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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?"
Obviously it depends on how much effort you want to put into taking care of it. This means things like always making sure you can find a safe storage location, lockable lockers, etc, which aren't always easy to find.
That said, I think part of the fun of backpacking is not taking everything with you -- it's about seeing how well you can live without luxuries. Also, when you're backpacking, every kilogram and every litre counts; brining a laptop + its accessories means you'll have to sacrifice space that you could use for another couple pairs of underwear or a shirt.
As far as pictures go, get a large memory card for your camera. You'll find places that will take your pictures from your memory card and burn them to CD while you wait. Internet cafes are ubiquitous in many parts of the world. I think you overestimate your need for a laptop.
I wouldn't take a laptop. But it's really up to you.
Do yourself a favor and leave the electronics at home. What an opportunity this will be! You'll be in interesting places, meeting new people ... why filter the experience through an assortment of electronic nonsense. You'll have plenty of time to carry that crap around during your entire career when you get home.
This might be your last opportunity to live relatively low-tech. Embrace it.
This was some good advice, so I just want to back it up. I have done a fair bit of traveling, and not just to tourist locales. I have been to England, France, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, etc. One thing I have learned is travel light. You will be frustrated and annoyed having to carry to many things. As for the electronics issue, I guess camera and music are fine, but forget the laptop. That will just be begging to be stolen. What would you rather do, enjoy your trip, or basically babysit electronics around the world? I totally get what your trying to do (stay connected, blog about the trip, etc), but internet cafe's will have to be the way to go. You can try and make some friends along the way that have laptops (or even locals) so you can upload your pictures. Take a notepad and a couple pens and just write out your adventure and just type it up later. Not reason to dwell on your prose, write done, what, when, where, why, etc. You can fill back in the details later. You don't want to see the Seven Swans Pagagoda and not remember what it was called later on, but long as you write blurbs to yourself about what you did and when (so you can get the order right), you can easily remember the rest later.
Most importantly, have fun, thats the point. Life is about experiences.
Don't go backpacking without a 1/4 roll of duct tape. You can make splints and bandages out of it, bodge just about anything, oh - and patch up your laptop after you drop it in a hostel fight.
From experience Hotel = Laptop, Hostel = pad of paper
Don't forget that travel is about experience, not about having your nose stuck in a computer. If you're going to do that, stay home - it's cheaper.
I say if you're gonna be packing everything with you on your back everywhere, you've got to keep light. I read that even mp3 players are a bad idea, because every ounce (or kilohectare, for you metric lovers) counts when you're going any real distance with a pack on your back. I combine the mp3 player with the phone (but it doesn't do me any good, because my wife wants me to leave the phone at home with her).
I went on a 15-mile hike with the Scouts a few weeks ago, and I felt every pound I had on me. One of the leaders even told about how he dumps excess water if he knows there's a stream a mile ahead.
So I guess it's up to you. If you feel like you can take it, go on a 15-mile hike with everything you think you want to take. After 15 miles, you'll know what is worth hauling around and what's worth leaving. That's what worked for me. After that 15 miler I got a different pack, changed what I ate, changed how much water I carried (and how I carried it), and bought some new boots.
Test-drive your pack. It's worth it!
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Well said.
:) and in general had a great time. The tripod/camera combo was pocketable, used xD cards so carrying a 1000 pictures worth of memory was no problem. I enjoyed that vacation more because taking pictures was quick and easy, without having to lug what seemed like tons of crap.
However, if you're truly going backpacking, don't bring a notebook of any type. You won't use it. I went for a 30 day trip through just Europe a while back (pre digital camera days) and brought 35mm camera with a couple of lenses and a medium sized lightweight tripod. Got great pictures, but that rig sure got heavy.
Went on another much later with a small digital camera and a super small tripod, took about twice as many pictures, got some relatively decent ones considering it was a point and shoot on a 4" tripod
It really depends upon what the purpose of your trip is. The time frame of 1 year also adds to it. If you're frequently going to places where power in unreliable or unavailable, look for something to take that runs on easy to get batteries.
