I’ve always been a bit of a gear-selective audiophile. Not the 1% with headphone amps on their desks insisting on only wired headphones, mind you, but enough to be a stickler about reviews and the occasional response curve here and there.

But over the years, much as I have with my camera gear, I’ve come to realize that audio quality is not the dimension you want to optimize for when you travel. Instead, it’s practicality. You need a setup that can optimally serve your needs when you need it, both in transit and on-the-go. What’s the point of having a chunky nice-sounding headphone you only use on the plane, or of having tiny earbuds with no noise cancelation and shit audio quality?

So although once upon a time, I carried either my wired Sony MDR-7520 headphones or my wireless Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones when traveling, that is no longer the case. As I’ve elaborated upon elsewhere (see below post), I’m all in on earbuds for their compactness. And the beauty of earbuds and their size is that you really can bring multiple sets of earbuds and still take up less space than a pair of headphones would.

After a few rounds of iteration, I’ve settled on a 3 set rotation to serve my audio needs while traveling. Full disclaimer: I would be able to get this down to two if I didn’t sweat like a motherfucker, as I’ll detail in the last section.

Primary: For situational awareness, Apple AirPods Pro 3

This might sound ‘obvious’ to many just because they’re a common daily driver, but I have a specific reason for the AirPods Pro being my primary in travel — transparency mode. The AirPods have the best transparency/ambient sound mode I’ve ever heard, sometimes you can barely tell you have earbuds on. And when you’re traveling, situational awareness is critical for general safety reasons as well as for more context specific reasons; you don’t want to miss your plane because you couldn’t hear your gate changed over your music, do you? It’s the combination of the transparency mode enabling safe phone calls while walking around and the robust noise cancellation — got me through a 5 hour flight with a crying baby across the aisle — that make the AirPods a truly worthy primary bluetooth set for travel.

In-flight: For max noise cancellation, Sony WF-1000XM6

This is the newest addition to my travel audio setup for sure. I previously only carried the AirPods Pro, or one set bluetooth earbud set of some kind, but I’ve decided it’s worth having a second set to tag team along. Why? Well, by the time you leave the airport, get through security, wait at the gate, and plonk your ass down on the plane, you are a good amount through its battery life, nor was the 8 hours battery life going to last you through a long flight even at full charge. The Sony WF series earbud have always been segment-leaders for their noise-cancellation and audio quality, so I decided to add them to my travel kit to rotate with my AirPods for flights to Europe, Asia, or Australia. Plus, they’re the set I keep permanently connected to my 1/8” to bluetooth dongle for watching movies on the plane without resorting to crappy airline earbuds, though I do wonder if the in-flight movie audio is too compressed to make the most of the XM6’s sonic capabilities.

Running: For sweat resistance, Shokz OpenRun Pro 2

Technically not earbuds per se, but compact enough I don’t feel bad including it here. Now, if I were a normal human being who sweats a normal amount, I’d probably be able to get away with not bringing this for runs and just using my AirPod Pros instead; you see plenty of running influencers far more talented than me doing their workouts with them. But I’ve always sweat a lot, to the extent I would joke as a child that my brain floats in sweat not cerebrospinal fluid. So I bring my running headset, the OpenRun Pro 2, on my trips. For those who aren’t familiar, the OpenRuns are bone conduction headsets that keep your ear completely open to the surrounding soundscape while transmitting the music through your ear bones. As you can tell from the top section, I greatly value situational awareness, and the OpenRun is excellent for maintaining that while running, with the added bonuses of compactness and sweat resistance. I can carry them in my bag naked or with a slim case.

EDIT: After my Australia/New Zealand trip, I’ve decided I will not carry these when I travel, not because they are bad, but because I’m fine not having music on travel runs if it means less shit to carry around.

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I recently switched to a backpack for my commute, which entails at ~1.75 miles of walking each way. I’ve always been more of a messenger bag guy since college. They look far more fashionable, and I like the quick access to contents they enable. But the time had come for me to eschew aesthetics and be more practical.

It’s not like I don’t have a nice messenger bag, a part-time backpack actually for that matter. For the past 4 years or so, my commute bag has been a very nice convertible Italian leather bag that my parents got for me in Florence. It has connectors and compartments that allow for it to be used in both vertical backpack mode and horizontal messenger bag mode. Though I’d briefly used it in backpack mode (early recognition of the balance benefits for my body), I’d tired of my back getting extra sweaty during my walking commute and quickly switched to using it in messenger bag mode to keep my back better ventilated.

So after all that, why did I decide to switch back to a backpack?

Recovering from running injury

The core motivation behind my decision to switch (back) to some kind of a backpack for my commute was a knee injury I suffered while running. Due to issues with my right leg, my left leg has always been the stronger one taking more force, and perhaps having gotten tired of that, my left knee decided to get runner’s knee. This forced 10-day break from running pissed me off to no end, so as I researched ways to recover faster and prevent a future recurrence, I determined that the asymmetric load of a messenger bag was likely aggravating my injury and general muscle imbalance.

A solution for the ventilation problem

As I mentioned above, a core reason for my decision to use a messenger bag for my commute instead of a backpack was the ventilation. I’ve always sweat a lot, and I liked that messenger bags kept my back open to the air. Even during stints of my life when I’d worn a backpack, I’d often worn them with the strap on just one shoulder, nullifying the balancing nature of a backpack. Then I discovered Osprey’s Airspeed technology, which basically puts a small mesh trampoline between your back and the main body of the backpack to maintain airflow between you and your backpack. This looked like a godsend.

