Travel Tips & Advice
Wired Travel
Fed up of carrying heavy guide books around? Want to stay in touch with friends and family while you're a long way from home? It may be time to start travelling wired...You may simply want to travel with a mobile/cell phone for your safety and convenience. The other extreme can see you carrying a laptop, PDA, GPS and more.
Personally, I love gadgets and would love to buy everything that came out. Unfortunately, my budget doesn't quite stretch to that, so which are the most useful for your travels?
Mobile / Cell Phones
This is something I definitely take travelling. I know many people like to get away from the phone on holiday but if you're travelling around they can be really helpful for organising trips, booking accomodation in advance etc.
They're also nice to have if you want to feel a bit more secure - you have an easy way of getting help if needsbe and your friends and family at home have an easy way of contacting you in the case of an emergency.
You should be aware that North America is a on a different kind of network than everywhere else - if you're travelling to or from the US or Canada, make sure that your phone is compatible with the area to which you are going. Many providers block international calling as a default, so give them a call before you leave to check you're turned on and that they have a service agreement with the country you are visiting. If worst comes to worst, you can often now rent mobile phones in the country you are travelling in.
Lastly, be aware that international mobile phone charges can be expensive - check out the rates before you leave to avoid any bill shocks when you get home.
Digital Cameras
These are, understanabley, getting more and more popular with travellers. If you're travelling for an extended period or are a prolific photo taker, the big drawback can be downloading your photos. Unless you're going to travel with enough memory cards to last the duration of your trip, you're going to have to download your pictures at some point. You could use internet cafe's for this and email yourself the photos back home. However, unless you can compress the photos in some way (which in itself can reduce the quality of your pictures) it could take forever to send the email.
I guess this brings me on to the next item...
Laptops
Great for dowloading your photos onto & much more. You can store your music files, photos etc. You can also download ebooks or even audiobooks to keep you entertained on flights without having to carry around bulky books. This also includes some guidebooks that are now available in ebook format. Of course, carrying a laptop around for quick checks in the guidebook everyday isn't very practicle.
If your laptop has wireless capabilities you can also hunt out wireless networks to make it easy to send email home to friends and family.
The main things to bear in mind with laptops are size & weight and battery life. Not many people would be willing to carry 10lbs of laptop around with them on holiday. However, if you're willing to sacrifice screen size a bit you can now get some very lightweight laptops. The smallest I've seen is the Sony Vaio X505 - weighing in at just 1.85lbs (not incuding the battery though!). I have an older version of Sony's lightweight range. You can get a great protective sleeve for them so it just fits in you backpack with everything else.
Battery life is, of course, another concern - many only last up to 4 or 5 hours at most - not great if you were hoping to use it as a DVD player on that flight to Australia (unless you're lucky enough to be in Business Class with a power socket). Many do have extended life batteries available, but they're not cheap.
PDAs
If you don't want to go to the extreme of travelling with a laptop, a PDA may be the answer. There is now a wide variety of PDAs available with many different features. Some allow you to organise photos, email, listen to music or audiobooks, read ebooks and more. Obviously the storage capacity is nowhere near that of a laptop, but they can give you some of the great features without the drawbacks of size and weight.
Portable Music
If you want to be as up to date as possible with your gadgets, it has to be a portable jukebox, storing days and days of music. The most popular is of course the ipod, but there are now a wide range available from the likes of Dell and Creative. Some of these claim to have a longer battery life than the ipod, which may be an important factor for many travellers. The thing that draws me to the ipod, however, is its ability to play audiobooks. Rather than carrying those bulky books around, you can just sit back and listen and when you've finished, pop into an internet cafe to download another.
GPS
For the more adventurous amongst you, a GPS could be a must have. Helping you find your way on those "off the beaten track" trips, they can help ensure you never get lost.