Best Laptop For Traveling | Top 10 | All Budgets | Helpful Guide

Are you someone who is almost always on the go, packing a computer wherever the next destination happens to be?

Whether you are a remote worker, blogger, or business leader en-route to your next presentation, one thing you all have in common is the need for a reliable laptop wherever life demands. This is why we have decided to share with you our list to help you find your best laptop for traveling.

Note – Please know, some of the external links on this page are affiliate links, this means that if you purchase after following one, I make a small commission from the sale at no additional cost to yourself.

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As a remote worker myself who has flown with my laptop many times this year, I have come to understand a few things about what makes an ideal laptop for traveling.

Whatever your reasons are and whichever your description fits, searching for the best travel laptop can be a confusing task. You need to balance the best quality specifications you can that will still fit within suit your budget. While you can almost always rely on the brand leaders to produce a high-quality laptop, some may well be duds. So just buying a name, doesn’t promise quality, so research is required.

So without further ado, to aim your weary mind, we present to you the 10 best laptops for traveling.

The best laptops for traveling

1. DELL XPS 13
2. Apple MacBook Air
3. ASUS ZenBook 13
4. Microsoft Surface Book 3 – 13″ or 15″
5. HP Spectre x360 13T
6. Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i
7. Acer Aspire 5 Slim
8. Microsoft Surface Pro 8
9. The Acer Chromebook Spin
10. Acer Swift 7

1. DELL XPS 13

The best laptop for travel and work

After a few attempts where some silly things weren’t quite up to scratch, Dell has finally produced a stunning laptop in their XPS range. From the gorgeous design to the stunning 4K touch screen when you open it up, there is a lot to love about this machine. Elegant on the outside, yet all power inside, the Dell XPS 13 is perfect for travelers.

The Dell XPS 13 is a laptop with long battery life and made with incredibly lightweight material, making it easy and convenient to take anywhere, and it will not let you down. Whether for business or personal use, if you are looking for a computer that works really fast, then this is definitely your perfect match!

This laptop has a Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, and 512GB storage capacity making it very powerful. This laptop makes video editing, web surfing, gaming, programming, and other projects convenient without as much overheating.

The cooling fans only get a bit audible when high projects are carried out. This laptop should be used on hard surfaces for optimum performance as soft ones can easily block the air vents, making it hot, especially behind the R, T, Y, U, and I keys.

“The 13.4 inch infinity edge display of the Dell XPS is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 6 is tough, damage resistant, durable, elegant. Perfect for life on the road.”

Weighing just 2.7lbs and coming in slightly thinner than the Macbook Air, this is a portable machine with adaptive performance that sees the battery life exceed 12 hours.

The design on this machine is probably Dell’s show of mastery, with an elegant and sleek design making it not just a ‘beast’ but equally a beauty. This laptop is also a super Windows 10 laptop, rivaling the best in its category.

in the new Dell XPS 13 we also see the return of the infrared webcam that means facial recognition is back on the table, something that was sadly lacking from its predecessor. Although if you’d rather not use it, there is also a fingerprint reader built into the power button for convenience.

Another remarkable upgrade from its predecessor is the screen size. It boasts a 13.4inch display making it the biggest yet. This laptop is also backed with a 4K touchscreen, HDR video, touch or non-touch FHD+ screens, and much more. It is uniquely designed for high color performance, outstanding screen resolution, and all-round powerful performance.

The XPS 13 does not disappoint in terms of its build too. Made from aluminium, it gives off a solid feel without limiting its sleekness. It also comes with a larger, well-spaced, and good feel keyboard than its last version.

As far as best lightweight travel laptops go, this laptop has it all; excellent battery life, lightweight, stylish design, and optimum performance. It is an excellent laptop for digital nomads.

This powerful laptop does not come without some flaws, though. The laptop has minimal connections, just two thunderbolt ports, Micro SD reader and a headphone jack. The chances are you will need to use a USB-C or Thunderbolt hub to attach any laptop accessories you may be packing.