Hot deal

Airspeed tech was available on several of Osprey’s backpacks, including, luckily, their commute oriented Tropos 32. And even better, the grey/burgundy colorway I liked the most happened to be on 30%+ discount. I took it as a sign and jumped on it. I’d always heard good things about Osprey backpacks during my travel backpack research, and I was excited to try out one of their products for the first time and integrate it into my daily workflow.

Feels and works great

As I had hoped, the Airspeed suspension tech was fucking brilliant. There are few things in life I consider game-changing, but as someone who sweats a lot, the Airspeed tech earned itself that descriptor immediately. The backpack was comfortable to wear, and the increased carrying capacity meant I could, for example, take my Amazon returns to the UPS Store en route to work without having to carry a separate tote bag. I also loved that I could keep an umbrella in one of the water bottle pockets and still have an open one for days I decide I want to carry a water bottle around. I put an accessory pouch on one of the straps to keep my keys accessible from the front, and my setup was complete. An especially pleasurable side effect of switching to a backpack for my commute is that my body is so used to wearing a backpack only while traveling that simply putting the backpack on puts a little smile on my face and instills a sense of adventure in me, ready to take on the day.

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I started off 2026 miserable as a runner.

Three weeks after I stopped my tirzepatide shots in mid-early November 2025, I started a one month break from running while on vacation, and my return to running in January 2026 was… rough to say the least. Though I could tell my cardiorespiratory capacity was still there, my weakened running muscles struggled to deal with the 15 pound heavier frame that had formed over the holidays. I gassed out run distances and paces I’d run with ease just a month earlier, with issues I thought I’d long ago worked out returning and preventing me from getting in a satisfying run for all of January.

Given one of my main runners at the time, the Brooks Glycerin Max, was near-EOL at the time (400+ recorded running miles), I got two new shoes specifically for running - the Nike Vomero Plus and the ASICS Superblast 2 - that I thought would alleviate the issue.While they did feel good in their own ways, they were no magic bullets resolving my suffering. If anything, my weakened legs struggled to handle the instability of the Vomero Plus, and even the Superblast 2, which many reviewers praise as a very stable, cushioned, propulsive shoe, failed to do anything for my running besides merely make it bearable - there was no sense of speed, no feeling of flight.

Enter the Adidas Evo SL.

First Adidas Running Shoes

I’m still exploring the running shoe landscape. I’ve had a mixed relationship with Saucony - their Cohesion series got me into running, but the Endorphin Speed 2 really made my leg hurt - but Hoka (Clifton), Nike (Invincible), Brooks (Glycerin Max), and ASICS (Superblast 2) have really served me well.

When my Poland trip over Presidents’ Day was canceled last minute due to a pilot strike, I made the decision to rage-buy a new pair of running shoes. I’d bought my Vomero 18 commuter and Vomero Plus runner at the Nike Santa Monica store, so I decided to take this opportunity to check out the Adidas Santa Monica store I’d seen on the Third Street Promenade to pickup my first pair of Adidas runners - fun fact, the street address number of the store is 1337, and I have to wonder if they made the choice to have their store at that address on purpose.

Cushy

The Adidas Evo SL (affiliate link) had been well-reviewed for all of 2025. Usually, when reviews for anything - laptops, cameras, whatever - praise the ‘value’ of product, I get skeptical. A lot of times, it feels like an excuse to overlook a product’s shittiness in some way just because it’s cheap. Most of the reviews for the Evo SL praised what a good value the shoe was, but they felt different than the usual vibe that stokes my skepticism. I saw nothing that derided a significant element of the shoe, but instead mainly expressed surprise at how good it was for the price.

The fact that the shoe was one big slab of foam was also a big part of my interest. One of my historical favorite running shoes was the Nike Invincible Run 2, which was a giant slab of the same ZoomX foam that Nike uses in its elite racing shoes like the Vaporfly and the Alphafly. The Evo SL promised to be a big slab of Lightstrike Pro foam, which Adidas uses in its elite racing shoes like the Adios Pro Evo 2. My inner cushion lover (see below piece) was stoked.

Light

When I went to pickup my order at the Adidas store, I did my usual fit check with my left foot (my bigger foot), but didn’t give too much thought to it otherwise. I walked it home down Main Street in the store bag; my first time buying anything at a non-outlet Adidas store actually. It was only when I got home and tried it on both feet that the magic really hit.

Wow. The Evo SL felt fantastic. These were not only bouncy as expected from the foam, but they were also light. Like, Jesus, my legs immediately felt like they could fly in them. I’d never really given much thought to the weight of running shoes, but having the Evo SL on my feet gave me a greater appreciation for why it mattered. I immediately looked forward to wearing them on my next run in two days.

Fast

And they absolutely did not disappoint on that run. After struggling to pull a sub-9min/mi pace or >5mi distance for the first 6 weeks the year, with the Evo SL I finally managed to pull off such a pace and distance more resembling what I was used to. I’m still about 30-40 seconds/mi short of where I want to be, but this was fantastic progress and actually made me want to run more.

These shoes probably single-handedly saved my running. There were multiple times in my struggling weeks at the start of 2026 that I seriously contemplated quitting running and majorly regretted stopping at all over the holidays. The Evo SL gave me a sense of excitement and speed that I hadn’t felt since my early runs with the Invincible Run 2, and that it gave me a run with a pace resembling what I’d gotten used to before the holidays was a morale boost I really needed.

