I’ve been taking photos and traveling for years, however, have recently made it my intent to take my photography and content creation to the next level. I dream of doing content creation full-time while I travel, and as such I’ve committed to the gear that will get me there.

Now that I’m working on this blog and more creative content for social media, it’s been necessary to have the right tools for the job. I agree with many people who say you don’t need the most expensive gear to start – and you don’t. In my case, I’ve been doing this for a long time with the gear I could afford and felt like I was ready to take the next step with my creative work.

Note: While I’m not a pro, I’ve been fascinated with cameras for YEARS – I’ve been researching models and specs since I was 12 with just as much enthusiasm as I do now. This has been a serious interest for a long long time. I’ve also been fortunate enough to try out numerous models and invest in some quality gear to take me to the next step in my creative journey.

With that said here’s my 2024 gear list!

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links which earn me a small commission at no cost to you should you decide to purchase any items here.

Main Camera Body – Canon 6D Mark II

I’ve been a Canon fan for years, and have a deep appreciation for both Canon and Sony. My first travel camera was a Sony a6000, followed by a Canon 7D.

Why the Canon 6D Mark II? Well, it’s one of the best cameras out there for the budget. The 6D is a full-frame, lightweight DSLR that works great in low light. It weighs less than Canon’s 5D models, and both advanced amateurs and professionals can capture stunning images.

A few features I love are the stellar autofocus capabilities, smartphone connection, built-in GPS, and competitive battery life. I only just recently acquired this camera and all I can say is that I’m totally in love with it.

If you have a little more budget to invest in a camera, both the Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon R5 are what I’d personally go for. If I wasn’t committed to Canon lenses already, I’d be looking at the Sony A7R III or Sony A7IV. Right now, I think this is just more camera than what I need at this point.

If you’re trying to save some money and get a good camera, I recommend the Sony a6000. I used it for years and it’s lightweight, super portable, and captures great photos. Nearly all of the images on my Instagram from 2018 – 2022 were taken with this camera and a 16-50mm lens which I have since gifted to my sister.

Main Camera Lens – Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L is USM

After extensive research as well as insight from landscape photographer Jennelle Marcereau (aka basically my stepmom), I committed to Canon’s 24-105mm f/4 L is USM lens for my primary travel lens.

While this lens is somewhat heavy, the versatility makes it so worth it. In addition to being dust and moisture-resistant (helpful for us creative risk-takers), it works fabulously for up-close, mid-range, and mild-zoom images. The built-in stabilization is massive as well, as I’m often taking photos while in motion.

This lens is also known for its quality autofocus technology for sharp, detailed images.

Overall, I love it. The images I’ve taken from this lens are super crisp, quick, and quality.

In the future a few lenses I’d like to add to my kit are the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM and Canon EF 16–35mm f/2.8L III USM Lens.

Primary Drone – DJI Mini 3 Pro

My DJI Mini 3 Pro has easily been one of the best investments I’ve ever made. I love love LOVE this thing. I will gladly sell you on the Mini 3 Pro as being one of the very best drones on the market for the price.

Not only does it shoot in 4K, 24fps, and 60fps, but it also shoots vertically (for those awesome social media shots) and has crazy image stabilization. I’ve flown this thing in 30+ mph winds and this guy didn’t even break a sweat and you would never know from the footage it captured.

The range is also perfect for more daring drone pilots wanting to get those stunning landscape shots, as it can fly within up to 18km.



A few other perks are its focus track feature (i.e. how everyone gets their drone to follow their car in videos), obstacle-sensing, and extended battery life. Because it’s so lightweight, you technically don’t need to register it like you would with larger drones and it’s small enough to slip into a purse.

If you do consider purchasing a drone for travel, I’d highly recommend this one plus the FlyMore combo. The remote control and extra batteries make allll the difference when you’re out shooting, believe me.

Backup Drone – DJI Mavic Mini

The DJI Mavic Mini was my second drone (the DJI Mavic 2 was my first drone and I still miss it!), and my first mini. I’d highly recommend this as a starter drone if you’re not ready to splurge more on a Mavic or a Mini 3 or 4 Pro.

This thing is insanely lightweight at a little over .5 lbs, which is about the same as your average smartphone. As such, you also aren’t required to register it. This also makes a wonderful travel drone.

The battery life is great as well, at roughly 35 minutes each, and the video quality is 2.7K. It also has great stabilization and has been very resistant to the cold temperatures I’ve flown it in.

Fun fact, I crashed this drone and it fell into an icy river in my 1st ten minutes. 6 hours in a bag of rice later, it was as good as new and has worked great since then. I’d recommend being more careful than I was, but wanted to mention it as a test of its durability in my reckless hands.

While I love this drone, it does miss a lot of features that I use constantly in the Mini 3 Pro, with long-range distance, weather durability, and obstacle-sensing being the biggest ones.

Smartphone Gimbal – DJI Osmo Mobile 3

I have yet to try anything from DJI that wasn’t top-notch, and the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 is no exception. If you’re primarily working with a smartphone then this little device is an absolute must.