One thing I did have a problem with was the power supply from the thunderbolt to my external monitor. From time to time it would drop out which rearranged all my tabs and was infuriating. Like I literally shouted out loud at the screen. It seems to be an issue that some of the first models may have had.

However, I was in touch with Dell support and they were fantastic. They supplied a BIOS update and step by step walkthrough to updating and happy to say no more random shouting.

Overall this is swiftly on its way to becoming my favorite laptop ever. It ticks all of the boxes for easy travel and it looks sexy. What more could I wish for?

2. Apple MacBook Air

Best MacBook for traveling

While the MacBook Pro is undoubtedly the King, due to the lightness and size of the MacBook Air, when it comes to travel, it slightly shades it in my opinion. Although both are sublime machines.

With its high-resolution Retina display, razor-sharp text clarity, and thinner and lighter quality, this new MacBook Air 13 is an obvious one for this list. This iconic machine is undoubtedly one of the best laptops for traveling.

This new edition of the MacBook Air has four times as many pixels as an HD display, with 48 percent more colors than previous generations.

One for the late-night writers: the keys connect via an ambient light sensor, which helps to type in a low light environment.

But it’s not just the screen, it has improvements in audio too. The bass is twice as full with greater range, and the machine packs 25% more volume than the previous generation.

The three-microphone array captures your voice more accurately than before, and even the front-facing FaceTime camera has had an upgrade. Perfect for your business meetings or even just to phone home.

Furthermore, the MacBook Air 13 promises over 10 hours of sustained battery life even at high performance and computing power. That is a welcome feature for travelers who may run into some trouble with their chargers or simply don’t have the right socket in their hotel room.

This laptop is also equipped with a better scissor-switch keyboard for ease when typing and a super large trackpad, an obvious improvement from the previous version. Furthermore, with 8GB of RAM and a storage capacity of 256GB, this laptop performs more than just the basic functions of a laptop and is arguably the best laptop in this category.

Another remarkable feature is that the fan is non-existent on this machine. Instead, it is replaced by an aluminum heat spreader. This cooling technology is awe-inspiring as the laptop only gets a little warm even at optimum performance.

Finally, I want to talk about security. Being on the road can open you up to opportunists. One notable feature of this laptop is an advanced security system. You can directly put your thumb on the ID sensor. So you can access your private details by using your fingerprint sensor. It protects your laptop, documents from any others.

One of the very few downsides of this powerful device includes the camera quality. For a travel laptop, a 720p resolution camera won’t cut it. Even though this MacBook Air seems a bit improved with the lighting and all, the picture quality is terrible and below what you’d expect from the makers of the iPhone.

It’s still a wonder why Apple computers still haven’t added the much-needed touchscreen feature that will make this laptop truly stand out. A screen touch feature is still lacking with its large screen, impeccable resolution, HD display, and high picture quality. Otherwise, the Macbook Air 13 is one of the best travel laptops you can get.

3. ASUS ZenBook 13

Best laptop for backpacking

If you want proof that a premium laptop doesn’t have to cost your life savings, then Asus’s ZenBook 13 should clear your doubts. Its innovative chassis design and 1080p glossy screen only serve to deliver a good taste of what’s inside this affordable tech beast – it looks good.

The obvious stand-out feature is the innvoation that has been built into the trackpad. No longer a simple plastic square to move your pointer around, but it has become it’s own functioning 5.65-inch “Screenpad” a touchscreen for travel laptops.

It adapts to your needs and can do many things from quick launching applications to being a handy calculator. It even reads handwriting. I love this.

The ZenBook is a very powerful and lightweight laptop that is super portable and easy to use anywhere from connecting in your car to a coffee shop working session. The latest AMD Ryzen 5000 processors drive its processing power. This laptop also has a bright 400nit OLED full HD 1920x display, making both your video and photo editing more convenient.

The innovative trackpad takes some getting used to, but is a huge timesaver and great addition.

The laptop’s chassis is a soft royal blue shell of aluminum, and the Design Team took the awe-inspiring allure of the chassis home with a golden touch through the Asus logo on the laptop’s cover.