In Conclusion

Not only did the Adidas Evo SL give me the morale boost I needed to continue my running, it made me fundamentally reevaluate my priorities when it comes to running shoes. Though I’d primarily prioritized cushion in the past, how great the Evo SL felt made me decide that I’d be more sensitive to the cushion to speed ratio run in the future. Confession: I picked up the first pair on 30% discount, but once I realized how much I liked it, I then picked up two more pairs on 40% discount — one as a reserve running shoe for when the first one dies out, then a black one exclusively for travel use. Then I bought 3 more pairs on 25% discount — one each in red and blue for casual use, and a black ATR variant for wet weather use. I have literally never bought so many pairs of the same shoe before, like ever.

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As I mentioned in my intro piece of the core reasons I started this Substack is so that I could make my overthinking useful to other people.

A lot of my overthinking goes into trying to optimize my gear for different contexts, so as to minimize the barriers to and friction in conducting said activities as much as possible. A great example of this is my piece on packing light, where I discuss how I try to pack such that I can do as much as possible with as little as possible when I’m on the go abroad.

I recently realized that I put similar thought into my running gear as well. I’ve already discussed running shoes specifically elsewhere, but here, I want to discuss other things I bring along on my runs to make my running experience that much more pleasurable. Whether you’re an experienced runner or someone just looking to get into it, I hope you find a nugget of two of useful information within!

Watch: Garmin Fenix 8

My second Garmin, the Fenix 8 (affiliate link), is really way too much fitness watch for what I do, but it played a big role in keeping me honest about my running on my 66lb weight loss journey. Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but I very much ended up geeking out over all the various health and performance metrics the Fenix kept track of both during my runs and in every day life - I love pushing myself to make my fitness age go down and my VO2 max go up. This watch rarely leaves my wrist except to charge, and I have to say one of its nicest elements is how infrequently it needs to be charged given its 14-day battery life.

Headset: Shokz OpenRun Pro 2

Call me a bit of a paranoid old man, but I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of completely blocking out the world while running. Closing out an entire dimension of sensory perception while moving seems like… a poor idea to say the least, especially in a big city. That’s why I’ve always been a big fan of Shokz’s bone conduction technology, which leaves your ear-holes (is that the right word?) open while transmitting music directly to your eardrums via bone. The OpenRun Pro 2 (affiliate link) is my third set of cans from Shokz, and Shokz get bonus points from me for having sent me a B-stock replacement headset for free when my first set flew off somewhere after I got hit by a car.

Phone Holder: Flipbelt

There is no other way I would rather carry my phone and keys when I run now. I used to carry my phone in an armband and my keys in my pocket when I ran. Though I could deal with the less-than-ideal light jangles as I ran, the armband became less than ideal once I started running without a shirt and wanted to avoid taglines. Enter the Flipbelt (affiliate link). It’s an elastic belt that can fit your phone and keys without issue and keep them from shifting around as you run. By putting on around your waist, you can avoid getting an extra tan line just to carry your phone.

Clothing: Amazon Essentials Performance Shorts, T-Shirt

Maybe one day I’ll end up getting fancier workout gear, but at least for now, I am more than content with Amazon’s private label workout shirts (affiliate link) and shorts (affiliate link). Made from the same type of sweat-wicking, quick dry performance fabrics as many other pieces of exercise apparel you’ll find out there, Amazon’s exercise clothes have served me well through years of running without breaking the bank. I can’t imagine these being inadequate for anyone except the most discerning of performance athletes.

Shades: Roka Havana

In a sunny region like Southern California, a solid pair of running sunglasses is worth its weight in gold - the last thing you want to have to do is let squinting bring you out of your running flow state. The Roka Havana was the first pair of running sunglasses I found that both A) provided a secure fit and B) looked stylish; A often comes at the price of B, with many running sunglasses making you look like fucking Cyclops from X-Men. The Havana looks like a sporty cover of the classic aviator shape, and Roka’s particular design touches keep it on my face effortlessly.

Fragrance: Missoni Wave

I’ve mentioned the Missoni Wave (affiliate link) in a past piece (linked below) making the same point about it, but I wanted to reiterate my love for the fragrance here. The Wave has combination of smooth and fresh very similar to the Chanel Allure Homme Sport which makes it very suited for running, but at a fraction (~1/3-1/4) of the price. Can’t imagine running without it anymore, so now I can smell delicious at the beach, too, like all the hotties do!

Shoes: Depends

I’ve discussed them in detail in other pieces like those linked below so I won’t pontificate for too long here, but needless to say, shoes are an absolutely critical element of the running experience. You can be discerning about what kind of shoes you wear in what scenario - e.g. racing shoes, recovery shoes, etc. - or you can be like me and just wear super cushioned shoes all the time. Either way, it’s important to put some thought into what kind of shoes you wear when running.

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I ended 2025 with two running shoes: the Brooks Glycerin Max and the Hoka Skyward X. And by “ended 2025”, I mean that I ran for the last time in 2025 on December 2nd then proceeded to not run for over a month until January 6th came around.

Lesson learned: I really have to find a way to keep running regularly even when I’m on vacation. That 1 month pause while traveling fucking killed me, degraded not my respiratory endurance (which stayed fine somehow!) but my leg endurance to significant enough degree that I struggled to get even a single proper run in for close to a month. I walked so much while traveling and even at home, I walk 4 miles roundtrip each commute, so I thought my leg muscles would have some degree of endurance. But nope, my peroneal/calf muscle, specifically those on my longer left leg, started to kill me. At the very minimum, I had lost the muscle memory of the gait that had allowed to manage my (problematic since birth) imbalanced leg lengths while running.