Just turn your phone’s video settings to 4K (or whatever your best option is), attach it to this gimbal, and go wild. Your footage will be as smooth as glass even if you’re running full speed across a beach or driving on what could barely be considered a road.

This device is portable, lightweight, and has a solid battery life for long days capturing content.

While I know there are newer models out, I bought this back in 2019, and it has been everything I’ve needed since then, so I haven’t felt the need to update.

Camera Bag – Manfrotto Metropolitan Backpack

I searched and reviewed many backpacks before settling on this one in 2023 for my travels around Europe. This bag is my purse, and you’ll rarely see me leave the house without it.

The core features it has that I needed were a laptop pouch, a protected camera pouch (especially one that opens in the front), space for everyday items (like a notebook, pens, small jacket, cords, snacks), and additional organization pockets. This bag thus far has checked nearly every box for me.

My only real complaint with this backpack is that it doesn’t have a water bottle pouch and is pretty clumsy to attach a tripod too. In photos, you’ll see one of the side pockets unzipped and whatever is in it secured with a strap on the top, however, I haven’t liked this setup.

Thus, note to self with my next backpack purchase is to keep these features in mind. The protected camera pouch is also quite small – it has worked well with 1 camera, 1 lens, and 1 drone (with batteries), however, it fills up a little too fast.

I’m on the lookout for a better bag, so if you have any suggestions please leave a comment for me on this post or shoot me an email!

Lighting – ULANZI Portable LED Camera Light

I recently picked up two of these ULANZI Portable LED Camera Lights to experiment with cinematic lighting and photography. They’ve quickly become one of my favorite parts of my camera kit! They’re small, lightweight, yet very powerful and versatile – especially for the price. I picked these up for less than $20 each.

With one setting, you can choose a regular light white range from 2500K(warm) to 9000K(cold), and dimmable from 0% -100%. You can also switch to the color setting to achieve a 360° RGB range of color options. My favorites have been between 0° – 20°, such as in the photos below. I’m eagerly looking forward to doing more work with lights.

I also love the soft diffusion these already powerful lights carry, and they’d make an awesome addition to a vlogging kit too.

While I don’t have a stand setup to attach these to, the magnets on the back come in handy for positioning them in a pinch! You can also attach one directly to the top of your camera and shoot for between 2 – 10 hours, depending on the light strength you’re using while shooting and how much battery it zaps.

You can find these on Amazon here.

Card Reader – USB-C SD Card Reader

For a long while, I was working with numerous different types of SD cards, and this card reader I grabbed from Amazon has been awesome. These days, I only use micro-SD cards with adaptors for my gear, however, you never know when you’ll have a collaborative day and need to download from someone else’s SD card!

This thing has held up well for me, but I’m not gonna lie it does feel pretty cheap and I’m sure there are better ones on the market.

SD Cards – SanDisk Extreme 256GB

I know a lot of photographers travel with multiple SD cards and fill them up quickly, but I’ve found that I just haven’t needed to do that. I shoot content pretty regularly, but make a habit of backing everything up within a couple of days of getting new content, thus my SD cards are always almost empty.

With my new camera, I’ve switched to using mini SDs just to keep it simple. By using a simple adaptor (I have several in my camera bag), I can easily use the same SD cards for both my drone and camera. This thing is also really fast for shooting and working with 4K video.

External Hardrive – WD 2TB Portable External Hard Drive

This thing has been by my side for several years now and has been invaluable for both work and creative projects. As I move more into video content, I plan to get something a little more durable like the LaCie Rugged Mini Portable Harddrive.

Oh, and I recommend having two hard drives that you back up all your content on so if something goes wrong with your one and only, you haven’t lost years’ worth of work in a split second.

Screen Protectors – DJI Mini 3 Pro & Canon 6D Mark II Protectors

I tend to be pretty clumsy and break things easily. The amount of times I’ve dropped my phone and shattered my screen protector is proof enough that I need to have these things protected at all times.

Currently, I’m using an Orzero Screen Protector for my drone remote and an iDaPro Screen Protector for my Canon Camera. A few extra bucks is well worth the added layer of protection in my opinion.

Cable Organizer – CNPOP Electronics Travel Organizer

I kid you not when I say this is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. As someone who travels full time, having one easy place to organize cables, SD cards, chargers, wifi hotspots, and all the misc. Electronics has been invaluable. I’ve talked a few people into buying one of these and they would tell you the same.

I got this one from Amazon – thus far it has fit practically everything I needed and has made my life on the road a million times easier.

iPhone Tripod

I picked up my iPhone tripod from some shop in Spain and to be honest, haven’t used it that much. Until I have a better audio setup, I haven’t felt too inspired to shoot anything with it other than a couple of music TikToks. However, if you do any vlogging and plan on using your phone as your main camera, then this is a must!

As someone who has spent WAY too much time propping my phone up against whatever I can find – books, a chair, a bowl of oranges – I can assure you it’s worth the $20 investment.