That intentional streak also appears in its weight and thickness (11.9×7.4×0.7), but that doesn’t stop it from having a wealth of ports that includes a USB-C port, a MicroSD slot, a USD 2.0 port, the power and headphone jacks, and even one HDMI 1.4 port.

Should I talk about the design? The unique look of these travel laptops may not win an award for looks, but it’s something you’ll be happy to display in public without shame. It is built with aluminum, and the chassis has a metal-like design on the lid. This laptop, just like the XPS 13, is a 0.54 by 12 by 8 inches laptop.

As far as performance is concerned, the ZenBook holds its own well with an arsenal of an Intel Core 10th generation i7 processor and 16GB of RAM that can easily handle over 45 Google Chrome tabs while simultaneously handling 2 1080p YouTube videos. This high-end laptop makes work easier for business travelers, students, and just about anyone else. With a Random access memory of 16GB, you cannot worry about lagging or overworking the laptop when carrying out demanding tasks such as gaming, streaming, or when running editing programs.

In what will shock many, the ZenBook also has what a thousand other similar laptops always fail to have – a good webcam. The ZenBook outperforms its rival very easily in this department with a 720p front camera that keeps every color as accurate as you’ll find in the tech market.

To top it off, the ZenBook truly astonishes with a remarkable battery that can last for more than half a day while working at 145 nits of brightness while browsing the web for that duration. Compared to the premium laptop average of 9 hours at similar conditions, the quality is without a doubt.

While it possesses all these features, it falters a bit on the side of its GPU performance; the dedicated graphics card is not so fantastic. The AMD Radeon graphics do not hold their own, but Intel’s Iris Xe integrated graphics gives it a run for its money.

Also, the ZenBook lacks provision for a 3.5mm headphone jack and Thunderbolt 4. That means you’ll either have to use one of the USB ports or connect your headset and other gadgets using Bluetooth.

As ports go, the ZenBook has two USB-C ports, one USB-A port, a slot for microSD, and HDMI 2.0 output port. This machine is proof that cheap travel laptops can also be very powerful, reliable, and efficient.

It has better camera quality than most of its competition, and its impressive battery life makes it portable and powerful all at once. So if you’re looking for the best laptop for traveling, you should consider the ZenBook.

4. Microsoft Surface Book 3 – 13″ or 15″

Best 2 in 1 travel laptop

Microsoft brings back the beautiful design of the first edition of the Surface Book as they continue to prove that it’s what’s inside that matters. As you would expect, they had to go to a great length to stand by that vision.

With the level of this product, we should admit that they’ve done a great job. After all, the Surface Book 3 comes with an embarrassment of specs that easily sparks envy from any and everybody.

Every part of this laptop-tablet convertible is at elite-class. And while Microsoft admits it’s the fastest Surface laptop in existence, it certainly deserves a place amongst the best convertible laptops in the market – that’s if it isn’t the very best already.

For one, the laptop delivers empyrean performance by simply collecting the very best hardware pieces available. The Surface Book 3 delivers 40% more performance than the previous Surface Edition with its NVIDIA GTX GeForce GPU registering values absurdly reaching up to 1660Ti. There’s also the 10^th Gen Intel Core processor standing in front of up to 32 RAM – there’s just no weak point with this one.  

Intel’s Iris Plus Graphics really pop with the stunning 3000×2000 resolution PixelSense Display

Then, the screen boasts an ingenious aura of intentionality that catches the eye. Unlike the generic widescreen 16:9, the Surface blows away all competition with a 3000×2000 screen resolution that’s well complemented by enough brightness operating on the unique PixelSense Display chromes to take advantage of its majestic Intel Iris Plus Graphics. 

However, it’s not just the screen that grabs the attention of your wallet. This Surface Book avails you to the very best performance enhancers at every turn.

From heightened dual far-field Studio Mics merged with Dolby’s Atmos sound system to its adaptable Surface Pen, Surface Precision Mouse, and a smarter Surface dock for improved performance as a traditional workstation, there’s enough dynamic innovation to keep you happy and flexible.

