Gadgets You Backpack Around the World With?

ryrw writes "I'm planning to spend a year backpacking around the world and the hardest question I have to answer is: What technology do I take with me? Aside from the obvious (digital camera, ipod, et. al.) what technological devices would you you take? Specifically, I wonder if I should bring my nice and shiny MacBook Pro. I can think of lots of uses for it (offloading pix, updating weblog, email, etc.), but I'm worried it will be lost or stolen along the way. Does anyone have experience with travel while toting technology?"

Travel as light as you possibly can

[metlin]

Taking a notebook entirely depends on where you are travelling to. If you are travelling in the Europe, US or Australia, then you can happily chug your notebook with you. On the other hand, if you are travelling to Asia, it would depend entirely on your destination. The same goes for parts of Africa and South America.

Now, you mentioned backpacking - so I am assuming that you do not particularly plan on staying at a hotel. A lot of backpackers stay in hostels, the Y and so on. If the latter is the case, you cannot leave your stuff in the hotel-room and go look around. So, carrying a notebook becomes a liability that needs to be taken care of constantly.

As someone who's travelled a lot, I usually do not carry my laptop around if I am backpacking across the world. Most parts of the world have Internet-cafes or similar places where you can check your mail, offload your pictures etc. And lugging that extra weight (light as it may be) is still a pain. What happens if you get caught in the rain, or if you decide to get drunk in a totally random place? You can't always be worried about your backpack and doing so is likely to give a big hint to folks that there is something worth stealing in your backpack.

Secondly, you will also need to get power adapters for various locations (Europe uses a different plug design and have different voltage/frequency setting than the US, and parts of Asia are a mixed bunch - in some countries, the plug is different but the voltage is the same as US or Europe and vice versa).

If you really feel the urge to be in touch, get a PDA with wireless features and carry that around. If you can check your email from a wireless access point, then your PDA would work as well as your shiny MacBook. And you can also ensure that it's always on you all the time.

The other accessory that I would take would be a nice, cheap, light tripod - look at some of the cheap, ultralight Amvona ones on eBay. They are very light and are totally worth it. And oh, carry a flashlight and a Swiss army knife. Both always come in useful. Also, get a good travel watch - I do a lot of outdoor stuff and I have a good Casio Pathfinder. It is absolutely worth it - it has a digital compass, a thermometer, a barometer, an altimeter and a slew of other features. Granted, you may not always use every feature, but at some point of time or the other, you will use at least one of the features. I have the PAG70-1V [casio.com], and absolutely love it.

And finally, a good, light backpack (preferably one with a camelbag that's always got at least some water in it), good cargo-pants, good shoes and a light jacket go a long way towards making your life less miserable. Goodluck! :)

Re:Travel as light as you possibly can

[metlin]

And I forgot to add - take at least one cheap Walgreen's camera for those times when your digital camera dies on you.

You can always get AA batteries and regular film anywhere, and you will be thankful for it later on!

It would suck if you were at some place where you really wanted to take some pictures, but could not because your memory card was full or because your camera didn't have enough power.

What *I* bring...

[garcia]

I frequently take long geocaching [lazylightning.org] trips and like to have few things with me while I hike. It may be a leftover thing from when I was in Scouting and was constantly out backpacking, but it might just be that I hate carrying shit.

Anyway, I *always* carry with me a mobile phone with Internet service (EDGE/GPRS). In my case I don't have one that I can tether but if you are seriously interested in bringing your computer (I wouldn't, the weight is too much) then at least you will have connectivity in many more areas than if you just had wifi. In addition, I can take quick snapshots and upload them immediately to my mobile images gallery [lazylightning.org] on my website from where ever I am. The quality is shit but at least people can tag along virtually until I upload the nice pictures.

Also, a nice GPS unit with good battery life (this is less of an issue these days with my Garmin 76CS (I haven't upgraded to the x series yet) will last three full days (~30 hours of the unit being on) on two lithium AAs. If I'm using 2500ma rechargables I might get 12 hours total.

The GPS is a nice touch if you want to geo-tag your photos later. Upload your tracks and use one of the pieces of software out there to match the EXIF data to your GPS tracks and then you can map the photos, etc, etc. It's a nice touch.

Pack light

[WinterSolstice]

When I've done long travel, I've tried to go as multi-function as possible.