As part of my recovery process, I ended up discarding two shoes as potential contributors to my delayed recovery and ongoing leg issues. The first was a pair of Brooks Glycerin Max with over ~400-430 running miles on them; though I would’ve liked to pushed them farther, they’d seen enough especially they had seen me through the bulk of my weight loss. The second was a pair of Hoka Clifton 9s with an unknown amount of walking miles on them; based on my travels alone they had a minimum 250 miles on them, but I’d been regularly walking in them for 6 months or so beforehand.

And to replace them, I… bought a bunch of shoes for running and walking. Two to start, then two additional - one each time for running and one each time for walking. These added to the one running shoe I had left in my shoe rotation.

The Carryover: Hoka Skyward X

The Skyward X is the Unc of the set, as the youth might say, already having carried me for ~180 miles of running last year - hence why it look so dirty in the shoe above. Some may find it massive and unwieldy, but with so much cushioning and the carbon plate inside, to me it’s somehow both fast and incredibly comfortable at the same time. I like the white and blue colorway I have, but wish it stayed clean. I do wonder how it’ll feel once retired to walking duties, however - I’ve never really walked in a carbon plated shoe, and to my understanding, they’re not the best for your muscles.

The Heir Invincible: Nike Vomero Plus

I’ve had exceptionally good luck with running shoes, and one of my favorite running shoes so far has been the Nike Invincible Run v2. It was famous for its thick, monolithic stack of ZoomX foam - the same light, fun, bouncy foam used in Nike’s record-setting performance shoes like the Alphafly and Vaporfly. v3 wasn’t as well received, but when I heard the Vomero Plus was coming out as the spiritual successor to the Invincible series with a massive ZoomX slab, I was stoked. So I got this! I’ve only taken on 1-2 runs so far, but it’s already proving to be a bouncy, fun ride, at least when my semi-injured leg can handle it (see below). I look forward to flying in it once I’m fully back in the swing of things.

A New Frontier: ASICS Superblast 2

So after returning to running in January 2026 after taking almost all of December 2025 off, my left lower calf/upper ankle started swelling and stiffening very quickly on runs. Even after discarding the well-worn Glycerin Max, the issue persisted in the Vomero Plus due to the massive foam stack’s inherent instability. I was recommended the Superblast 2 (affiliate link) while my calf normalizes, as its large foam stack is firmer and wider and thus more inherently stable than that of the Vomero Plus. I debated waiting three more months for the Superblast 3, but given how hard the SB2 has been to find in my size in general on the occasion I curiously looked into it, I quickly jumped on the opportunity to purchase it at a 10% discount. It turned out to be well worth it when it helped me run my first solid run in 2026.

The Walkers: Nike Vomero 18 & Hoka Clifton 10

I bought these one by one alongside a running shoe, the Nike Vomero 18 with the Vomero Plus and the Hoka Clifton 10 with the Superblast 2. The Clifton I know works for me as both a running and walking shoe based on past experience - the 8 was my first Big Boy running shoes and the 9 served me well as a commute and travel shoe - so it may become my travel shoe for when I know I’ll want to run while abroad. The Vomero 18 I got as my commute shoe, to be occasionally rotated with the Clifton; it’s in the same line as the Vomero Plus but has a layer of more firm and stable ReactX foam to make it more palatable for walking.

Summer Replacement for Skyward X: ?

The Skyward X started the year with ~180 miles on them already, meaning that by about late summer, they should be due for a replacement. I will probably replace it with of a ‘super-trainer’ of a similar ilk, with massive stack height and maybe even a carbon fiber plate. Maybe the Hoka Skyward X 2 or the ASICS Superblast 3? The already-out Hoka Cielo X1 2.0 and ASICS Megablast also sound cool as well. To be determined, we’ll see how the reviews look for upcoming shoes.

**There is another last minute addition to this arsenal that was rage-bought after a particular set of events, I will write about it in a separate piece!

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If you’d told me a decade ago that I’d be into running to the degree that I’d be running at the beach three times a week voluntarily, I would’ve called you crazy. My legs have never been the most reliable part of my body to the extent I wore a brace on my right leg as a toddler - I’ll tell my Forrest Gump story here one day - and I have the distinct memory of the one successful run I had in my college years leading to a solid 2-3 days of stiff movement as every muscle in my body ached. I was an elliptical boy.

Yet here I am today, being annoyed with myself for failing to beat a run PR on a routine run despite regularly hitting paces that past-me would’ve been super proud to hit. Yes, somehow my never-satisfied mentality that I always applied academically and creative has come to apply to my running. To be clear, I’m not a competitive runner by any means. I will never be one of the fastest runners or the longest range runners. I can’t imagine myself ever craving speed enough to splurge on Nike Alphaflys or Vaporflys, nor do I have any desire to run any distance longer than a 10K consistently.

But! I geek out over my running gear all the same, and I will absolutely fight to set a new PR whenever I can. And while I’ll dig further into other elements of my running gear inventory another day, here I want to focus on what is arguably the most important part of a runner’s arsenal.

Running Shoes.

I like to half-joke that all runners check out other runners while running, and if they’re not checking out the other person, they’re checking out the other person’s running shoes. And much like the running people we check out, running shoes come in all different shapes and colors and sizes, and, again, as with people, different people prioritize different things when it comes to what they look for in a pair of running shoes. It could be speed, ground feel, stability, aesthetics, or any number of granular characteristics.

For me, the one characteristic to rule them all when it comes to running shoes, the quality I prioritize most when I shop for running shoes is:

Cushion.