The keyboard is another standout feature of this laptop, with ample spacing between keys to make for more convenient typing. However, the empty spaces on the keyboard could have been put to better use, like a bigger trackpad or larger speakers, especially as the speakers are not so great. Though they carry out the basic tasks of providing sound when you’re watching a movie, the speakers could be better.

This laptop’s detachable feature, which can make it double as a tablet, is a technological milestone by Microsoft. It is especially a plus for travelers who want to use it for pictures and videos; they won’t be needing the keyboard for that.

Microsoft carefully combined beauty, strength, portability, and versatility in this machine, and it is one of the best convertible laptops to be designed.

5. HP Spectre x360 13T 2021

Best travel laptop for multitaskers

The HP Spectre x360 13T is uniquely designed as a masterpiece, especially for multitaskers. It is well equipped with 16GB RAM, enabling the user to multitask without experiencing any lag or delays.

It has a high-speed Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Non-Volatile Memory (NVMe) with a storage capacity of 1TB; this gives the user enough space to store files and information, thus leaving no need for expandable storage. This master device also comes with an island-style backlit keyboard.

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The HP Spectre X360 13T is also neatly kitted with the 11^th generation Intel core i7-1165G7 and has the Artificial Intelligence-powered intel Iris Xe graphics. The processor of this machine is about 33% stronger than its earlier versions and has the most efficient CPU at the moment.

It has an HD IR camera that gives a user an outstanding visual experience. It is coupled with a dual array digital microphone that enhances communication and dual speakers powered by Bang & Olufsen coupled with HP Audio Boost. This beautiful convertible device can be used both as a laptop and a tablet; hence can be used at any condition and time.

Talk about visual experience, and it has a 13.3” touch screen that gives the user enough room to work coupled with a 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and a Bluetooth combo that allows the transfer of large files.  It also possesses some not-so-common features like the mic mute key, a webcam kill switch, and enough USB ports for different use. Its lightweight makes it suitable for travels.

6. Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i

Great all-round laptop for a digital nomad

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The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i is Lenovo’s new convertible system, uniquely designed to bring maximum all-round satisfaction to its user. Talking of visual excellence, the 15.6” Full High Definition IPS touch screen creates enough room for the user to work effortlessly, giving a clear view of all activities.

The screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels with Integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics. It is powerfully equipped with the 11^th generation Intel Core i5-1135G7 which surpasses the i7-10710U.

Talk of a device you can use all day long without the need to charge? The Lenovo 2021 flagship has got you covered; its battery can last for 16 hours when fully charged; hence can serve you all day long.

The stylus slides into a pen slot in the back of the laptop, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting where you put it.

With this device, there is no need for expandable storage as it comes with an inbuilt SSD of 2TB, which can accommodate files and data. Its inbuilt memory is 8GB RAM, which at the very least, it can give you the liberty of multitasking without fear of processor delay. Having a backlit keyboard was not left out of the design, and thus not even the darkness of the night can prevent work from continuing.

Furthermore, there’s a fingerprint reader uniquely embedded in it for extra security. It also has a webcam with 720p HD quality that makes the virtual experience marvelous. Other features include; a 2x USB-C Thunderbolt 4, headphone and microphone combo, Bluetooth, Dolby Atmos speaker, webcam privacy shutter, and an iCarp Pen. Moreover, the device is lightweight, so you know it was made to be carried about.

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7. Acer Aspire 5 Slim

Best cheap travel laptop

While this isn’t the lightest of the quickest of travel laptops, it certainly packs a lot in for the price point and is certainly one of the best budget laptops for travel on the market. It makes an ideal laptop for a blogger who is just starting out or a remote worker who may switch between workstations.

The Acer Aspire 5 Slim offers excellent all-around performance, longer battery life, loads of connectivity options and the keyboard is well-spaced, and it is easy to type on, great for writers.

The brushed metal texture creates a premium look to the cheap laptop which is packed with ports. On the left side of the deck, it has 1 USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, 1 USB 2.0 ports, 1 HDMI port with HDCP support, Ethernet and a headphone jack while on the left it has a second USB-2.0 and a slot for a Kensington lock.

