Are drones the ultimate travel cameras of the future or an overpriced toy? We brought DJIs newest drone to the Caribbean to find out. 

After finally purchasing a drone we were pretty excited to tell the world about how this can take your travel photos and videos to a whole new level. However, to be on the safe side we decided to bring it on a longer trip to the Caribbean to test it under more practical conditions first. That turned out to change our view on things completely. 

We won’t go into much details about the benefits of drones. Most people have probably seen a drone video or a hundred by now and know how much better it looks than a hand held video of some tourists walking around at ground level. The biggest challenge until now has been that drones take up quite a lot of space and are therefore not very well suited for travelling, especially when you are a hand luggage only kind of person. When DJI revealed their new drone, Mavic Air, that was small enough to fit into a pocket and deliver decent quality video at the same time we immediately pre-ordered one and got one of the first ones in Norway. What we have written below is based on this drone, but most of it should be applicable to any light weight drone of this kind.

First impressions

The first testing started home in Norway and the results were good. Drones today are very easy to fly and the video quality is surprisingly good if there is sufficient lighting. The biggest issue we had was the constant need for software updates for the drone, app, remote control, some databases or even the battery charger (yes, there are software updates for the charger!). This meant that we almost always spent 10-15 minutes before each flight downloading large updates (300-400 MB over the mobile network) and using half a battery doing so. We quickly realised that setting the phone in flight mode before connecting to the drone was an easy workaround, but it should not be necessary. The last major issue was that mobile phones don’t like the cold very much and Norway being cold all winter was not exactly ideal. We can’t really blame the drone for this (its batteries are actually heated to work in cold climates), but since the drone is dependent on a mobile phone to work fully we had to cancel multiple flights due to the temperature. Luckily the drone still works without the phone, but the video feed, notifications and settings that are controlled from the phone will obviously not be available.

On longer journeys

Being relatively happy with the results in Norway we decided to bring the drone on a much longer trip. Departing from Norway we went to Florida in the USA, took a cruise from there to Puerto Rico, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Antigua & Barbuda and finally back to Florida again.

The first challenge we ran in to was airline restrictions. Most drones use lithium batteries, something the airlines are no fond if Therefore all batteries had to be transported in the carry-on luggage that was already filled with camera gear that we wanted to take extra good care of. As this caused us to far surpass the weight restrictions we had to put some of the camera gear in the check-in luggage, both making it prone to damage and not being covered by travel insurance anymore. Not good…

Further on there are many different rules and regulations for drones around the world. In Norway there is a fairly simple set of rules to follow, but in the USA you need to register with the FAA first and all national parks are classified as no fly zones. As we hadn’t registered with the FAA in advance the drone was not used in the USA at all (including Puerto Rico). In Barbados there is a total ban of drones, so it stayed on the ground here as well. The cruise lines have also started banning drones, so strictly speaking we could not use the drone at all. However, as we do like to bring a fair amount of camera gear they gave up looking through it all and we manage to get the drone onboard. On the other hand, if we decided to follow the rules 100 % the drone would only be an overpriced brick at the bottom of the backpack for the entire journey (and of course we weren’t stupid enough to actually fly the drone onboard the ship).

We finally reached St. Kitts, a country that haven’t introduced regulations for drones so far. Here we were free to fly and the goal of the visit was to summit Mount Liamuiga, a huge volcano on the island. After several hours of driving, walking and climbing we finally reached the top. The weather was great and visibility virtually infinite. Time to fly our drone! The drone was powered on and the phone connected. Then we are prompted to log in to DJI’s user account before we can take off. We are standing on top of a volcano on a Caribbean island without any kind of internet connectivity and DJI care more about sending us newsletters than letting us fly the drone? It’s worth mentioning that GoPro cameras does the same thing, but their equipment is likely not dependent on a mobile phone to work (we don’t know if this is the case for their drone as we haven’t tested it). The result was once more no flying and the drone was again left in the bottom of the backpack (although it was fairly close the getting a one-way flight down the volcano).

In St. Lucia we did not have time to fly, so the next opportunity was Grenada. Things looked good and we got the drone in the air. Unfortunately we discovered another “feature” of the drone: In order to maintain the batteries they are automatically discharged after a few days. That is a good thing if you store it for months at the time, but we had only left it for a few days. According to DJI the batteries start to self-discharge after 10 days, which is definitively not the case. However, since there was still an OK amount of power left we decided to take the drone into the air. On a positive note everything else worked really well and we got good results. Combined with a GoPro camera we got some exciting footage from an underwater sculpture park and more details about that can be found here and in the video below:

As the last part of the journey we travelled to Antigua & Barbados. This country has no regulation of drones either and everything worked as it should. The app worked well, the drone went into the air and the batteries were fully charged. Due to high winds we couldn’t fly everywhere, but this was not a big issue. After all the drone is very small and you can’t expect it to work in any conditions.

After using the drone for a few months we brought it to the Faroe Islands. At this point it seems most bugs and issues were fixed and the plague of constant software updates was not present anymore.

We quite often forget to shoot stills with the drone and focus on video. Luckily pulling stills from video still provides acceptable quality, like this one. Keep in mind that the photos online have been compressed, so the quality straight out of camera is better than this.The drone did it’s thing, we got great footage and we were very pleased. Well, that was until we tried to make it follow our car. It was supposed to fly on its own, which worked until we slowed down and it tried to fly in front of the car instead of the side as it had done all along. Driving on a hillside this caused the drone to crash, but surprisingly it worked fine afterwards, enabling us to finish the video below. We do appreciate its ruggedness, but who makes a drone with automatic flight modes that flies in the only direction it does not have sensors?

You can read more about 8 exiting places to visit in the Faroe Islands here.

Finally we brought the drone to the Norwegian mountains. It worked impeccable, but we flew manually all the time. We have very little confidence in the automatic features now…

Conclusion

On longer journeys to specific locations drones can be amazing tools to create stunning memories. If you have time to study and comply with local regulations and test everything before flights it can work really well. In Norway drones are excellent as well with vast areas of stunning landscapes free of people, especially if you don’t have to travel by air to get there. For shorter journeys and as a tool you throw in your backpack like a traditional camera we have difficulties recommending a drone. Although we definitively will bring it for many trips in the future it will probably stay home more frequently than what we envisioned when we bought it. There is simply too much hassle, issues problems and limitations to make such a device “plug and play” when travelling. If you want a simple way to improve travel videos, buy a gimbal for you mobile phone. We paid 106 USD for our gimbal and haven’t regretted it for a second. Like drones it provides stable footage that looks professional, but it is even smaller, lighter and completely free of regulations and silly limitations.