actually earned its place in my bag.

Sometimes those topics will stay completely separate.

Other times, they'll overlap more than you might expect.

For me, they always have.