One nice touch that is unusual in machines at this price point is the backlit keyboard. Perfect for when you find yourself working late nights in local bars.

Don’t sleep on this laptop. Its specifications may not be ideal for heavy-duty encoding and rendering, but this machine holds its basic tasks and light computing projects.

In addition, it guarantees you a clock speed of up to 4.2GHz and a high-performance quad-core, making it more than just a laptop for internet browsing or watching movies.

This 10^th Generation Intel Core processor laptop has a fast M.2 SSD storage, 8GB RAM, and 1080p IPS panel. But, that’s not all; while the design may not be as sleek as most other laptops like the Macbook Pro and others in this category, the Acer Aspire 5 makes up for that in its build. It has a metal keyboard surround and solid screen enclosure giving it an intense look.

Weighing 1.7kg with a thickness of 17mm, it is a portable laptop and is one for business travel. It also has a powerful battery life with over 11 hours of performance without needing to charge. This is always a piece of good news for business travelers and graphic designers.

It is pertinent to note that while this laptop has the USB Type-C connectivity ports,  USB Type-A 2.0 socket, headphone jack, HDMI, and USB 3.1 ports running at 5Gbps, it cannot be used for charging through the USB-C port. It also lacks space for an SD card reader.

This is rather a sad observation, but if that’s not going to be a problem for you, this travel laptop has terrific offers on the tablet for travelers, which is why it made our list.

8. Microsoft Surface Pro 8

Great small light laptop for travelling … well tablet

The Microsoft Surface Pro 8 is undoubtedly an upgraded version of the Surface Pro 7, having well-enhanced features. Its lightweight and sleek nature of about 3.93 pounds make movement easier; hence, work or pleasure doesn’t stop at home and can continue anywhere.

To increase convenience and ease of usage, Microsoft went further to design this beauty convertible with a detachable keyboard. Hence, when it’s not convenient to use it as a laptop, the convertible option helps you use it in tablet mode. As such, the work or fun continues.

While this little lightweight machine is more tablet for traveling than a laptop, but when combined with the optional extras of the Microsoft Mouse and keyboard, it actually makes a damn good machine. Although that pushes the price up of course.

Small and mighty, the New Microsoft Go is perfect for keeping on top of tasks while on the move.

The awesomeness of this device spreads across different segments of it; so, one can never go wrong choosing it. Its possession of Lithium polymer batteries gives a battery life of at least 10.5 hours, making it possible for you to use it all day long,

In all its well-carved features, the screen was not left out, having a touch screen size of 13” against the 12.3” of Pro 7, giving the user enough room to access his work, and it has a resolution  ‎of 2880 x 1920 Pixels.

Furthermore, it comes with an already installed window 11, which brings you closer to your love life in friends, music, videos, creations o name but a few.

The Surface Pro 8 is the first series to be built on the Intel Evo platform giving it a better overall performance. In addition, it has a rechargeable surface slim pen which offers the best pen feel of pen on paper.

Microsoft made a massive boost by taking the RAM from 8Gb in its predecessor to 16GB which makes it super-fast, thus giving it the ability to multitask and run several applications at a go.

Also, its hard drive provides room for much data to be stored for easy access and reference. Moreover, its high-quality camera makes visual activity fun. The storage space was not left out as it comes with a 512GB hard drive making storage easy and easily accessible.

9. The Acer Chromebook Spin

Extremely Cheap Great Chromebook for travel

If you want to know more about Chromebooks, be sure to check out my best Chromebooks for travel post where I focus solely on the Chrome OS. But in this post, I want to include one of the new all-time classics.

This latest release by Acer surpassed all previous versions. The Acer Chromebook Spin is a convertible device with a touch screen of 11.6-inch In-plane switching, LED-backlit with a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, a processor of 1.1 GHz Celeron, and a memory speed of 2.6 GHz, which makes it swift at all times. It has an inbuilt 720p web Camera with an Intel Ultra High-Definition Graphics that gives the user an excellent visual experience.

