Have you looked at the MacBook Air? Lightweight and lovely to type on.

You will need to buy the special SD card reader for the iPad - if you use CF cards I'm not sure what you can do. There is a camera connector but it may or may not fit your camera.

There is also a wireless keyboard for it. But it's starts to get to be pricy adding all those things on.

Have a look at netbooks and other tablets. Dell do a flippable netbook - it can be used as a tablet or as a netbook. I'm pretty sure others do too, but I can't remember any names off hand. Of course they are all Windows based, which you may not like.

I take my Samsung netbook with me - it is light (though not as light as an iPad it's true, lasts for 12 hours on a charge, and has a built in card reader plus 3 USBs.
I also take a mini hard drive for backup and a USB stick with stuff like bank and CC info and a copy of my passport on it. But that lives elsewhere.

If you want to view photos a non glossy screen is better too.

I LOVE my I-PAD 1

which Apple is selling online

refurbished with a 1 year warranty now

from the late $200s

Elegant stylish light easy to type on

beats the pants off my more expensive notebooks

laptops I used to use.

Got it last yeae amazing really fast better graphics

I-Pad 2 is new even better from $499

AAPL sold 1 MILLION last weekend breaking the

world's record for computer sales!

Only downside is due to computer envy it is a theft magnet

so be careful to insure it and store it safely as you

travel...if you leave it unattended in hotel rooms it

may be gone in sixty sconds.

I had the same question six months ago before heading off on a RTW, with a blog to maintain. I bought an ASUS 1008HA netbook (the older and lighter model with XP) because I couldn't face typing on glass. It's worked out well - I'm typing on it right now.

I figured that by the time I added the case, a wireless keyboard, and the camera connection kit to the iPad it weighed as much as a netbook and cost twice as much. Plus all the reviews said that the iPad was great for consuming content but bad for creating it.

What do you think of a Macbook Air vs. Ipad?

I did quite a bit of very personalized research, based on my own needs and work patterns while traveling, about just this - MacBook Air vs iPad. My conclusions were just as thursdaysd wrote,"the iPad was great for consuming content but bad for creating it.". I chose the smaller MacBook Air with extra memory and found it was perfect for my needs while in SE Asia recently.

I recommend you spend time making a list of how you intend to use your new purchase. Then spend more time at an Apple store checking them both out: typing away on each; checking out what you need to do to download photos, and what peripheral equipment you will need to do so; cataloging your images; doing photo editing, if you intend to do any of that before posting photos to your blog or website.

The iPad is glitzy and fun and very seductive. The MacBook Air is a workhorse in comparison.