Phone – iPhone 12 ProMax

I use Apple exclusively but I rarely update my phone to the latest and greatest models. I bought this off of a family member after holding on to my iPhone 8 for WAY too long – it was begging to be let go.

Given that I always have my phone on me, it works great for shooting quick videos on the go – especially with that 4K and both 24fps and 60fps. I’m rarely satisfied with the video quality to do much more than reels and social media stories, however in time I hope I can maximize the potential of this device for video.

Canon Camera Connect App

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to upgrade my camera (aside from it being banged up and on its last leg) was for the remote smartphone control features. There’s so much I want to do with my camera and sometimes you just don’t have a subject to test things out with – but voila! You can be both photographer and subject with this slick app that connects your phone and camera via Bluetooth and wifi. I love shooting portraits especially and rarely have subjects to work with – this has been a lifesaver for experimenting with new ideas in my own time.

It’s also great because you can send photos directly from your camera to your smartphone in seconds. I’ve found the app to be a little finicky at times, but once you’re connected you’re free to create without limits.

DJI Fly App

This is a must for drone pilots. I use my RC 99% of the time, however always check the app for flight restrictions, updates, and more before I fly. You can also view your photos from your phone which is pretty cool, or control your drone in the event you can’t use your RC.

DJI Go App

I don’t use this a ton, but thought I’d include it regardless. If you have a DJI Osmo gimbal, this device has a range of features to control your phone camera (and maximize its abilities). I also love the SkyPixel section for inspo because there are some crazy good drone photographers out there.

Lightroom Mobile

Again, I don’t use this often but I use it often enough to mention. I prefer to do almost everything on my laptop, especially editing photos. However, if sometimes you’re in a pinch and want to quickly edit a photo and access your presets – Lightroom Mobile is for you. It has all the features that Lightroom Desktop does, just not the full resolution that your laptop or desktop screen would offer.

I know a lot of people use this exclusively, and it’s all around the best mobile photo editing app out there.

My Laptop – 13” MacBook Pro Laptop with M2 chip (2022)

My laptop has been my baby since I got it. When I upgraded from my very old, slow 2013 laptop (or something like that), I was stunned to realize I’d been living in the Stone Age for a while.

The Macbook Pro M2 is lightning fast, has a stunning display, and has lots of power to run multiple projects. At the time I bought it, I was running my business with it and using Lightroom, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and DaVinci Resolve – often at the same time. Thus, something that could keep up was essential.

My only regret is that I didn’t get way more storage capacity. I bought the 256GB thinking most of my projects would be run off of a hard drive anyway, and boy did I mess that one up.

Since phasing out of my business I primarily use LIghtroom and DaVinci Resolve these days, and it’s worked just fine for that. If you plan on working with huge Photoshop and Illustrator files in addition to video content like I was, I’d strongly recommend investing in higher memory.

The only other downside is the weight – the MacBook Air is a way more travel-friendly laptop but again, I’d rather have the processing power.

Editing Headphones – Bose QC45

My wonderful fiance bought these Bose QC45 Headphones for me for Christmas, otherwise I would probably never have spent the money on them. While they were originally supposed to be used for music and movies for travel, I use them every time I edit videos because the sound quality is perfection. Even when I’m editing photos, either my Spotify playlist or Brain.fm get me into the groove – even when working in a noisy cafe because these headphones have awesome noise cancellation.

Editing Software – Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is hands-down the best editing tool for photographers on the market. I don’t suspect that will change anytime soon either. Not only is it comprehensive and intuitive to use, but it offers practically everything you need to take your photos from great to stellar.

All the pros I know use Adobe Lightroom Classic, but frankly, I was too lazy to switch once I got comfortable with the newer version. I’m probably missing out but I just can’t be bothered right now.

Video Editing – DaVinci Resolve

I’ve done a decent amount of work in Adobe’s Premiere Pro but found I didn’t need 95% of what it offered. It’s an awesome program, but I’ve found DaVinci Resolve to be far lighter, more intuitive, and generally just more fun to edit in.

My favorite part is the color grading section, as it’s set up very similarly to how I edit photos. My only complaint is that I don’t have a 6k ultra-wide monitor to edit videos with, as it can be tricky working on a 13″ display. But oh well. Someday.

Pro tip: If you’re looking for some awesome LUTs to instantly transform your video projects, I’d highly recommend Damien Rijken’s (@watchdamien) Golden Cinematic LUTs. #notsponsored, they’re just that good.

Conclusion

And that’s it! You might be shocked to see that I don’t have any lens filters, a brand-name tripod (I have a heavy-duty, second-hand one I just am not traveling with it now), or other fun accessories – yet. I just phased out of my business only a few months ago, so this is a very new transition into pursuing photography full-time.

As such, I’m working with what I’ve got until I can justify spending on all of the accessories and additional gear I want.

And that’s it! I hope you found this insightful and if you have any further questions or suggestions regarding gear, please reach out!