Imagine coming back from a leisurely walk along the sea only to discover that your camera bag has been stolen. Worse than that, your pictures and those precious travel memories are all gone. Don’t let this happen to you. Always backup your photos while traveling. Here are 3 ways to do just that.
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Uploading to a Cloud Storage Device
Internet connections can be difficult to come by on the road but essential when looking to backup your photos while traveling. When you do get Wi-Fi access, make the most out of it by uploading your pictures to the cloud storage device of your choice. Here’s a breakdown of your possible options and their features:
Name | Storage Capacity | Price |
Google Drive | Up to 15 GB | Free |
Amazon (for non-Prime members) | Unlimited | $59.99/year |
Microsoft OneDrive | Up to 5 GB | Free |
Dropbox | Up to 2 GB | Free |
Apple iCloud | Up to 5 GB | Free |
CrashPlan | Unlimited | Free to $100.00/year (depending on the plan you’ll get) |
Mozy | 50 GB or 125 GB | $71.00/year or $119.88/year |
To back up your images using cloud storage, all you have to do is put them in a folder or album, hit upload, then save. If you want to retrieve any of your photos, you can just go back to that folder by signing in to your account and downloading them.
Using Memory Cards
For a backup option that you can take with you anywhere and anytime, use memory cards. They’re cheap, so you can buy one card for every set of photos. However, since memory cards are small and lightweight, they can easily get lost among your things. To be safe, use more than one memory card for each set.
If you use a DSLR with multiple card slots, you can use that to copy pictures on two SD cards at the same time. Or you can use one for RAW files and one for JPEG files. Either way, your goal here is to create multiple backups of your images.
Have a reliable memory card reader on hand for retrieving your photos from the card and saving them to your laptop during travel or when you get home. Memory cards are useless if you won’t be able to access their contents.
Laptops and Tablets
Speaking of laptops, you might also want to consider using laptops and tablets to backup your photos while traveling. They weren’t invented to be light yet powerful for nothing. Plus, you won’t even need to have an internet connection when backing up using these devices. All you need is your USB cable or Bluetooth to upload images to the hard drive of your laptop or tablet, then copy everything to your external hard drive. This way, you’ll still have another way to retrieve your photos in case anything bad happens to the other device.
Before doing this, make sure that your computer has enough memory. If not, have a larger one installed or delete unnecessary apps or programs from your device. You’d want to avoid the situation when you’ve been uploading your photos for almost an hour, and just when it’s about to be finished, a dialog box appears saying that you don’t have enough memory to complete the process.
Backing up your device may seem like a lot of work, but it’ll save you from the agony and hassle of losing those precious travel memories.