Camera
Paper journals (books)
Phone
iGo charger or equiv (or a charger that can handle your phone + camera + whatever else)
PDA for everything else from currency conversion to translation help

That's a good set in my experience.

Pacsafe

[WH]

Having travelled extensively, including around-the-world, with technology. My best piece of advice is to purchase at least one Pacsafe mesh bag and ALWAYS use it when storing your gear in your room. Lock it to something that cannot be removed from the room.

In all my travels the only thing I had stolen was one of those small space pens that can write upside down. Given that it was stolen from my bag in a locked room, I'm certain that if I hadn't had Pacsafe I would have been missing MUCH more...

WH

Re:Travel as light as you possibly can

[rolfwind]

Taking a notebook entirely depends on where you are travelling to. If you are travelling in the Europe, US or Australia, then you can happily chug your notebook with you. On the other hand, if you are travelling to Asia, it would depend entirely on your destination. The same goes for parts of Africa and South America.

Actually, there are enough parts of Europe I wouldn't want to chug a notebook with me, unless you are only talking about an available electrical connection and not safety/security.

I would suggest buying a cheapo notebook (seen one perfectly capable unless you are rendering crap for ~$300 at Walmart) that you won't miss if it gets stolen.

Load it up with Ubuntu if you need those apps, dual boot with Windows. Neither is OSX - but it won't hurt as much if it gets stolen or mangled in general.

To prevent scratches on the Mac in case you take it, I suggest some 3M Paint Protection Film. You can buy rolls of it off of ebay.

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Scotch gard-PPF/Home/?WT.mc_id=www.3m.com/paintprotection film [3m.com]

Get device insurance

[GiovanniZero]

I'm going backpacking through Europe pretty soon and I'm getting device insurance from USAA(my bank) it usually less than 100 bucks a year and they offer up to 5000 in coverage. A pretty good deal if you ask me. I wouldn't take my Macbook Pro with me unless I had it insured.

I'm sure other insurance companies do similar stuff. Just be upfront about what you're doing when you get it so that you don't end up surprised later.

Re:What about

[skoaldipper]

I would also suggest a crank turned radio and flashlight - get them at Radio Shack. I have them both in my car, and never need battery replacements. My flashlight for example was cranked over four months ago, and the rechargeable battery is still holding the charge. For the radio, just pull out the little handle and make a steady turn for 2 minutes - you get about 45 minutes hands free OTA action from it.

Re:Travel as light as you possibly can

[webbroberts]

Tripod: I'd vouch for the Ultrapod: a fantastic piece of equipment. Incredibly light and flexible.

Flashlight: get a headlamp, so you can see what you're eating. Get a little red keyring LED, so that you don't kill your nightvision when you get up in the night. On bike tour, I kept mine on my wrist every night when I slept.

Forget anything pricey. You won't need it. Get a cheap watch, a plastic compass (and learn how to use it), and good plastic flatware.

And don't forget the EARPLUGS. Hostels are impossible without them.

Re:Cheap sd cards

[maxume]

Oh, and shove em in one of these, or something similar:

http://www.otterbox.com/products/otterbox/ [otterbox.com]

Some tech gear I carry

[theguru]

I practice lightweight backpacking, but I still sometimes carry some tech gear with me, especially if its multi-purpose.

My TMobile MDA Windows Mobile phone (HTC Wizard in other markets) - Cell phone, web access (if I'm in an area with coverage), PocketPC applications for keeping logs, reading eBooks, listening to mp3s & podcasts, and I sometimes leave the camera at home and just use the built in camera in the phone.

Pair the phone with a bluetooth GPS (I use a Pharos 500 in a GPS-BTII cradle) and a good mapping application for the PocketPC makes the phone/PDA serve another purpose. I carry a compass and topo map, and I know how to use them, but I rarely ever do if I have the GPS with me.

Solio photovoltaic charger (http://www.solio.com/v2/) - I love this thing... it has a built in battery that can be pre-charged from a wall socket, and then you can keep it charged from the sun. You can get tips to charge most of the major cell phones, but it comes with the common ones, a miniUSB, a female USB, and a car charger port (so you can charge anything you've ot a car charger for, if you feel like lugging those cables around). My phone/pda and GPS will all charge from USB or MiniUSB. A full day with this strapped to the top of my pack is enough to fully recharge my phone/pda.

5.8oz for the PDA, 2.3oz for the GPS, and 5.6oz for the Solio charger. All my tech needs in under a pound, with some earbuds and misc cables.

