Comment Re:You probably don't need a laptop (Score 1) 479
I was going to post the same suggestion, but someone else beat me to it. I've done several RTW trips, each for several months, through many different 3rd world countries, and have never taken a laptop. The last time I did one, in 2005, I posted entries to a blog every couple of days with the latest pictures, stories, etc., so I was definitely trying to figure out the same problem you are. In the end, I decided that worrying about the laptop itself, plus the batteries, charging system, cables, the weight of it all, the idea of it being stolen, etc. was just not worth it. One main problem is that you'll eventually need to go to an internet cafe to get online, and if that's the case, you might as well just use their computers instead. You might be surprised how prevalent internet access is these days. On my trip in 2005, I did Japan, then the Trans-Siberian railway from Beijing to Moscow, and then a bit around Europe as well. Of all the countries, the best internet access was in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, where they had clean rooms, good working computers, high speed internet access, and all for the low price of one US dollar per hour! Try to get that in any 1st world country. :-)
Of course, that leaves the problem of what to do with your pictures. One simple idea is to use the internet cafe again. I found that most of them had the ability to let you transfer your images to the computer and then burn them to DVD -- they'd even sell you a blank DVD if you wanted.
But what I did was take a little audio/video player with a good sized hard drive on it. I chose one of the smaller Archos media players for this task, and it worked out great. They have newer models now, but the basic idea is to get one that has the ability to transfer pictures from your camera to the hard drive. The one I found actually came with a CompactFlash port on it, so I could pull the card out of the camera and plug it directly into the drive, and then copy everything across in a couple of minutes. This served as an excellent backup method, and even saved me once when the camera was stolen, but the drive was safe back in the hotel room. If you transfer the pictures each night, you always have them in two places, and then when you get to the next internet cafe, you can burn them to DVD or maybe even upload them to a web server if the upload speed is good enough. BTW, I initially thought I'd use the photo viewer on the Archos player more than I actually did -- it turned out to be way too slow at displaying the huge multi-megapixel images cameras are capable of today, but maybe they've improved that by now. The video playback actually turned out to be pretty fun though. But you might even be able to get by with a simpler device that was more of a compact portable hard drive with no audio or video playback, as long as it had some kind of interface for copying files back and forth, and maybe creating directories, deleting files, etc.
I found that if I took a USB cable, I could transfer the pictures and a lightweight editor program to the computer, resize some of them, and post them up to the blog along with my comments. I probably used dozens of different cafes and never had a problem.
Anyway, good luck on the trip!
Russell
Of course, that leaves the problem of what to do with your pictures. One simple idea is to use the internet cafe again. I found that most of them had the ability to let you transfer your images to the computer and then burn them to DVD -- they'd even sell you a blank DVD if you wanted.
But what I did was take a little audio/video player with a good sized hard drive on it. I chose one of the smaller Archos media players for this task, and it worked out great. They have newer models now, but the basic idea is to get one that has the ability to transfer pictures from your camera to the hard drive. The one I found actually came with a CompactFlash port on it, so I could pull the card out of the camera and plug it directly into the drive, and then copy everything across in a couple of minutes. This served as an excellent backup method, and even saved me once when the camera was stolen, but the drive was safe back in the hotel room. If you transfer the pictures each night, you always have them in two places, and then when you get to the next internet cafe, you can burn them to DVD or maybe even upload them to a web server if the upload speed is good enough. BTW, I initially thought I'd use the photo viewer on the Archos player more than I actually did -- it turned out to be way too slow at displaying the huge multi-megapixel images cameras are capable of today, but maybe they've improved that by now. The video playback actually turned out to be pretty fun though. But you might even be able to get by with a simpler device that was more of a compact portable hard drive with no audio or video playback, as long as it had some kind of interface for copying files back and forth, and maybe creating directories, deleting files, etc.
I found that if I took a USB cable, I could transfer the pictures and a lightweight editor program to the computer, resize some of them, and post them up to the blog along with my comments. I probably used dozens of different cafes and never had a problem.
Anyway, good luck on the trip!
Russell
