The necessity of an e-reader when traveling

The past year I have traveled extensively and I wasn’t limited to being in one place. Due to my frequent moving, I needed to carry few possessions with me. As the space was limited, I needed to consider the items that I really wanted to take along, regardless of where I was. There’s one item that I always took along with me, regardless of where I was traveling: an e-reader.

Essential for Traveling

While traveling around Europe, staying in Portugal or Italy, I needed to bring all my material possessions with me. At first, I thought that I could read from my laptop for leisure, but this turned out different than I thought. I had hoped that by not bringing books, I saved space for other stuff. Reading from an internet page is a bit different than reading from a physical page. Buying a book in a store was also not a good option, as I would need to leave the book behind when I moved on again. Another option was buying an e-reader. Since then, I’ve read several books on my e-reader. These vary from books for leisure to (historical) research material.

Flexibility in A5-format

Actually, all benefits of an e-reader have to do with flexibility, which manifests itself in different ways. Most e-readers are relatively thin, less than a centimeter, are smaller than half of a A4 paper. They are thinner than most books. Since the e-readers are so small, they take up little space and do not weigh a lot. Meanwhile, you can easily store hundreds or thousands of books on it.
The most common e-readers have a storage of 8 GB, which equals to approximately 6000 books. These numbers can vary, depending on whether you are reading comic books, large PDF files or just smaller text versions. Regardless, the memory of an e-reader is large enough to rival the catalogue of a small library. You can always carry your favorite writers with you. You are not just limited to that one book that you have brought along, but can pick one of the many books on your device. Is your current read not interesting or fitting for your mood? You can easily start another one.
If you are looking for a new book to read, you can order it on your computer and share it with your device. If your e-reader is connected to the internet, you can immediately access the store and look for an interesting book. With a press of the button, they are on your device and you don’t need to wait until a package is delivered.

Additional Benefits

There are some other factors that make e-readers so useful, depending on the type of e-reader. Not all of them are equipped with these features, so make sure these are on the device when you are planning on buying an e-reader.
Most e-readers have backlight, which makes them easy to read when there’s little daylight. You can easily read in bed or outside, even when there’s no light available. In most devices, it’s even possible to filter out the blue light, which can disturb your sleep.
Depending on the file, the letter format and font can easily be adjusted. With books the ink is set. While it’s not always necessary, there have been some books where the letters were so small, that I had to enlarge them to read the book properly.
Most readers are more resilient than in the past. Some water splashes will not immediately result of the device. You can even put a sleeve around the e-reader for additional protection.
Lastly, the e-readers can last for quite some time. Most devices will last at least a week on a single charge. Recharging goes fast and is usually done in a matter of minutes rather than hours.

All Benefits

Is an e-reader a necessity while traveling? Absolutely! The e-reader takes up little space, but is incredibly useful. The device takes up little space and contains so many books that you’ll have countless hours of reading on it.