Three Photo Storage Tips for your Next Vacation

A few months ago Zach & I got back from week long trip to Korea.  I know, I know....you've seen like 3 pictures of Korea ever.....I promise I'm working on that.  I really am.  When it came down to packing photo gear for this little trip I had one thing on my mind -  I am not packing my DSLR, it takes up too much space.  So I promptly went out and bought a 64 GB memory card for my old point and shoot (+ an iPhone external back up, just in case).

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When I got to Korea....turns out my old point and shoot can't handle a new fangled 64 GB SD card.....so I put my phone in airplane mode and used that as my video camera and my point and shoot.  I only have the 16 GB phone, so here's what I did to free up space for the photos I was going to take:

Delete apps you don't need

This is sort of a duh moment here but I went through and deleted all the apps I wouldn't use in Korea.  Like my Starbucks and Subway app - I'm probably not going to use those half way across the world.  I would suggest deleting the apps you have for fun if you're going on a trip in the US and will probably stop at a Starbucks.  If you have any games you haven't played in ages or photo apps you never use, get rid of them and add them on later when you get back from your trip.  Who knows...you might get rid of some and make room for more.....if you never used the apps anyway.

Move your photos through different apps

When I wanted to take a picture and do a bit of editing on it right there I found this tip to be the most helpful.  A good example, that I do often now anyway, is to start in an app like PicFrame.  Create your collage the way you want, then under the share option find other apps.  This feature will find the other photo apps on your phone so you can move the photo to that app with out saving it to your camera roll.  You've just freed up space for another picture!  So then you could move the photo to let's say, Afterlight.  Once you've finalized you're edits there, you could save to camera roll or select other apps and move it to Phonto, for example, to add a caption or other text over your photo.  Then from Phonto, you could save to camera roll oooooor move it to Instagram (or countless other apps!).  You've just saved one, fully edited photo instead of saving 4 images - one of each edit.  This leaves room for 4 more photos.  I think this is pretty cool!

Buy back up storage for your phone

I picked up a SanDisk iXpand Sync back up.  This one is super cool (and the only thing I've ever had like it) because you can create folders to organize your photos and you can set auto back up once you plug it in.  In the limited time we had before running around the next day, I'd pop in the back up, wait for it to sync, then go back - tap, tap, tap - and put the photos into the Korea folder for the corresponding day.  If later I wanted to go through and edit a photo on my phone, I could plug the back up back into the phone, save the image back to the camera roll and work from there.  This back up was a life saver for the videos I took on my phone!  The back up also has a USB end so you can plug the back up right into your computer and download your videos/photos there too.  Pretty awesome storage device!

These three tips are great for everyday storage saving on your phone but even better when it comes to travel.  I love the quality of the camera on the iPhone 5S....but honestly I can't wait to upgrade to the 6!  You can capture beautiful photos and video in the palm of your hand....and that is pretty amazing.

How do you store your vacation photos?  Do you use your phone as your main camera?

xoxo, Moe