I have a base weight (backpack, clothes, shelter, sleeping bag, first-aid kit, water filter, and misc gear) minus consumables (fuel for my stove, water, and food) under 8lbs, including my "Geek Gear". I've used this loadout for up to a month at a time, with limited resupply.

Re:Travel as light as you possibly can

[CastrTroy]

Or you could just get a digital camera that takes AA batteries, and never use the internal memory except when you are in the situation mentioned above. Or you could even buy a couple extra SD cards, They aren't that expensive. It seems to me to be a waste to carry something that you never plan on using. Plus you'll have to deal with carrying that film around afterwards, which can be a pain.

Re:Travel as light as you possibly can

[t8bloom]

I traveled around Thailand and Cambodia for 3 weeks and ultimately felt overburdened by the tech I chose to bring. I'm a pro photographer (although not a pro travel photographer) and the amount of gear I carried dictated the security level (and therefore price) of the places I would allow myself to stay. Ultimately this increased the price of my trip nearly to the cost of my gear. For communications I carried a palm TX with keyboard. This was lightweight and sort of worked out, but the wireless ethernet connect charges were outrageous compared to the cheap and ubiquitous internet cafes. Plus, the browser on the TX leaves much to be desired, so I ended up having to use the internet cafes for most everything anyway. In retrospect, after seeing how much I paid in hotels to help secure my gear (mostly cameras), extra batteries, converter plugs, wireless ethernet charges, etc, I would have been way better off traveling unburdened by all those electronics, and just brought a small camera, very lightweight tripod, and extra flash memory.

Re:Pacsafe

[sTalking_Goat]

I second the Pacsafe. You might even want to leav it on the bag while wearing it in certain places.

A friend of mine was in India, walking with two other friends in broad daylight when she had two people walk up behind her. One grabbed her pack. The other slipped a long knife between her back and the pack and cut all the straps. They were gone before she knew what happened.

Luckily she had her money and documents in a money belt under her shirt.

Re:Travel as light as you possibly can

[ehrichweiss]

And oh, carry a flashlight and a Swiss army knife. Both always come in useful.

Never, ever, ever, EVER carry a knife, Swiss army or not, into Mexico. I'm not sure about European countries or the like but in Mexico they want to put you in jail so that some of your American dollars can help out their budget. I have a former friend who went that I specifically told not to bring anything remotely considered a weapon and he, like the 'tard he is, brought a swiss army knife and sure enough he got searched and landed himself in a Mexican jail. Cost him over $1500 to get out..for a swiss army knife.

Re:Some tech gear I carry

[theguru]

Gossemer Gear's Marapoosa Plus backpack - 20oz
3liter Platypus water bladder, drinking hose, inline Sawyer water filter - 5oz (dry weight)
custom made bivy sack & sleeping bag liner, good down to 30F which is about as cold as I go out. - 8oz
Spectralite tarp tent (http://www.mountainlaureldesigns.com/shop/product _info.php?cPath=21&products_id=50&osCsid=26c40bb56 61a292d8a7150a56ba802f6) - 4oz with TI stakes and spectra guylines
Carbon Fiber treking poles - 15oz
aluminum can denatured alcohol stove and aluminum windscreen - 1.5oz
1qt aluminum pot, with handle removed - 4.5oz

Those are the major items in under 4lbs.. throw in a first aid kit, titanium spork, my pound of geek gear, UnderArmour top, underwear, some lightweight shorts, trailrunner shoes, change of socks, sil-nylon raingear, and other misc gear comes in at 7.8lbs currently. I'm going out with it this weekend, so I just repacked and weighed everything.

Thats a solo spring/summer/early fall pack weight. If I'm going out with other people, I may carry a couple pounds more gear for comfort (larger cook pot, different shelter, bigger first aid kit, a water pump instead/in addition to my inline filter).

I normally carry 2 liters of water at a time, so about 4lbs there, and 1.25 to 1.5lbs of dry food per day. The alcohol stove uses about 1 fluid ounce (.8oz weight) of denatured alcohol to boil a quart of water for 5+ minutes, so about one of those per day.

Travel list of champions

[arcite]

I've traveled the length and breadth of the world a few times, here are my tips:

Take half the clothes and twice the money. (I have tried this and it really works)

Oh you were wondering about gadgets. I haven't seen anyone mention packing a decked out SWISS ARMY KNIFE --- that can save your life. As for myself, I have one with a little magnifying glass, the logic being that if my plane crashes and I end up on a desert island I can start a fire. Yea, I'm that geeky, never mind the fact that planes NEVER safely land on deserted islands in the middle of the pacific. ::sigh:: a man can dream...