(… here is where I stop applying the people to running shoes metaphor)

My general philosophy is that if I’m gonna beat myself up to stay in shape, you’re god damn right I’m gonna feel like I’m stepping on giant fluffy clouds while I do it. I don’t give a shit about sense of contact with the ground, I don’t give a shit about optimizing speed (e.g. carbon plates), and, surprisingly, I don’t even care about the shoes looking exactly the way I want them to. I want my legs to feel as little of the impact of running as possible, and in the process, I want the experience to feel maximally fun and bouncy. As for the seeming inconsistency between my desire to constantly get faster versus my prioritization of cushion over speed, my thought process has that if I’m comfortable, I will best be able to focus on my running and body in a way that enables me to run faster.

My Favorite SUPER PLUSHY Cushioned Shoes So Far

This decision process has led me to the following pairs of running shoes that I’ve really enjoyed running in and have helped me set personal record after personal record. If not the exact shoe, I link here the latest equivalent to whatever version in the line I have bought:

1. Hoka Clifton 8 (affiliate link): My first Big Boy serious running shoes. After starting running with a super barebones pair of Saucony Whatevers, these shoes are how I learned what a massive difference nicely designed, well-cushioned shoes can make. I’ve since moved past them, but a pair of Hoka Clifton 9s were my serious walking shoes for a bit and did 300+ miles with me in Europe and Korea in December 2025.

2. Nike Invincible Run v2: A giant slab of the same foam that is on Nike’s cutting edge Vaporfly and Alphafly shoes, ZoomX, forms the foundation of these shoes. This results in an incredibly bouncy and fun pair of shoes that return a lot of energy as you run. I started really setting a lot of personal records in these shoes. Although the v3 was a shift away from this direction, I’ve been told the Nike Vomero 18 Plus linked here are the spiritual successors to the Invincible Run v2s, and I plan to add them to my rotation at some point.

3. Brooks Glycerin Max (affiliate link): Yet another pair of shoes that are basically just massive slabs of foam. I feel like they took a few weeks to ‘break in’, but once they did, I’ve found the Glycerin Max to be an optimal balance between cushion, energy return, and stability. These are still in the running rotation with the shoe I’m about to discuss below.

4. Hoka Skyward X (affiliate link): The latest addition to my rotation, these now trade off on a bi-weekly basis with the Glycerin Max. The Skyward X take Hoka’s maximalist philosophy to the next level, with a slab of foam so thick that it needs a carbon plate not for speed but for stability. These feel somehow fast and comfortable to run in.

The Running Shoe Circle of Life

At this point, any of these running shoes I buy have a pretty set pattern of use. I buy them and use my Garmin to track their mileage from mile 0. While I used to target 400 miles for running shoes before retiring them to walking duty, I now target 500 since I weigh less. At retirement mileage, the shoes go into commuter shoe duty, where I wear them to work and back. What’s fascinating is that just by virtue of motion mechanics, I don’t seem to wear out the bottom of my shoes much in the 500 miles of running, but as soon as I start putting in some walking miles they show some serious wear. Once the bottoms of the shoes have worn out, they briefly get used as beater ‘local errand’ shoes before they get tossed.

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My very first laptop was the first-gen unibody MacBook Pro 15” when I was in high school. If I recall correctly, the only reason my parents were able to get it for me was because we had gotten a bit of settlement money from when my dad and I had been rear-ended as he was driving me to school one morning. We were pretty poor back then - like, no health insurance and repossessed car poor - so I doubt I would’ve been able to get one otherwise.

I count my blessings that my first laptop was a serious and capable laptop, not some B-tier no-name Gateway or such, and it set a high reference baseline for laptop ease-of-use from the beginning. Plus, my video editing hobby at the time meant that the machine’s horsepower would be put to proper use (and said hobby eventually helped me get into film school!).

I’ve owned several laptops since, both PC and Mac (sorry, Linux fans), and now I’m one of those dorks who has minimum two laptops at any given time, a personal laptop and a work laptop. It’s interesting to observe how the characteristics of laptops I prioritize (and thus might be willing to shell out a little extra for) have shifted over time starting with that laptop. I really didn’t see it coming, and the characteristics I prioritize now, I would’ve rolled my eyes at and found stupid back then.

More Power - MacBook Pro 17”

At the time, the idea that I had a portable video editing rig in my MBP 15”, with which I could theoretically sit down and edit together a video anytime anywhere, was incredibly appealing. A few years into owning the MBP 15” it started to flake out on me regularly a few months before its 3-year AppleCare coverage ended. After going in for repair 3 times without the issue being going away - I believe it was the screen blacking out periodically - Apple offered to replace it with an entirely new machine. They wanted to replace it with the then-current 15” MBP, but when I mentioned I needed the ExpressCard slot (which I legitimately did, to use a card for extra FireWire ports), they offered to replace it with the 17” MBP as the 15” did not have it.

Hell. Yes. The 17” came with a better GPU and CPU which I was more than happy to take, and just by virtue of availability, I ended up getting one with an anti-glare matte screen option. So basically, I got an upgrade from an old dual core machine to a brand spanking new quad core machine with a better screen for free. It was a monster of a machine and handled any and all video, audio, and games work I threw at it, and as a bonus, it even had pretty rock solid battery life, among the best for machines of its size if I recall correctly.

Less Weight and Space - Surface Pro 3

That was nice and all when I lived near campus, as it wasn’t much labor to lug a hulking chunk of aluminum skateboarding distance, a mere few blocks to campus. The equation changed, however, when I graduated and moved farther off campus, to a distance from which I had to take the Metro to commute to my job at a campus research lab. I quickly tired of lugging my 17” hunk of aluminum back and forth between home and campus, and sought a more compact machine I could commute with.

