kbovre

May 22, 2011-June 13, 2011 my huband & I will be traveling to Spain, Switzerland, and Austria. We would like to have the ability to have internet access if need be for looking up hotels, car rentals, train times, weather, and anything else a traveler would need to look up during their trip. The obvious "techy" things we will bring with us will be a digital camera and extra memory cards but other than that we are looking for any suggestions on techy things you would NOT travel without. We both have Smartphones but they are not global. We plan on renting a car to drive from Barcelona into the Rioja wine region and to San Sebastian, Spain and would like a GPS. We currently have a Garmin GPS but need to check to see if there's a global application that we can buy for it. We realize some of the cars you can rent include GPS but we aren't sure how much more they charge as we are already going to have to pay more for the rental because we don't know how to drive manual transmission. We were also thinking of purchasing a Netbook with a Wireless card but haven't looked into the cost of that and if the wireless cards are global or not. Lastly, we were also thinking about a Flipvideo camera as well. We have only traveled to Europe once in 2008 to Italy and we only had a digital camera with us and it was fine but we also didn't rent a car, travel to 3 different countries, etc. Any input/advice from you "tech-saavy" travelers out there would be GREATLY appreciated!! Thanks so much!
~Kim & Gavin Bovre

hetismij

If you decide on a netbook it will be usable with any wifi connections around. MacDonalds have free wifi - you can sit in their car park and use it, or just have a cup of coffee and use it. Many tourist offices have free wifi. Many hotels have free wifi or charge a small amount for it.
You can use the netbook to back up your photos too - always worth having them in a couple of places, and should your cards get full you can recycle them, rather than buying more.
You could consider an iPad or other tablet computer too.
If you want to be sure to be able to get online you could get a pay as you go internet SIM card for each country, if they are available, and use either a dongle for it (which you can buy before you leave), or maybe get a netbook which has that built in so you just slot the SIM into the computer. International internet roaming is seriously expensive and not recommended.

Some smartphones have GPS built in and do not need to connect to the net to be used as a navigation device. You should check whether you can use yours that way.

Cowboy1968

I think every netbook you can buy these days got wi-fi built in. And yes, wi-fi is a global standard. You will find many hotels, cafes or similar locations that offer wi-fi access either for free or for a charge. I often found the more inexpensive, independent hotels/ hostals to offer wi-fi for free, while the major chains sometimes asked for a ridiculous hourly or daily fee.

Using 3G/UMTS for data connectivity with smartphones or netbooks (which is not necessarily built in the cheaper netbooks) will incur hefty roaming charges unless you find a supplier of a (micro) SIM card that covers the three countries you plan to travel to, or buy a cheap SIM card in each country. You will probably get lots of advice on how to tackle this issue from others.

I haven't used GPS in Spain yet as I found any route I had to take well signposted. A map did fine for me, but I rarely drove a lot in the major cities.

If you plan to bring any technical devices from the US to Europe, check if the device or the charger can handle 230V current (many chargers will say something like 100V-240V somewhere), and bring an adaptor.

twk

If you get a netbook, you can consider doing what I do for a GPS, and that is using Microsoft Autoroute with a GPS attachment (plugs into the USB port of your computer) to turn your netbook into your GPS. Yes, someone has to hold the netbook (or you have to set it somewhere the driver can see it), but Autoroute allows you plan your route in advance, to see where it is proposing to take you, and make adjustments to the route so that it is more logical. Dedicated GPS units will get you to your ultimate destination, but on a vacation, oftentimes, most of the fun is getting there, and any GPS software I've ever been exposed to will end up making routing decisions that a person with a good set of maps would never make. With Autoroute, I'm able to put in the destination and way points, see where the software intends to send me, then make adjustments so that the route takes me by points of interest, or avoids problematic areas. You can save each leg of your journey as a separate file, then, when you get ready to set out each day, you turn on your computer, open the appropriate file and you're ready to go.

