One word: Acoustic coupler (Score 1)

I made a trip trough Europe last summer, and also wanted to check my email and stuff while travelling. I bought a "PowerPort Coupler" on ebay then. This is some kind of advanced acoustic coupler, you don't connect it to the serial port, but directly to a PCMCIA-modem. Like that, i got connections up to 26400 bps... No problem to check mail or the latest news on slashdot =). If you cant get one cheap (I paid about 20$ for mine), these couplers are still built by "Konexx", and cost 128$ new (www.walkabouttravelgear.com).