You finally took the plunge. You quit your job. You bagged a few freelance clients and now you’re ready to hit the road.

But you’ve never lived and worked on the road. You feel like you’ll be lost without your wired internet connection, your automatic coffee maker and your house plant named George.

How do digital nomads cope with life on the road? Well, today we’re going to tell you about a few essential items you’ll want to take with you.

1. A Reliable Mobile Hotspot

You might have planned on just grabbing your cell phone and tethering up. The only problem is, most companies don’t even let you do that anymore. And really, do you want to be constantly balancing your phone on your lap while you work?

It’s better to put down a little bit of money on a mobile hotspot you can throw on your dashboard and work from anywhere there’s 4G.

Most mobile carriers provide mobile hotspots. Just do your research and figure out what their coverage is for wherever you plan on heading.

2. A Solar Charger

Back when I was a kid, the only thing solar you could buy was a calculator. Now, you can power your entire house with a few well-placed solar panels.

If you’re going to be traveling where the sun shines more than not, you might want to check out a solar panel charger. There are several options available: fordable dashboard panels for those traveling by car, backpack chargers for those heading to the woods or off to the beach, and even solar panels for the roof or bed of a vehicle.

That last option is great for those who adopt van life. Imagine not needing to run a generator or worry about draining your battery during your downtime.

3. Lithium Battery Charger

When you’re out in that remote part of Africa and you land in a tiny airport with no outlets, what are you going to do? You’d better have a few backup batteries.

If you’re traveling by plane, you can grab a few lipstick-sized chargers to stick in your backpack. But if you’re going the van life, you might consider a larger lithium battery to store your solar energy.

4. Noise Cancelling Headphones

You’re on an intercontinental flight. You’ve bought a day’s worth of internet. You’re about to settle in and get some serious work done.

Then the baby you didn’t know was sitting behind you starts wailing at the top of her lungs. This goes on for the next few hours. By then you’re so exhausted, you zonk instead of work.

If you’d had a good pair of noise canceling headphones, you’d have avoided this.

5. A Backup Hard Drive

You just grabbed your drive-thru Starbucks. You’re in the parking lot of the nearest National Park overlooking something beautiful.

And then you spill your drink all over your laptop.

Maybe you backed most of it up on the cloud. But what about that set of photos you just took yesterday? You hadn’t gotten a chance to find a connection and back them up yet.

This is where an external comes in handy. Not only will you save space on the cloud for the most important stuff, you’ll be able to quickly backup those precious photos of your trek through Yosemite until you can get back to civilization and back them up.

You’ll at least want a one terabyte drive. That space fills up much faster than you think especially if you take photos.