Last Christmas, my cousin Martin do Nascimento received a Kindle 3G as a gift from my brother, Alex.

At the time, we all figured it would be a nice way for Martin to read books while serving in the Peace Corps Nicaragua on the Caribbean coast. But what we didn’t know at the time was exactly how indispensable it would be to him as he lived in a town so small that it barely has a Wikipedia entry. It turns out that this little, relatively cheap device has been a godsend for him in 2012, with its worldwide 3G Internet. Even though Martin lives in a remote area, I hear from him nearly every day by e-mail.

"Most of my e-mails I write on my Kindle," he told me recently (by cell phone this time). "I use it to stay in touch with friends, even [through] Facebook. The Kindle’s not fantastic by any means, but I can read my e-mail reliably. It loads within a minute. Even with a 3G [USB modem] stick, [service] came in and out—I gave the modem away."

Sure, the Kindle’s browser is a bit kludgy. In fact, it’s hidden away under its "Experimental" features. It can’t open more than one tab at a time, and you can forget about attachments. Any online heavy-lifting requires Martin to pop down to the local Internet café, which is subject to its own power and Internet outages from time to time. He can’t even accept an Amazon e-book I sent him—he has to click a link from within his e-mail, and again, the browser can’t handle opening new links. (Editor's note: C’mon Amazon! Shouldn’t I be able to send e-books directly to his Kindle?)

But as any Kindle-owner will tell you, its worldwide 3G access is valuable. Perhaps even more importantly, the battery life is great. This can be hugely important in its own right when living in a part of the world subject to power outages, or while on the road, where power plugs may be few and far between.

"Usually I go two or two-and-a-half days (without charging it), sometimes three days if I’m not going crazy on it," Martin added. "The battery is pretty respectable."

In these ways, the Kindle helps Martin with the fundamental problem of staying wired while in a remote area. There are essentially two main issues that you have to deal with in these situations—electrical power and data connection. The latter may be rapidly improving throughout the world, but either can rear its head at almost any point.

After consulting with Martin, as well as a number of other savvy travelers who spend much of their time bouncing between worksites and WiFi hotspots in remote areas of the world, we’ve come up with a short list of small items designed to keep you powered and connected without breaking your wallet (or your already overloaded backpack). Sure, your goal in traveling may be to get away from the always-on lifestyle—but there are those of us that choose to stay connected, or have to because of our chosen professions.

With that in mind, we bring you 10 items that will make your time out in the bush a little bit more bearable. And we didn't select just any 10 items. If you find yourself acquiring everything on this Ars list, you'll spend under $500 (even less if you get an external battery instead of Item No. 2).

The only stipulation we used when compiling: we’re assuming readers are going to bring at least an unlocked 3G smartphone on their travels. You're versed on swapping SIMs to get the best mobile data rate when you get to a new country, right? That iPhone or Android handset can create an invaluable WiFi hotspot for your tablet or laptop after all.



Power, power, everywhere

Beyond the Kindle (Item No. 1—$140), let’s move on to the most important item on the list: power! Sure, you may run into a rural charging station running off of a car battery, but what if you find yourself on a long cross-country bus trip for the bulk of a day?

Enter the Voltaic OffGrid Solar Backpack (Item No. 2—$230), which is almost twice as costly as the Kindle 3G. As the name suggests, this backpack can charge your devices while you walk around. It sports a pair of 2W solar panels, which the company says are "waterproof, lightweight, and built to withstand abuse." These can output 6 or 12 Volts (depending on the selected application). Translated for those of us who aren’t electrical engineers, that means about four to five hours to fully charge a phone, but with a noticeable boost after an hour or two.

The backpack also has a built-in (and removable) battery that can store 3,000mAh of power from the solar panels, or be plugged into AC or DC power, then discharge it via a USB cable. Voltaic even offers discounts for Peace Corps volunteers. If you don’t want to buy a whole backpack, you can get the V11 USB Battery Pack and a two watt solar panel for just $60—similar to the Mophie JuicePack ($80), which our own Jacqui Cheng swore by earlier this summer.

"The utility of having a solar backpack became even more clear to me when, in December 2007, I was stuck in Eldoret, one of the flash points of post-election violence," wrote Juliana Rotich, a Senior TED Fellow and the executive director of Ushahidi, in an e-mail to Ars.

Ushahidi is an online disaster mapping tool that grew out of the need to spread information during the violence that arose following the 2007 presidential election in Kenya, Rotich's home country.

"I had no access to electricity where I was staying and was very dependent on my smartphone to get online and get news," she added. "With a 5V output, I was able to not only charge my own phone, but also the phones of my family members. It was invaluable, and I still travel with my Voltaic backpack whenever I go to the Kenyan countryside."