This sleek beauty comes with 4GB RAM that enables the user to run several applications simultaneously and even browse through several tabs all at once without slowing down the work speed. It has a hard drive of 32GB with an expandable memory of 32GB giving it total storage of 64GB, although this can be considered small as lots of applications and data can consume the space within a short while.

It is fast, with LPDDR3 memory for multitasking, eMMC storage for quick boot-ups and quick software loading.

The device is beautifully designed to serve all day long as its battery can last for 10 hours once fully charged hence eradicating the fear of downtime during work. Being convertible gives it the ability to serve as a laptop and in tablet mode, and the mode of usage can be inter-switched based on convenience.

It is highly durable and less cumbersome, with a weight of 2.62 pounds. It can be carried all day long without serving as a burden to its user. The device makes use of the Chrome operating system. It has 2 USB 3.1 Type C ports, a headphone/speaker jack, a card reader port, and 1 Kensington lock.

10. Acer Swift 7

Best budget travel laptop for stylish travel influencers

If you want to look on top of your game everywhere you go, the Acer Swift 7 laptop could well be the one for you. Elegant in Black and Gold, this laptop is designed with rounded corners and chamfered edges around the touchpad. Not only that, but the Acer Swift 13 is also one of the thinnest laptop there is at just 0.39 inches. It is easy to carry about and go on business travels, trips, events, etc, without even feeling the slightest weight.

With a 13.3” full HD display with IPS technology, up to 9 hour battery life and 3 times faster wireless performance, this is the laptop perfect for all kinds of traveler there is.

Connect anywhere using the inbuilt nano-SIM port

It has inbuilt biometric login which works perfectly, helping to secure your private documents, photos, etc. and has USB Type-C ports and a headset jack.

This laptop has a dual-core Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of NVMe storage capacity. It also has two USB Type-C Thunderbolt ports. This thin and ultra-portable laptop comes in white and black and is carefully constructed with magnesium-lithium and magnesium-aluminum alloys.

One additional cool feature this sleek travel laptop has is a nano-SIM slot. That means that wherever you are if you have a local SIM card, you can buy a cheap data plan and get online wherever you get a phone signal. No more running around looking for cafes with WiFi.

Buyers guide

What to consider while looking for travel laptops

We’ve seen the top best laptops for traveling which are available in today’s market. Each one is different in its own way. You can choose one that stands out to you when looking at the specs, design, quality, features, and customer reviews. We are sure you would be happy with any of the above travel laptops just as many thousands of others already are.

But before you make your final choice, here are a few tips about what to look for before you buy the best travel laptop for you.

Comfortable operating system

This is all down to personal preference and what you are used to. The most popular types are either Windows laptops or Mac OS X. While both have their pros and cons, if you are purchasing shortly before a long trip, I would recommend buying what you are comfortable with.

Recently Chromebooks have become more popular. They started off as budget alternatives to laptops for those who were always on the go. But recently, more and more manufacturers are getting behind the OS and it is an exciting and quickly growing, option.

They tend to have less power and storage than traditional laptops, as they are designed to work on the cloud, but they are certainly worth considering if you are looking for a great value option. If you have used the Android operating system before, it will take no time to get up to speed on Chrome.

Weight and Size

While taking a travel laptop, weight is an essential factor. You will be carrying many things in your bag, so you do not need a bulky laptop in there. In the past, I have had to travel with my main, home laptop that is a little over 17 inches.

When it sits in an already full backpack, it is embarrassing fighting to remove it at airport security. Then on the plane. With my bag at my feet, I actually gave up trying to get it out as it was wedged in my backpack.

Most of the new generation laptops like the ones in this list reduce the burdens of carrying weighty laptops. These laptops are portable and lightweight, making travel more convenient and fun. They are not called travel laptops for no reason.

Here are the main sizes you will find:

• 11 – 12″: These small laptops are light, thin systems that tend to weigh between 2.5 to 3.5 pounds. They offer excellent portability but often at the sacrifice of power.
• 13 – 14″: Usually weighing less than 4 pounds, laptops of this size and weight will offer balance and portability.
• 15″ – 16″: This is the most popular size of laptop that typically weighs 4.5 to 6.5 pounds. If you are not going to carry your laptop often, choose this size for a larger screen.
• 17 – 18″: If you don’t take your laptop from the desk all day, this display range will suit you. These are suitable for high-end gaming and productive works.