As far as internet access goes, you will want to stay in hotels that have internet access, if you can, but there are other options, as pointed out, above. It's not like you'll want to spend a lot of time surfing the internet.

ggreen

In addition to hetismij's reasons, if you want to do typing (emails, blog), a netbook is a good idea. If you mostly just want location-based services (look up restaurants, maps, driving directions), you could use the wifi on an iPod Touch. I make this distinction because typing on a virtual keyboard is something to get used to - maybe you know this already if your smartphones are touch screens.

Otherwise, as far as I know you shouldn't have a problem with getting Europe maps for your Garmin - and since you already have it, it's certainly a better option than the $$ for renting one!

Do your current smartphones have wifi capabilities? If yes, you should be able to use one for internet features overseas without incurring roaming costs or technical difficulties...

cmndesign

I just bought the ipad2 for our trip to Italy in June. I didn't want to lug around my laptop and it seemed like a good option, small and compact. Although, it does not have a built in GPS, but there are apps that map your location. You do need to have WiFi accessiblity to download the maps. But what I like about it was that I could video chat with my husband in the states if he was on our mac book. But you can not video chat with other devices that are not apple. We are looking into getting a phone when we are there just for emergencies. We will have two kids with us, so.....emergencies do happen! The service that we rented our Villa from recommends:

http://www.cellularabroad.com/

But my neighbor who travels to germany frequently thought that the price was a little high. and that we should just purchase one when we get there. Hope this helps a little!

tobyo

I can't live without my netbook. I used it last year for our trip to Spain and am using it even as I write on our second trip to Spain. I doubt you need an internet card. most netbooks come with wireless capacity (if not all of them actually) and you can find free wifi. your hotels might even offer free wifi but some do not. I download my pics onto the netbook then also copy them to a flash drive. and, if I have time, I upload them onto webshots for another spot so as not to lose the pics.

good luck and enjoy!!

FACS

The past 3 years we have traveled through Germany, Switzerland and Austria without GPS, cellphone,laptop, or reservations. 2 years ago I bought a netbook specifically for this trip and only got WIFI connections 2 of 13 nights due to the rural areas we stayed at.

jamikins

I think you will find that more and more places have wifi compared to a couple years ago. We were able to get it all over rural portugal in Dec/Jan of this year. It really is becoming standard...

kbovre

Thank you so much everyone! I really appreciate your insight! I guess we now just have to decide if we're going to buy a Netbook or a Tablet. TWK, thx for your recommendation on Microsoft's Autoroute w/ GPS. That sounds like a better option than our Garmin. Do you mind me asking how much that program cost you? I went on the website and saw it only listed in euros but I did see a 60 day free trial, not sure if that would include Europe though. And you are right, we definitely don't want to be surfing the internet the entire time, just want GPS/mapping, extra storage for pictues, ability to look up hotels, weather, restaurant reviews, watch DVDs on the plane (which we realize many netbooks don't come w/ a DVD drive), etc.

twk

Autoroute is the European version. Streets & Trips is the US version. I got the Autoroute without the GPS attachment most recently four about $40 (you'll need it shipped to you--the free trial didn't work when I tried to pay for the license after the expiration of the trial period). I previously had the GPS attachment from a purchase in 2006, so didn't have to buy a new one.

ggreen

I recently looked into MS Autoroute / Streets & Trips. I decided not to get it because Google Maps really takes care of all my needs and IMO has such a better interface. (Create a gmail account if you don't have one so that you can take advantage of saving and sharing customized maps you make - you don't need to ever use it for email if you don't want to.)

If you decide to get a tablet, you might want to look into the new Android ones. Being Google, I've found maps and other Google services integrate really nicely with the OS. (Not that they're terrible on Apple products either...)

anitavuyyuru

I bought a Nook Color a month ago and used it on our Hawaii trip and am hooked. No more carrying reading material and it can be used to browse and do all internet stuff with a WiFI which we found available in most places. I'm excited about taking it on our Europe trip this summer.

michele_d

I bought Microsoft Auto Route in 2008. At the time I had dialup internet so map programs on the internet were not feasible for me to use. It's a great planning tool. I can't say enough about it. I designed and saved dozens of maps for our three month trip. You do not need the internet to use it.

I am in the process of researching a netbook for our next trip. I brought my laptop last time and loved it for journaling, backing up pics and Skyping my kids at home.