The Longest Way Home: Gadget List

I will be the first to admit I like gadgets. But I screwed up when I first headed off. Years ago I traveled with no gadgets. I think the most tech savvy thing I had was a torch, that was it. Now it's a different story, and a different world.

Here are my reviews on travel related gadgets and my opinion on them. I don't have half of what I list here, but at some stage over the hears we've crossed paths. I hope you can benefit from my experience with them.

If you buy through the Amazon links here, you'll be helping the site out. Amazon prices are the same, but they give me a small commission that I can use towards buying a new travel guide, or for keeping the site going!

Laptop
Nowadays it's hard to walk into a hostel without seeing backpackers busy tapping away on keyboards connected to WIFI. Uploading photos, Instant Messaging, blogging and telephoning friends online. I often wonder if people spend more time online in hostels, and out looking at the country they are visiting!
If you are just going away for a few weeks, then in my opinion leave the laptop at home, update using a blog, and post photos later. If on the other hand you are going to me traveling for months and months if not years. You might want to consider the following:

Internet banking: provided you keep the laptop updated, have anti virus and a firewall, it will be 100 percent safer to use than a cyber cafe. You can manage you bank transfers yourself, and see what's happening to your credit card transactions.
You can take your time in uploading photos. for storage or resizing them, and putting them online.

Blog: You can write your blog in peace, and email without having the whole room reading over your shoulder.
After that it doesn't do much.

So what Laptop? Okay, go light and small. You may think a laptop weighing in at 5-6 pounds in manageable, but after including your charger and the odd cd, plus case or cover it starts to weigh up. If you can afford to buy new. Think about your needs. Are you a photographer who takes a lot of large high quality photos? If yes then a a DVD burner to back up and post home photo's is a must. Uploading 5MB or higher photo's just isn't going to happen in most places. If you take snaps around 1-2MB then you could get away without a DVD/CD burner and just upload your photos. WIFI, make sure it has it. LAN, again make sure it can have an internet cable plug into it for more remote places without WIFI.

These days laptops like Sony Vaio's 2 pound TZ series or are expensive but have all you could want. Apple's AIR comes with all bar the DVD burner. For a cheaper alternative have a look at ASUS and ACERS tiny sub 2 pound machines. They don't have DVD/CD burners and have tiny screens with tiny keyboards. But they have 160GB hard drives WIFI and are incredibly small. The issue you will have is that they don't come with DVD burners for photo back ups, and some only come with Linux, meaning a small learning curve.
There are also new batch of cheap ultra portables out there. I have used them, and really did not like. The screens were low quality and the processors slow, the HD were 4GB so you needed an external anyway. I would opt for a PDA over one of these. That said, if its not for storage or photo work they they are cheap enough and work well for most backpacker bloggers and photo uploader purposes.

Camera
You will have to ask yourself some questions before settling on what to take. Are you a pro, semi pro, or just snap happy? How much weight can you carry? And, how long are you going for?

Digital camera's these days are relatively cheap, and offer good results. Something's to keep in mind: Don't get carried away with megapixels. The real quality in a camera comes from the lens and person holding it. With compact cameras you can pick up a 10 MP camera easily. Great. But what about the zoom? Forget anything with digital zoom. You need optical zoom. And most lower to mid range cameras only offer 3.2x zoom. Think about were you are going. Safari? Well, you won't get many close ups with a 3x zoom. Can you get up close to a local person without being rude or embarrassed? If not, you will need more zoom. Unfortunately it comes at a price.

Weather protection. Olympus offer several water proof and crush proof compact cameras. Handy if you are roughing it.

For the more serious photographer keep the following in mind. If you are bringing your SLR and lenses, keep an eye on the weight you will be carrying. There are several day packs that have compartments for lenses these days, you might want to consider one of these. But, beware of changing lenses. I have seen many people suffer from dust on their sensors when changing lenses. It's a big problem when off the beaten path.

One last thing. Batteries. If you are using AA batteries for anything else, like an MP3, or torch. Try to get a camera that takes AA batteries. Otherwise you will end up carrying yet another charger - see my battery section below for more info. For SLR's with little choice, use a surge protector.

Here are some links to camera review sites - clicking on the names will open a new page/tab
DPreview
imaging-resource
dcviews

MP3 Player
Ipods are the rage. I had one, it didn't survive Africa. The battery went. I have met 5 people in one sitting who lost all manner of Ipod and Creative mp3 players in high humidity conditions. The I-Pod stores a lot. But again, you need a charger and then have to spend over night looking for a plug, and then minding it while it charges. They last about 8 hours. One long bus trip. The nano mp3 players are much the same, bar no menu's

Here's what I recommend. I have a small AAA reparable battery mp3 player. 1 battery lasts 12 hours. Granted it only carries 1-2 GB of music, but it's enough for me. I use the Mp3 player to fall asleep to in loud hostels, and for learning a language on long bus/train trips. It's hard to find the AAA battery mp3 players these days, but it is possible, and I have seen people convert to them.

