Should You Travel with a Kindle? Pros and Cons of Kindles Explained
Are you considering getting a Kindle to travel with as part of your travel gear, and want to know the pros and cons of Kindles when you are traveling? Then make sure to read on and find out the advantages and disadvantages of having a Kindle.
I personally have always preferred books and always said that I would never get a Kindle, but when I quit work to solo travel around the world, my work bought me a Kindle, and now I couldn’t live without one when I am traveling!!
Got a Kindle? Don’t Forget These Must-Have Accessories! Download Your FREE Checklist Now!
* This article contains affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase after clicking on the link, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. *
Pros of a Kindle for Travel
Honestly, I think that there are more pros for the Kindle than cons. I miss the feel and smell of a real book, but when I am on the road traveling, it just makes more sense to have a Kindle than 10 books in my bag. Now, I honestly couldn’t live without a Kindle when I’m traveling, and when my original Amazon Kindle died, I had to replace it straight away with the best Kindle for travel.
1. The Lightest Kindle and takes up little space
As new Kindle models come on the market, they are getting lighter, with the lightest being the standard original Kindle. This Kindle over the year has become thinner and smaller. It has a 6-inch screen and can easily fit in a handbag, so you can travel anywhere with it. I always have mine with me and don’t notice it in my bag, but it’s nice to have it to read, while enjoying lunch, if I am in a restaurant alone or waiting for a train, bus, or plane.
2. I don’t need a light to read
My favorite feature of the latest original Kindles is that this type of Kindle finally has a built-in light; before, you had to get a Kindle Paperwhite or a more expensive Kindle to enjoy this feature.
This is really handy when you are traveling, especially if you are staying in dorm rooms, as most of the hostels I have stayed in haven’t had individual lights on the beds, so I couldn’t read when I went to bed. Now I can get out my Kindle and read my Lonely Planet book before bed, or just escape reality with a chick lit book.
3. The Kindle stores thousands of Books
When you are traveling, it is so difficult to carry books with you, and if you are traveling with hand luggage only, then space is precious. With my Kindle, I have the luxury of having access to hundreds of books that I have downloaded in such a small space.
I don’t have the extra weight of books or am sacrificing space for a book I want to read, and if you are a person who enjoys reading, you need a book with you at all times, just to chill and relax.
4. I can buy more books online
The advantage of the Kindle is that, depending on the Kindle, you can either connect to 4 G or wifi and buy more books, and Amazon has hundreds of thousands of books that you can buy. It also has Kindle Unlimited and Prime, which, for a monthly fee, you can download certain books to read.
Another thing I love is that there are thousands of free books, if you are on a tight budget, and while some of them might not be great, I have found some really good new authors that I love to read.
5. You can set the font to the size you want
As you get older, after staring at so many computer and phone screens for so long, your eyes might not be the same as they were. The advantage of the Kindle is that you can choose the font size of the book you read, so you don’t need a magnifying glass to read a book, like my dad, before he gave in and got glasses!!!
6. There are no distractions with a Kindle
Reading a Kindle is very much like reading a book in that you have no distractions, the Kindle is solely for reading a book, and you can’t get distracted with notifications popping up when you are using it. Unlike our mobile phones, when we see a notification, we instantly want to know what it is, who has messaged, and what we are missing out on knowing.
This means that we can never really relax when our mobile phone is near us, but we don’t have this same issue with the Kindle. When we are traveling, we can read the Kindle in bed, like we would a book, and just drift off to sleep, without the anxiety that comes with having our phone on. Just make sure to not have your phone within viewing distance!!
7. Easier on the eyes
The Kindle is much easier on our eyes, it is designed so that it is comfortable for you to read for hours, the same as reading a physical book. It has a glare-free screen, so even when you are reading in the sun, you can see the text as you would if reading a book. You can also increase the size of the text, so if you are struggling to read a book, you can just increase the text size to make it easier to read.
8. Save the environment by not having a tree cut down for books
When you think that just in the US over 750k books are sold each year, can you imagine how many trees are needed for all the books that are printed and sold each year!! Despite loving the smell and feel of books, maybe it is better if we all change to digital books, as we won’t need to kill as many trees just to read a book!!
Cons of a Kindle
Personally, I don’t think that there are many cons to having a Kindle and especially if you are planning on using it while traveling. I love the feel and smell of a real book, but I love the flexibility a Kindle gives me while traveling.
1. It will never feel or smell like a real book
A Kindle will never feel and smell like an actual book, and that, for me, is the big downside to the Kindle. When I am at home, I very rarely read my Kindle, instead, I go to the library and get out the books of my favorite authors.
2. You can’t save all your books and display them on a bookshelf
If I am buying books for a Kindle Scribe, then I don’t have a physical copy of the book that I can save and read again, and I can’t put them on my bookshelf. It has always been a dream of mine to have a house with a room with a library wall, where I can just store all my books. Though after giving away nearly all my books to go traveling, I would no longer have much space to put them!!
3. It is not good for technical books or books with photos
The Kindles are just best with text only, they do not handle technical books with drawings or graphs, or math equations. If you want something like that, then you are better off buying the physical book. A book with a few photos inside it is ok, but the quality of the images is not great and not like they would be if you actually bought the physical book.
4. Finding a particular passage or spot is difficult
It can be harder to find your place again if you accidentally press something and lose your page. With a book, we have a rough idea where we are in the book or where a particular passage is in the book, but with a Kindle, you have no idea what chapter you are on, never mind which page. I have my Kindle set at %, so I might have an idea if I have looked recently at what percentage of the book I have read, but in general, it is not as easy as with a physical book.
5. Kindle books can sometimes be more expensive than actual books
Depending on where you are in the world and which Amazon you use, it can be cheaper to buy the actual physical book rather than the book on your Kindle. In the UK, I find that many supermarkets have really good deals on books, and there are a lot of second-hand bookstores where I can get the books for cheap, meaning that buying them on Amazon can be more expensive.
6. You can’t share your books
When I buy a physical book, I can share it with my friends, and they can lend me their books, but you can’t do that with an Amazon Kindle, unless the accounts are linked. It is so hard when a friend says you need to read this book. I wish I could send it to you, but I can’t. There is also no such thing as buying a second-hand Kindle book, nor going to the charity shop and buying a used Kindle book either. For people who love reading, we want to share our books, but a Kindle is just designed for making money and not for sharing our love of books.
Helpful Kindle Information
Disclaimer: Ilive4travel is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and its partners. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting Ilive4travel when you use the links.