Travelling With a Laptop: How Not to Be Left Without Your Laptop or Data on a Business Trip or Holiday

For many people a laptop is a constant travel companion: business trips to Batumi and Kutaisi, flights to Europe, remote work from a mountain hotel in Gudauri or Kazbegi. But on the road a laptop faces the greatest strain: bumps in the car, knocks at the airport, temperature swings, unfamiliar chargers and sockets, public networks. And a laptop that breaks far from home means not just expense but disrupted work if it held the files you need.

The main risks to a laptop when travelling

Knocks and pressure in luggage

A laptop in checked luggage is subjected to knocks, weight from above and being thrown around during loading. Even in hand luggage it can be squashed in the overhead locker. The results: a cracked screen, damaged hinges, a failed hard drive. In addition, most airlines' rules don't allow lithium-ion batteries in checked baggage, so the laptop has to travel in your hand luggage.

Theft and loss

Airports, stations, cafés and taxis are where laptops most often go missing. They're left in security trays, forgotten in taxis, left unattended for a minute in a café. Losing the device is unpleasant, but losing data with no backup can hurt far more.

Spills

Tray tables on planes and trains are small, and turbulence strikes without warning. A knocked-over coffee, juice or water is a classic story. In hotels the laptop ends up on a bedside table next to a glass.

Temperature swings and condensation

If a laptop has spent a long time in the cold — in a car on a winter drive to the mountains, say — and is then switched on straight away in a warm room, condensation can form inside. Moisture on the board at power-on can cause a short circuit. In summer the danger is the opposite: a laptop left in a car in the sun overheats to temperatures that harm the battery and screen.

Unfamiliar sockets and chargers

In mountain areas and older hotels the mains voltage is unstable. Cheap socket adapters and power strips from the market may offer no protection. If you forgot your original charger, a borrowed one or a cheap adapter from a kiosk can damage the charging circuit.

Public Wi-Fi

Networks at airports, cafés and hotels are often unsecured. Attackers can create a network with a similar name and intercept data. Using banking services, work email and company systems over open Wi-Fi without protection is a serious risk.

How to prepare a laptop for a trip

• Back up all important data before you leave — to the cloud or to an external drive that stays at home.
• Turn on drive encryption and a strong sign-in password. Then even if the laptop is stolen, the data stays protected. Keep the recovery key separate from the laptop.
• Enable device-finding if your system has it.
• Install updates in advance so the laptop doesn't start updating at the worst moment on slow hotel internet.
• Check the battery and charger. If the battery is badly worn, replace it before the trip — on the road you'll work away from sockets more often.
• Have the cooling cleaned if the laptop hasn't been serviced for a while — it matters even more in a hot climate.

Rules for the road

Carry the laptop only in hand luggage, in a sleeve or a backpack with a padded compartment. Don't put heavy things on top of it. At airport security, keep an eye on the tray with the laptop until the end. Don't put drinks next to the laptop on planes and trains. After the cold, let the laptop warm up in its bag for 30–60 minutes before switching it on. Don't leave it in a car in the sun or frost. For public networks, use your phone's hotspot or a secure connection for work tasks. Take your own good-quality surge-protected power strip.

If the laptop breaks on a trip

If liquid gets on the laptop, switch it off immediately, unplug the charger, turn it upside down and don't switch it on again until a specialist has looked at it. Trying to "see if it still works" after a spill is the main cause of serious damage. If the laptop has been dropped and is clicking or won't boot, don't keep trying to switch it on — that can make the drive worse. If you've lost the charger, don't buy the first universal adapter you see at a market; find a service centre or shop with original or good-quality compatible adapters.

If you're travelling within Georgia and need the laptop urgently, sometimes the best solution is to work from your phone or a spare device and get the laptop repaired when you return, rather than risk your data at a random workshop.

What our technician does

1. Prepares the laptop for travel: checks the battery, cooling, drive and charger.
2. Sets up encryption, backups and device-finding.
3. Sets up a secure connection for working over public networks.
4. Recommends a compact, good-quality power adapter and surge protection.
5. Restores the laptop and data after a trip if something goes wrong.

A real example

A consultant from Vake was flying to a conference when the passenger next to him knocked a glass of tomato juice over his laptop. The laptop kept working, he finished his presentation, and on arrival he charged it at the hotel. The next morning it wouldn't switch on. When he got back to Tbilisi we found extensive corrosion under the keyboard and on the board. We managed to restore the board and recover all the data, but the repair would have been simpler and cheaper if the laptop had been switched off straight away. Afterwards we set up automatic cloud backups and encryption for him and suggested keeping presentations on a USB stick as a fallback.

Call a technician

If you'd like to prepare your laptop for a trip or it was damaged on the road, we'll come to any district of Tbilisi around the clock. Learn more on our laptop repair, data recovery and laptop cleaning pages.