Enter the Surface Pro 3. Its tablet-to-laptop convertible nature appealed to me, especially the handwritten note taking potential it offered with its stylus (though I did never end up using that functionality much). Based on my research, it was very compact and offered decent, if not the greatest, battery life, and having grown up building PCs, that it was a PC not a Mac did not faze me. So a Surface Pro 3 with Type Cover and Surface Pen became my daily driver.

More Battery - Thinkpad X1 Carbon

That Surface Pro 3 got me from LA to Philly for grad school, and through the first and most of second year of grad school. However, by that point, the less than great battery life of the Surface Pro 3 struggled to get me through all of a class day; this problem had not been an issue at my research lab job that was bound to the desk most of the day, but manifested starkly when I had to hop between classes and meetings.

I noticed my university offered a sweet deal on an Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon with 3-year accidental damage coverage. I quickly jumped on this deal. To this day, it’s one of my favorite laptops; it’s lightweight and durable with great battery life, which is about all you can ask for from a laptop for most uses. Furthermore, I ended up using the accidental damage a mere few months into ownership after spilling coffee on the laptop, and just by virtue of timing and when the new generation of the X1 Carbon became available to my university, they ended up upgrading me to the newer generation machine! I apparently have good Warranty Luck!

Stability, Audio/Video Quality, and Battery Life - MacBook Air

The X1 Carbon, too, lasted me a few years, until I started my online MBA program. It was then when my MBA classmates, who I had to meet with regularly through Zoom, basically said that the quality of my audio and video feed was shit. When surveyed on machine types, of my teammates on Macs of various kinds seemed to have no issue with their audio or video quality. Furthermore, it became a crapshoot on my X1 as to whether my work would save and reopen as expected whenever I closed and reopened my laptop. At best, my work would have saved and closed, meaning I just had to reopen it; at worst, it wouldn’t have saved and been nuked, leading me to pray to the autorecovery gods that I hadn’t lost too much work. Not great at all.

So this led me to once more return to Team Mac with an M2 MacBook Air. Despite my initial skepticism about the ARM-based Apple Silicon processors, I’m now completely sold on the platform and its stability, performance, and battery life. The machine has capably handled everything I’ve thrown at it, including video editing, and battery life has been pretty fantastic as someone who came from PC Land. Stability-wise, I never worry about closing and opening my laptop, ever - as should be the case with a laptop. And I never had any complaints from any of my classmates about my Zoom audio/video once I switched over.

So I Take Back Everything Young Me Said

When I was… a young boy… (to the tune of My Chemical Romance)

I was all about the chunky, powerful machines, looking with contempt upon so-called ‘executives’ who for whatever reason were satisfied with low-powered machines just because they were thin and light. Looking back, I now see I was totally a computer nerd/wannabe filmmaker version of the city resident that buys an SUV because of the outdoorsy image - I rarely actually used the full power of the mobile video editing workstation I liked to think I had, much as a city-living SUV owner rarely takes their car into the wilderness.

As time has passed, I’ve come to accept that the bulk of my work does not call for any kind of significant computing power. Instead, I now recognize that what matters is having the appropriate computing power and rock solid stability capable of handling straightforward tasks with zero hiccups. And the less mass, weight, and space I need to manage to have such computing power available to me, the better. Realistically, the most demanding thing I do on a computer these days 99% of the time is having a thousand tabs open in a web browser, and my MacBook Air is more than capable of handling that. Especially with the rise of cloud computing allowing me to handle anything seriously chunky on a remote machine, I can’t imagine my general computer philosophy changing to want something heavier for the sake of power.

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People managing comes with the fun, creative parts - like strategizing and orchestrating efficient ways to complete tasks - and the not so fun, rote parts - like approving timesheets. It’s for the latter reason, as well as the need to be available should emergency strike, that I’ll be bringing my work computer on my winter trip as my primary laptop. However, most of my hobbies also involve me doing something on a computer, and I really try to avoid conducting significant personal business on my work laptop. Not just for the sake of privacy, which is usually the most obvious reason to keep such matters separate, but I also want to avoid the possibility of my employer having grounds to make claims on what I do on my own time just because I happened to work on it on a work computer. Better safe than sorry, right?

That meant I had to figure out how I could bring some kind of personal compute setup alongside my work laptop without, well, carrying around a whole second laptop. Certain options were pretty obvious and predetermined given the hardware I already had, but I also took the opportunity to properly setup my setup (pun) for long term success as I figured things out; after all, I do fully plan to travel far more than I have in a while starting in 2026. Yes, yes, part of it was an excuse to get new toys, but some of this new gear has already proven its worth on my recent short trip to Arizona that served as a practice run for my big winter journey.

Let’s dive into each of the components of my new light personal compute setup designed to be travel friendly. Affiliate links below, either for the specific product I bought or a contemporary analogue at time of writing.

iPad Pro 11” (2021) - Computing Device

I got my iPad super cheap in 2022 after the subsequent generation came out. Its primary use since then has been for viewing sheet music, and I opened OneNote on it to see that the last time I did any serious work on it was late December 2022, right as I prepared to start my MBA program. It’s one of the early M1 iPads so it has plenty of compute to handle most if not all reasonable productivity related tasks, and as with most iPads, the battery life is fantastic; I feel like the charge cycle count on this still has to be sub-100 or at least in the lower 100s, that’s how infrequently I’ve used it. I’m excited for it to have a chance to really flex its muscles beyond serving as a glorified eReader.

