+1 for the Kindle... Books are one of my fav. ways to pass time, even at home.

I picked up a Samsung tablet last year when doing a lot of long-haul flights. Very happy with it, and it takes standard SD cards so I can carry a bunch of those loaded with movies & such. Also, an external battery is always nice to have. I have a decent-sized Anker battery which has 3 USB ports on it. I think I only used it a couple of times last year, but the comfort of knowing I wasn't going to run out of power was worth it.

Don't forget about good old fashioned paper & pen... I actually wrote a few long-time friends good-old-fashioned letters and mailed them from various destinations. They were surprised to get them and it's now started us regularly writing letters back and forth.