I travel probably 200 days a year, and instead of sitting in my hotel room at night scrolling through my phone this year I’m going to produce some music.
I’ve got the MacBook but what else should I get? I want 6 pieces of kit including the computer and headphones max. I’m tactile so having everything in the computer won’t work.
Any suggestions?
Aside from a few bits of hardware, I just have a midi keyboard, audio interface and midi mixer. All pretty cheap, small and gives me plenty knobs to twiddle and faders to tweak 
What are they though?
It depends how portable you want but you could get a small Akai midi keyboard that has some pads to hit for drums etc.
Then a little soundcard could be handy (focusrite are good to check) to get audio and midi in and out…
Then maybe check the Roland boutique range. They hold their value so you can buy and sell until you find one but they do a 303, 106, jupiter8 etc… you can chain them for midi. That’s easy to do.
Mixing desk - for that size you could maybe do in the box / computer or get a little four channel mixer or something.
Fx I’d do in the box.
Daw - ableton is amazing but not cheap. Logic is cheap and still amazing but for me ableton is more fun to use.
Hope that helps.
Something like this? This a good start?
definitely under represented in dance music…
Be a great conversation starter at airports.
Wearable instruments is where it’s at.
SSL 2+
Arturia Minilab
Akai Midimix
All of which easily fit inside a backpack with laptop and, headphones and cables.
Yes! Or the SSL one above is good. I’ve got that.
If you want to scale down for transportation, The OP-1 Field is an amazing bit of kit
supports tons of different work flows and is extremely powerful (it does have its haters because of the price though(!)
I bought the Arturia Mk3, the focusrite and the bass sequencer from Roland. Let’s see what happens, and I’m sure the more I get into it the more bits of kits will make an appearance.
Having dragged bits and pieces from my studio along with me on my travels for years, I’ve lately settled with my computer, a pair of cans and a midi keyboard similar to the one you’ve gotten now. I never managed to be any productive when I tried to set up a makeshift studio with hardware when on the road. I have many thoughts on why, but I think the main reason is that as I couldn’t bring all of it, it basically ended up being a “new” studio, with a completely different workflow than what I was used to. So it had to be relearnt every time. I’ve never travelled as much as you do though, so this could possibly be a different story for you. But one thing’s for sure: you’ll have an easier time through airport security with what you’ve currently settled on than with loads of hardware, cables, interfaces, you name it. Speaking from experience. 
Brilliant!
It’s worked great for me so far. All fits in the backpack and you can set it up really quickly.