JETech Rotating Case for iPad Pro - Versatile Case

I did already have a case for my iPad, but it had some issues. For one, all the light blue rubber had started to yellow, making it look gross. For two, its stand functionality only worked in landscape orientation, which wasn’t ideal given that the primary productivity purpose of the iPad while traveling was intended to be writing; documents feel more organic and less constrained when read in portrait orientation, y’know? So I discovered this case that lets me prop up my iPad in both portrait and landscape orientations. PSA: It is difficult to find reasonably priced cases with the functionality you want for older model iPads, so it’s in your best interest to lock down the case format you want as early as possible in an iPad’s lifecycle.

Nuphy Air75 v3 - Low Profile Bluetooth Mechanical Keyboard

What’s the point of claiming a ‘light’ setup if you carry a keyboard that in combination with your iPad takes up as much space as another laptop? you may reasonably ask. I make a slight tradeoff in total mass so as to avail myself of a mechanical keyboard that I can use both with my iPad on the move as well as with my work laptop once I’m posted up at my parents’ place for a bit. As I’ve detailed elsewhere, mechanical keyboards make such a major difference in the typing sensation and can make what would be an otherwise ordinary writing experience feel so much more responsive, satisfying, and even cathartic. I wrote this piece with the Nuphy Air75 v3 during my recent Arizona hop and I unhesitatingly give it my stamp of approval; it’s a slim, low profile keyboard with lovely build quality, but the travel distance on the keyswitches legitimately do feel full-size. Read more about my love for mechanical keyboards here:

Logitech Pebble Mouse 2 - Compact Bluetooth Mouse

The Logitech MX Anywhere series is by far the most commonly recommended compact mouse, but I had a few concerns with it. It was expensive, and I felt that its ergonomic friendliness actually detracted from its portability by making it an awkward shape to stash in bags and pockets. I then discovered the Pebble mouse, which is both 25% the price of the MX Anywhere and a more easily manageable flat shape that better fits into, for example, the zippered pocket on a laptop sleeve. The only element of it I’d consider a downside is that it’s powered by AA batteries instead of being rechargeable via USB-C, but given how insanely long the battery life is, to the extent I will probably lose or break it before I need to swap out the battery, this shortcoming can be forgiven.

Anker Prime 100W USB-C Charger - Compact Charger

I’ve written about this charger in a previous post, and my love for the product still stands. It’s a compact little charger that can handle pretty much anything you throw at it, laptop or tablet or whatever else, and its three ports mean you can carry just this one charger and still charge multiple things simultaneously. I carry two USB-C to USB-C cables and a couple of USB-A to whatever (e.g Lightning, micro-USB) cables with it and I’m set to handle pretty much whatever I or someone around me might need to charge. Read more about my compact charger and other tips for packing light here:

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Laptop keyboards generally feel like shit. Hell, I’d even go so far as to say most consumer keyboards overall feel like shit, and even the ones that feel ok often lack a satisfying sound. Sometimes, it’s hard to not look at old-school typewriters and long for that same degree of near-cathartic auditory and tactile feedback - a little bit of click, clack, motherf*cker!

If only you could have the satisfaction of properly physical typing experience in addition to all the advantages that accompany digital word processing, right? Enter: mechanical keyboards. Unlike the most common type of computer keyboards where keys are activated by pressing down on a bubble underneath the keycap that completes a circuit, mechanical keyboards have physical switches for each key. Each switch contains a combination of parts inside that provide a particular sound and sensation when pressed. These switches can range from being very easy to press and silent, to being more resistant and clicky. With the right switches and keycaps, it actually does become entirely feasible to simulate something more akin to a chunky typewriter experience with a mechanical keyboard (For more geeky details, check out some of the sites in my list of resources at the bottom of the page).

And all that makes typing, whether for writing or coding or whatever, a far more satisfying and personalized experience. Even gamers can choose mechanical keyboards with fast response that can give them a split-second edge as they play. The only time I’m willing to go without a mechanical keyboard is when portability is a priority. I’ve considered getting a slim mechanical keyboard with low-profile switches for on-the-go applications, but at that point, even a slim mechanical keyboard feels like it goes against the ultimate goal of portability; might as well just stick to the laptop keyboard if it’s just temporary.

If you’re considering buying a mechanical keyboard, here are what I consider the core decision criteria you should keep in mind as you look around.

Size/Form Factor

Form factor directly dictates size. The balancing act you have to play when choosing a form factor for your mechanical keyboard is between A) how much real estate you want your keyboard to take up on your desk and B) how much you want to rely on hotkeys to do basic functions. I’m personally a fan of the 75% form factor, which drops the number pad on the right side but retains a lot of the other ‘secondary’ keys like the F-keys, Delete, and Page Up/Down. Unless you’re in a particular profession that demands a lot of number pad use, you probably don’t need it. The reason I don’t go to even smaller form factors like a 60% is that at that point, you end up having to use fn+ hotkeys just to do basic things like use the F1-F12 keys; however, some people do prefer the hotkey approach over additional keys, with the philosophy that it lets them do more without moving their hands.