I'm also going to guess you're going to be carrying some sort of cell phone, since you were considering a notebook. Maybe look at getting a phone that doubles as some or most of the functionality of the notebook that you needed will suffice?
Most importantly, remember you're going to see stuff, not your gear (you can do that @ home) unless you're writing a travel book or something like it.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
If you really want to be mobile and go a lot of places and see a lot of things, the key is to *NOT* encumber yourself with bulky/heavy/unreliable things.
I traveled around Asia with a laptop, large camera bag, dive gear bag, and a backpack.
I've done other backpack-ish trips with my PDA and phone.
Long story short.
Laptop: Spent a large amount of money on it right before my trip. Had to carry it in a separate backpack. Had to hold it over my head while I walked through waist high flood waters on the sidewalk. It broke, a travel buddy broke it, ruined a friendship. No place in Thailand could fix it. Warranty couldn't be honored without long trip to another country. Heavy. Needed lots of converters. Lugged a broken laptop around on my travels. Wasted travel time trying to get it fixed. Stayed in bungalows that had poor locks/security - worried about theft. By the time I could fix the laptop, it had depreciated to the point that I would have been better off buying a new one.
Camera: Bring a small camera with extra memory cards as your PRIMARY camera. Burn CDs of your pictures regularly. Burn two copies. Keep one with you. Send one to somewhere safe. Large SLR cameras: Get a good telephoto lens and don't bring extra lenses. Decide how much you love photography and how much of your pack storage you're willing to devote to YOUR SECOND camera -- once you factor in the chargers and extra batteries and ram cards for each camera. Also, consider the security factors of your camera gear. Cameras are small and valuable/desirable and need to be protected. Keeping the number of things you have to protect to a minimum is a benefit when you travel. Also, you'll want to have some waterproof bag to put your camera/electronic gear in so that when you travel between cities in a minibus and your bags are on top of the minivan for 12 hours, you won't worry about the 4-hour typhoon-like rains ruining your electronic gear.
Dive gear: Not gadgets, per se. If you're a diver and your travel focus is diving, nothing beats traveling with your own gear. On the other hand, try being one person carrying 150 lbs. of bags with you and see how mobile you are when you're looking for deals on accomodation... Check your gear and stow it in reliable lockers in a big city when you're not going to be using it.
Backpack: Not a gadget, a necessity.
PDA: in my experience, PDA battery life and backpacking around aren't very compatible. I *WANTED* to use my PDA a lot while traveling, but battery life drains after a few hours and requires a long time to charge. Do you want to travel or spend time sitting in cafe's waiting for your PDA to charge? On long trips, your PDA battery will die and when you need it, you won't be able to use it. You'll run your battery down very low and get used the scary warnings about "BATTERY LEVEL CRITICALLY LOW: RECHARGE IMMEDIATELY OR RISK DATA LOSS"
Phone: chances are that your phone won't work in all of the countries you're traveling to. It's actually a good thing to have a working phone while you travel. Do your research in advance with your cell service provider. Make sure you have all of the proper adapters.
Internet cafes are easy to find. Don't encumber yourself with unnecessary gadgets. You'll find them much more of a burden than a benefit in general. They'll keep you from meeting interesting new people. *IF* you choose to bring gadgets, make some tradeoffs so that you don't bring too much stuff and keep your bag light.
Clearly this guy is doing something completely alien to what I do when I backpack.
From what he said, it sounds like he'll be "backpacking" like "backpacking around Europe." That is, rather than taking a suitcase, the backpack will be the suitcase. Everything you need for the trip in there. You seem to be thinking of backpack-camping. That is where your backpack is your only thing. All food and housing (as well as water or water purification) must be contained within. That doesn't seem to be what he is doing. I've done both, and you pack differently for each. And we took a videocamera and GPS with us on a 40 mile hike, though we traded them off for who carried what at any given time. Oh, and of course, the cell phone, even though it was only good for about 2 of the 40 miles. But you gotta call for the pickup at the end...
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