PDA
A wifi enabled PDA is a good option if all you are interested in is emailing, and online banking. They are small, and easy to carry. Keep in mind that if you are in remoter areas then wifi will not be available. More recent releases have LAN ports to allow cable internet connection.

Batteries and chargers
As you might have noticed I am a big AA and AAA battery fan. Why? Well I only need one charger for my camera, mp3 player and head torch. It also charges everything in 15 minutes. It can't get much better than that. Think about it otherwise, mobile phone, camera, mp3 player charging will take you hours upon hours to charge separately. At least with AA/A batteries and a fast charger you can cut down on weight and time.

If you are going the AA/A route, aim for high capacity. 3000 mah AA's are common these days. But beware of fakes. Bad packaging and slightly blurred print outs a give away. But the batteries in reputable "branded" store. The fakes can be expensive, and simply not hold much charge.

Mobile/Cell Phone
Sim cards bought in country are generally cheaper than roaming. So make sure your phone is SIM free. But then there are unblockers out there too! Beware of where your phone can operate. Dual band phones bought in asia, might not work in the U.S.A. And visa versa. Tri and Quad band phones generally work all over the world.

When in Asia you might want to check out the cheap 'china' phones. Rip off's of all the latest models like i phones at a fraction of the cost. In general they look and work well. The CECT brand is quite good. But a few things to be aware of. A phone advertised with a 3MP camera, might only have a 1MP camera in reality. These phones cannot be updated either. So no new games, or browsers can be installed. Also make sure you have the store you buy one from test it in front of you. And change the language from Chinese to English! Unless you can read Chinese that is?!

Portable Hard drive
A big plus for the photographer. These gadgets are small and can store all your files, photos and music into 2.5 inch laptop hard drives. For security and convenience without a laptop. Try to get one that has memory card slots. X drive is a good brand that doesn't need a charger. Otherwise a usb slim case is a great way to back things up. Just be aware of viruses and the like on public computers.

USB Flash Drive
I seriously recommend you invest in one of more of these things. They are great for carrying a backup of your passport scans, photo's, documents and other bits and pieces. You can even carry your firefox web browser and anti virus software with you and use it on the go. They come up to 8GB, some even with water proof casing. Just remember they are small, and can got lost easily.

Blog
Cut back on your massive email list by having a blog. Tell people to subscribe to your updates, and not longer worry if you forget that you left some one out.

Email
Still as important as even. As it took over from writing a letter home, the blog is taking over from emailing home. But an email allows for more personal one on one messages.

Online Storage
If you have internet access, online storage can help you store just about anything. Places like Flicker, shutterfly and travellerspoint offer photo storage, but with limits. Other online storage companies like Box.net and Adrive offer storage of anything from photos to files. Be aware of terms of service to a lot these companies. Some are free with limits, others not so free. But online storage does offer the long term traveler some good ways to store important files.

Foxmarks: Free online application that stores all you firefox bookmarks. Use it in public computers or portable drive to access all the bookmarks you can never remember!

Clamwin: Free Portable anti virus for your flash disk. Try getting it up and running before you leave.

Openoffice Portable: Free office suite containing Word Processor and spreadsheets for your flash drive.

FastStone Image Viewer: Need to rename or resize a lot of photo's, this is the application. Its works well, is very fast, and free!

Personal Anti virus: Avast and AVG are easy, robust, well updated and free for personal usage.

Operating System: If you are traveling with a laptop and are worried about security and keeping it updated you might look into changing over to a Linux distribution. No viruses, high security, and speed on a small laptop are all good things.

Warnings and Tips for using cyber cafes or public computers
The biggest problem is security. My advice is to never use public computers for online banking. They are often not updated, and carry viruses such as password and key loggers. Now having said that, I have never some across a traveler who has had a problem with either having their passwords stolen or bank details taken. Yet. There is a reason people create them. Programs such as portable keyboards are easily traced too. There's not getting around it. But try at least to make sure the computer you are using has an anti virus running. Look at the lower right hand side at the icons and over your mouse over them, to see the names appear.

Watch out or gizmos plugged into the computer, especially on the keyboard connection into the computer. These are professional hardware loggers, run when you see when of these, and don't use that cafe.

Be aware of people sitting beside you. When on your email, a lot of providers display your name. A person up to no good now knows your name. So later when they bump into you in the street mention you name... well. Also they can quickly write down the keys you tapped, and the email addresses on display on your screen. I have seen this happen more than once. So watch out. And don't be afraid to speak up or change seats!

If you are super worried about your password for your main email account, then you can set up a second account, and have the mail forwarded from you main account to the new account that has another password. At least then if someone nicks your second account, then won't be able to get into your main account. IT's not a fool proof method, but in certain situations it might help.

Finally, if you would like to add anything on this list I'd be more than happy to add it for you: and give credit to you in the update. Just leave a comment here:

Resources: Travel Gadget List

Gadgets to help or hinder you in travel - click on a heading to skip to that section