Feel/Sound

As I briefly alluded to above, the switches below each keycap are the key contributors to the feel and sound of your keyboard. There are three major types of switches: 1) Linear, which generally provide little resistance, 2) Tactile, which have some kind of a resistance bump in the middle of their actuation to provide a particular ‘feel’, and 3) Clicky, which are similar to tactile switches but often heavier and, most importantly, louder. It’s possible to get switch sample sets to try out different types, but generally it’s very difficult to get a feel for a switch unless you have a keyboard fully properly outfitted with them to type on. When in doubt, I find tactile switches to be a great middle ground option to start at. While clicky switches are the loudest, this isn’t to say tactile and linear switches are somehow silent, as they will still make sounds as they bottom out and/or interact with the PCB inside the keyboard. See the video below for a quick, 15-second comparison of keyboard switch sounds across the three broad types:

Build

I like metal keyboards. Often CNC-milled from a solid slab of metal like aluminum, they have a nice heft compared to keyboards made of plastic and get jostled around on your desk less easily. Nicer keyboards will also come with all sorts of extra padding and parts inside the body of the keyboard that are intended to improve the typing experience and modify the sound of keystrokes in particular ways - if you want to put in the time, you’re also able to disassemble a keyboard and insert additional padding yourself as well. After years of using my Keychron K2, I recently upgraded to a Keychron Q1 Pro (affiliate link) for its metal body and I absolutely love the sturdy build and refined typing experience it provides.

Connectivity

Gamers and their ilk can be purists about using only wired connections so as to minimize lag time between keypress and on-screen action. But if all you’re using your keyboard for is office work, there’s really no reason to be so conservative. Bluetooth keyboards not only mean less cable management but easier hot-swapping between devices, as most such keyboards will allow you to easy swap connections between multiple devices. Such functionality comes in handy if you want to be able to, for example, switch from typing on your laptop to the Mac mini connected to your TV to input a password or over to your phone to slam out a text real quick. I straight up have never purchased any mechanical keyboards that are not wireless, and I don’t have any plans to.

Recommended Resources

mechanicalkeyboards.com - One of the best selections of mechanical keyboards and related parts and accessories.

Tom’s Guide roundup of the best mechanical keyboards

A Complete Guide to Mechanical Keyboards by Smashing Magazine - If I really got you in the mood to geek out.

r/MechanicalKeyboards subreddit - To find inspiration and ask questions!

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In my undergraduate years, I majored in game design within my university’s film school and minored in music business through the university’s music school. Accordingly, I had the fortune of learning both the art and business of all three media forms - games, film, and music - from some of the best profs I could have hoped for. Through the course of such coursework, I noticed a certain parallel structure in the business models of these industries that’s obfuscated by industry-specific jargon. Stated explicitly it almost sounds like a no-duh, but regardless of the particular industry, the entertainment business seems to center around money people (label, publisher, studio) funding creative people (musician, developer, filmmaker) to make a product, then after release, those money people being provided recoupment of their investment and some portion of the profits and/or intellectual property.

As I pondered the possibility of starting a Substack, I quickly noticed a similar parallel between Substack and Youtube. Both platforms center around creating long-form and short-form content to attract followers/subscribers and craft a creator identity. This thought stuck around in my head to the degree that part of me snarkily wanted to open my first few Substack pieces with a “Hey guyysss, welcome to my channnneeellll” and close them with “If you liked this post, remember to like and subscribe!”

I started to self-deprecatingly joke that much as they say that politics is showbiz for ugly people, Substack is Youtube for ugly people. Hahahaha. Yes, I’m allowed to make that joke because I’m calling myself ugly, too.

I have zero desire to start a Youtube channel anytime soon. And that’s knowing that with the video, audio, tech, and editing chops I have, I’d get to skip over a lot of basic tier 1 hurdles and questions that would slow down many. So given their similarity in business models and my confidence in my technical skills, why was I so much more open to starting a Substack than a Youtube channel?

I don’t enjoy being on recordings

I know I ultimately sound and look fine most of the time, but I really do not like seeing myself on video or hearing myself on audio. At work I go, gaaahh turn it off, when the conference room camera has me in view. My distaste for seeing/hearing myself in recordings holds true to the extent that even when I know I come off pretty good compared to many like in a recording of me singing at karaoke, I’d still rather just not see myself. It’s way too easy to get overly scrutinous of myself in a recording.

Video demands heightened perfection

With video, there’s a lot more factors you have to get right than in writing. In writing, the only “channel” you have to worry about is the flow of the message in words. But when it comes to video, not only is there the message flow, but there are the visuals, the sound, and the flow of the visuals and the sound to edit together. It just means more to stress out about, more things that can go wrong, and more you get to get perfect to relay exactly what you want to relay.

I like being in the moment

I’ve long stopped taking long videos at concerts. I might take a quick 15-20 second clip to mark, “Hey, I’m here!” for friends, parents, or social media, but you will never see me recording an entire song - who’s gonna watch it later anyway? I believe that the act of trying to capture a moment inherently takes one out of it, and making videos whether about one’s experience of a location or a product often requires said videos be captured in that moment of experience. I’d much rather be in the moment with something and write about it later.

I like writing

I genuinely enjoy writing. Plus, I’d like to think I’m decent at it and that it comes to me more naturally than it does for many. As mentioned above, I have decent video-making chops, but I enjoy some elements of video-making, I do not enjoy all of it - I like editing, but I don’t really like the on-location element of it since I prefer to be in the moment and hate stressing about capturing it perfectly. I really do enjoy all elements of writing now, even editing - which my younger self despised, thinking, “It’s already great, why do I have to edit it?”

No Youtube plans… for now

That all explains why I decided to go Substack over Youtube. In addition to all of the above, there is also just the simple matter of the fact that writing is fundamentally less labor intensive than putting together a video. Maybe if my Substack takes off and becomes the start of a media empire - here comes the Danny Kim Cinematic Universe! - I’ll be tempted to figure out how to get a Youtube channel going. But for now, I’ll stick to Substack.

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