Also be sure to bring a pack of IMMODIUM, now this WILL save your life, or at least prevent your insides from completely liquefying after you sample that oh-so delicious looking street food (you know, those little bbqed mystery meats ALWAYS look sooooo good until you try to digest them)

Also make a photocopy of your passport and keep it in a hidden place,that can save your ass.

Now, I'm Canadian eh, so I'm one of those patriotic freaks who sews a Canadian flag on my pack, I'm sure it will come in handy one of these days because hey, everyone loves Canadians! So far it has only worked to strike up conversations with cute random women while stranded in the international terminal :)

Also bring extra memory and batteries for your cam, and don't be one of those dorks who brings the telescoping lens and then regrets it later after they have been trekking around ruins in the jungle in 100% humidity. Trust me, if you want a good photo, buy one. There is nothing sillier than visiting to some ancient monument trying to savor the moment and seeing 100 people all setting up their tri-pods because they figure THEY are better photographers than the pros. I guess I just don't get it.

Final advice, don't wear a watch or flashy jewelry; you wouldn't want to entice a pickpocket would you?

Well I guess that about covers everything, and don't forget to buy travel insurance!

Re:Travel list of champions

[BlackEmperor]

If I can add some stuff, assuming you are backpacking and staying in hostels :

- Don't take a laptop, it can be cool to have but you'll also end up worrying about it a lot and it's extra weight. I mean if you're going to LA or something you'll feel stupid travelling *without* a laptop, but any further afield, ditch it.

- Take a cheap(ish) simple camera. It's another thing you don't want to worry about losing or being damaged, and most cheap cameras these days take excellent pics. Take lots of memory sticks, though I actually found on long trips (> say 3 months) that just uploading all my pics to gmail or something at each hostel I staid at worked better, but is a little more work. Once you end up with a full 1 gig memory stick nothing much you can do other than burn to dvd and then worry that it burnt ok and try not to scratch the disk. Whereas just doing a lot of small uploads each day gives you more peace of mind. Oh and don't forget your usb cable. Most hostels provide free internet access.

- My favourite tech accessory is my old palm III. Go to gutenberg, download a ton of books to your palm pilot, using plucker and away you go. Fantastic for any layovers. Plus you can put other neat stuff on a handheld too. It's value to weight ratio is unbeatable.

- Ipods are a must have but I actually travel with an IRiver, cause it takes an AA battery, rather than a recharger, and lasts a long time on a AA battery. If you're in a remote location, or say on a long bus ride, AA batteries are far more convenient.

- Take a watch. A lot of stuff while travelling requires you to know the time.

- Cell phones can be convenient, but not a must have. Generally wherever travellers go, public phones are nearby.

Re:Travel list of champions

[Anonymous Coward]

Having taken a laptop traveling in 1999/2000, in Australia, NZ, then SE Asia, I will heartily second NOT taking a laptop. It was way too much worry and given the number of Internet cafes, it was not useful. I used it only a couple of times in 6 months before sending it home.

During that trip I had a film camera, and mailed the film home. Going digital now, I would buy a bunch of cards, take a card reader, and upload periodically. Then have someone download and back them up at home. When the card fills up, mail it home. You will have plenty of other stuff you don't need on hand about once a month to ship home, and the cards don't weigh anything relative to a month's worth of credit card receipts and other stuff you pick up.

I'm really happy I bought a digital camera that takes standard AA batteries. I can buy them almost anywhere in the world. If you insist on a camera with a propriatary battery, take a bunch of batteries and two chargers (stored in different places). Make sure you can get replacement power cables (at the equivalent of Radio Shack) in the countries you are visiting. Remember, if you can't buy more AA/AAA batteries, you probably don't have electricity to plug into, and your camera will run out of power eventually.

I'll second the photocopies of the passport. Make more than one. If you know someone safe in the country you are visiting, drop one of the copies with them. You usually will enter/leave from the same city, so can pick it up on the way out. Otherwise, trust them to destroy it for you once you are clear of the country.

Visit a good travel clinic before you go, and get everything they recommend. I may not have used the needles or drugs I was carrying, but if I had needed them I really would have wanted my own.