Slim and lightweight laptops are the perfect for choice for travel (obviously). Look for 15.6 inches at the maximum, but I would advise a going for a 13-inch screen for ultimate portability.

Battery life

The second thing to consider about a laptop to hit the road with is battery life. It could be that you spend long periods of time working on your laptop outdoors (hopefully in the sun) and may not have access to a power socket, or maybe you have left your charger in the hotel room or somewhere else. In cases like this, it does not mean activities on your laptop should be stopped if you have a laptop that can last long hours, even at high performance.

Choose a computer with a minimum of 8 hour battery life. Some of the models last for a whole day. Interestingly, you don’t even need to break the bank to get some of these laptops, as many budget laptops can boast a great battery life of over 10 hours without compromising their performance.

Price

You probably have a little less control over this one, but it is perhaps the most significant factor determining your choice. If you have a low budget and are looking for a cheap travel laptop, then it would certainly be worth looking at the Chromebook option, they are great little machines that start at around $150.

While you can find some wonderful laptops for under $500, if you can stretch your budget a little further to $800, it would be worth it. For $800 and under you will be looking at machines that include a slightly older or less powerful processor, look for an Intel Core i5 or AMD A8 CPU. Also, the RAM will be less, between 4 to 8GB of RAM. However, this could still be plenty if most of your day-to-day work is writing and Wordpress.

When your budget goes above $800, you’ll start to see may see the premium models. And finally, above $1000 laptops are more powerful and portable. For example, Apple MacBook Air and the Dell XPS 13, are expensive but reliable.

Just remember when considering your budget that the initial outlay isn’t everything. You will want to hold some money back for anti-virus subscription and other possible subscription-based programs. Especially if you are looking to start blogging. Also, if you are buying one of the more expensive machines, you may want to consider insurance as traveling open your device up to more risks.

Processor and speed

The processor is the heart of the laptop, so choose wisely. Intel Core i9 delivers fast performance when compared to the other mobile chip. It is currently only found in premium laptops. Intel Core i7 is also a powerful processor.

If you are looking for the best laptop for travel photography or video blogging, I would look to an i7 as a minimum. The Intel Core i5 is the modern standard of the processor. It will be able to handle multitasking, mid-scale photo editing, and small video editing. It makes a great all-around laptop for travel bloggers or the perfect laptop for business professionals at a value-driven price.

If you are just using your laptop for writing, emails, and chat on facebook, then even an i3 processor will probably enough. However, bear in mind your needs may change in, and it could be worth getting something with a little more oomph to future-proof yourself.

Keyboard

If you find yourself working on the road a lot, it may be wise to look for a laptop with a backlit keyboard. This feature is often overlooked but has saved me many times from squinting in dark corners of cafes and bars.

Another option would be a keyboard light, but a back lit keyboard will always be a bit easier.

Storage space

I would look for a machine that has a solid state drive (SSD) hard drive over a traditional HDD due to the improved speed and quality. However, there is a trad off in that you get less storage space for your money, so if you need a large hard drive, SSD may push the price up.

However, you could get around this by investing in external storage via SD Cards, USB sticks, or cloud storage subscriptions. Not only does it mean you can get away with a smaller hard drive on your traveling laptop, but it is also good practice to protect your data should you lose your computer.

Consider a 2-in-1 hybrid laptop?

If you are searching for the system with great flexibility, choose 2-in-1 models. There are plenty of PCs now come with these features which means you can use it as a laptop, tablet, and any other modes like a clamshell model which can be super convenient for watching movies or even getting comfortable while using your laptop in a hotel bed.

FAQ Section

Final thoughts on the best laptops for traveling

So there you have our recommendations. Be sure to check out our product pages where you can register for price drops and check out the price history. Any of these machines will prove a powerful companion on your travels, and we are sure that you will love using them.

Do you have any other recommendations? What machine do you use, and why should our readers check it out? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.