Iceland Bike Touring Electronics List
I took a phone, Go-Pro Hero 11, Mavic Mini Drone, solar panel and various leads and powerbanks on my bicycle tour around Iceland.
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Electronic Gear For An Iceland Bike Tour
I spent 6 weeks on my bicycle touring route around Iceland in 2023.
Like many people, I carried with me some electronic gear and gadgets on the ride.
The tech gear I took with me bike touring in Iceland was so that I could record the experience of cycling in Iceland on both video and with photos, keep informed about travel conditions and navigate.
In addition, I set off on the Iceland bicycle tour with the intention of camping as much as possible. I didn't know in advance how easy it would be to keep my electronic gear charged, and so wanted to carry all I might need in order to be as self-sufficient as I could be when it came to power.
I didn't take a laptop cycling in Iceland
While on previous cycling tours such as cycling from England to South Africa I've taken a laptop with me, I didn't take one on this bike tour.
I did take a drone and a solar panel though, two new additions to the types of electronic gear I sometimes take on a bike tour.
This then is a list of the electronic gear I'll be taking on the Iceland bikepacking trip. I'll do a post-trip review to let you know what worked and what didn't (the solar panel in Iceland should be interesting!).
Bike Touring Electronic Gear For Cycling Iceland
This is the gear I set out with:
- Samsung S22 Ultra (Main phone, great for photos and videos)
- Samsung S10+ (Navigation phone with Komoot app, backup as camera if needed)
- Go Pro Hero 11 (with boom mount to attach to different parts of bike)
- DJI Mavic Mini 2 SE (With controller and battery pack)
- Anker Powercore 26800 Powerbank
- Anker Powercore 20100 Powerbank
- Anker Powerport Solar Panel 21w
- Anker Powerport Atom III (Two port charging plug)
- Spare SD cards, cables, cable headphones
- Kindle
- GEGO GPS Luggage tracker
In general, I was happy with the gear I took with me, but if I was to redo this ride in the future, I'd rethink both the drone and the solar panel for my gear list.
Here's a breakdown of what I thought worked and what didn't on this Iceland cycling tour:
Two Phones
If I'm to be honest, I only needed the one phone for this trip. I would have had to recharge it more frequently though.
The reason I took two phones on the Iceland cycle trip, was that not only did I then have a separate navigation device, but I also had a backup in case one phone got damaged in the rain, dropped, or whatever.
As I use my main phone as a camera when bikepacking, having a backup for me was totally worth it. At the end of the day, an extra phone does not weigh that much more, and most of us by now have a spare phone laying around that can be repurposed as a GPS. Just take off all the unneeded apps etc.
Go pro Hero 11
I've been using Go Pros since version 3 or 4 when bicycle touring. The quality is way superior nowadays on the Hero 11, and it's easy to operate.
I had a couple of nice boom arms which are a great way of attaching the camera to bicycles. They also provide some nice little unique angles.
The only thing that isn't great is the Go Pro software which I basically just don't use at all. All I did was record everything, save the SD cards, and then put together videos later on my laptop after the bike tour was over with some better software.
Drone for Bike Touring
This is the one item I personally wouldn't pack again for an Iceland bike tour. The weather was either too windy or cloudy to use the drone, or I just didn't feel like it.
I'm just one of those people that in the end thought using the drone when cycling around Iceland was more hassle than it was worth, and in fact didn't even use it once.
Powerbanks
I really only needed to bring one powerbank in the end on this cycling trip. When camping at campsites, I always found somewhere I could top it up easily, and there was never a circumstance in 6 weeks of touring where my 26,800 Powerbank was totally empty and I needed to use the other one.
Solar Panel Bikepacking Iceland
I was surprised that the weather was good enough to use the solar panel a few times when cycling Iceland. Did I need to take the solar panel for bikepacking in Iceland though?
The answer is no. I could have managed quite nicely with topping up my tech gear and powerbanks at campsites. I'd not take the solar panel to Iceland next time.
Other items
Highly recommend taking both short cables, bit also extra long cables for charging gear. Quite often, a plug socket is far away from a shelf you can rest your phone on. I think I have a metre long USB-C cable (or longer) and it was a great choice.
Kindle - didn't read it as much as I thought I would. GPS tracker gave nice peace of mind when flying with my bicycle box.
Also read:
Dave is a UK travel writer living in Athens since 2015. With 20 years of firsthand travel experience and over 80,000 km of bicycle touring across six continents, he's been blogging at Dave's Travel Pages since 2005. Every guide is based on places he's actually been.
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