How I Prepare for a Trip Like This — Next Stop, Switzerland

People ask what’s in my bag more than almost anything else I get asked. I don’t always answer it well, because the honest answer is: it depends on the trip. What I carry for a hotel shoot an hour from Zagreb isn’t what I carry for nine days across the Swiss Alps.

This isn’t a gear review, and it isn’t the Switzerland story either. That one comes after I’m back. This is just how I actually get ready for a trip like this one.

The lesson that shaped how I pack

Years ago, my luggage didn’t make it to a destination with me. More than once, actually. If everything I needed for the shoot had been in that checked bag, I wouldn’t have seen it for days, and I wouldn’t have been in the same place a few days later to wait for it. That’s the moment the gear that actually matters stopped riding in checked luggage, no matter what else does.

The system itself hasn’t changed in years. My Samsonite hard suitcase, checked, carries clothes, shoes, and the tripod. The backpack carries what I might need to pull out quickly: camera bodies, lenses, laptop, batteries, the small stuff, and it mostly stays at the hotel once I’ve settled in. Packed flat inside the suitcase is an empty Tenba shoulder bag, another Solus brand, which becomes my actual everyday bag once I’m on location, the thing I actually carry around all day. If the suitcase is late, I can still shoot. Clothes and the tripod are replaceable on the road. A missing camera body isn’t.

What’s coming with me this time

Main body is the Sony A7R VI now, the camera I wrote about switching to. I’m also bringing the X-Pro3. Small body, built for exactly this kind of street and travel shooting, and the hybrid viewfinder means I can switch between the digital view and a classic optical finder depending on what I’m shooting. For lenses, Solus lent me two Sigma pieces for this trip: the 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN II Art again, and the 14-24mm F2.8 DG DN Art for the wide mountain landscapes this trip is built around.

Storage and power round out the bag: two Samsung T7 SSDs for backing up files on the road, and my laptop for editing as I go. I’m also bringing a new EcoFlow battery pack to keep my phone charged, and an EcoFlow RAPID Pro charger that handles the laptop and the camera batteries at the same time, so I’m not fighting over one outlet at the end of a shooting day.

One more thing that always makes the cut, not for photography: my Sony headphones. Good for isolating myself at the airport when I actually need to get laptop work done, just as good on the flight itself, and even better on the rare occasion a connecting flight doesn’t get my luggage there with me, and I’m stuck waiting it out.

A spare T-shirt goes in too, just in case.

Where this trip actually goes

Nine days, five stops: Geneva, Zermatt, Wengen/Lauterbrunnen, Luzern, Lausanne. I’m traveling with Neil Stead and Brett Whitelaw, and the route is built around a handful of places I’ve wanted to shoot properly for a while.

One thing worth knowing before you go: Switzerland isn’t actually an EU country. It’s in the Schengen Area, so there’s no border checks moving through it, but the currency is Swiss francs, not euros, and it’s worth having some on hand since not everywhere takes euros, and where they do, the exchange rate isn’t doing you any favors. Small infrastructure things are ahead of a lot of the EU too. Zurich Airport rolled out new CT scanners this June that let departing passengers leave laptops and liquids in their bag through security entirely, no tray, no 100ml limit. Geneva has it on some lanes now as well, though not every one yet. Little thing, but it’s the kind of gap you notice standing in a security line comparing it to home.

Riffelsee, above Zermatt, for the Matterhorn reflection at first light. The plan is to be there around 7 AM, before the water moves. The Gornergrat railway up for a different angle on the same mountain. Trümmelbach Falls, glacier water running inside the mountain itself. Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe, which is going to eat the better part of a day on its own. Chapel Bridge in Luzern’s old town on the way through. Mount Pilatus if the schedule leaves room for it.

Why I’m not worried about testing new gear on the road

This is exactly the kind of trip where a camera either holds up or it doesn’t: mixed alpine light, early starts, moving between five locations in nine days. It’s the same reason the A1 test in Sicily and Cinque Terre told me more than any spec sheet did. I’ll have a much better answer on how the A7R VI handles glacier light and mountain dynamic range once I’m back, and that’s going into the deep-dive post I’ve already promised.

For now, the bag’s packed, the route’s set, and I’m looking forward to actually being there instead of planning for it.

If gear decisions and trip planning like this are the kind of thing you want to talk through in person, that’s exactly what happens at Croatia Photo Academy.