Gear Talk | Garmin InReach Mini- Sat Comm and so much more!

Before heading to West Africa in March I decided to pick up a satellite communication device. This was because the region I was heading into is a higher tension area and my mom wanted guaranteed communication ability. At the same time, I was trying to pack ultralight on this trip as it was just me having to haul camera equipment around. 

Upon doing some research about what would fit my needs, the Garmin Inreach Mini became the obvious choice. Due to my plan of only using this while traveling overseas I went with a monthly plan which enables me to stop paying for the service plan while not in use. The Inreach Mini works in both standalone mode as well as via bluetooth with a cell phone. This makes it really simple to view maps & send text messages.

My mom and I set up a system where I would send her different specific messages daily depending on the situation we were in. One was for if everything was fine, one was that something happened but still unfolding, and a third was warning her of possibly having to contact the embassy. 

Thankfully during the trip, we only had to use the first message as everything was good on that front, as the big change was adapting to covid which we were able to use wifi for that communication.

Fast forward a few months and I realized the Inreach Mini would once again become useful with this crazy road trip I’m on. We decided to use a similar system for while spending time off grid, but this time using the sweet presets option in the inreach. Instead of sending a text message, this sends an email with my GPS coordinates attached so she knows where I am when sleeping off-grid.

This little beast has also slowly opened my eyes to other features that I didn’t even think of initially. One of my most used features now is marking waypoints. This allows me to mark photo locations I may want to go back to in the future and have precise lat/long coordinates. 

While I’m sure there are many other uses for this tiny little beast, I have been super happy with it so far & can’t wait to figure out more new tricks to add to this post!

Thinking about picking one up? Check Amazon for the current price!