I have taken my laptop on trips before for the purpose of:

- keeping itineraries and contact lists handy (I have a file that has the itinerary, estimated and actual budgets, insurance details, to do lists, currency conversion charts, hotel lists

- I also like downloading my pics from my digital daily and mucking about with cropping and colour correcting every night before bed. (then it doesn't seem like such a big job once I get home)

- If I get a connection, then that's a bonus

QUESTION: Since this 2 month European vacation is the longest solo trip I have taken, I'm questioning whether I should take it. Is it a nice to have item and not a need to have item?

I could print out all my details, and I could dump my photos onto a cd at a photo store along the way. What would you do?

I've been reading packing list advice and trying to minimize. When Rick Steve's says take one bag, does that mean electronic and cameras are in his suitcase?

I was thinking about taking a smallish suitcase (that could count as a carryon as he suggests, but then was going to take a laptop knapsack (don't they count laptop bags as separate at the airports?

Advice?

If you are travelling to or through a UK airport, you are only allowed one piece of carry-on luggage. Period. That means a purse, or a laptop bag, or a small suitcase, or a shopping bag, but no more than one. So laptop bag + something won't work.

Elsewhere, they would probably count a small laptop bag as a "personal item" that you could have in addition to a small rollaboard suitcase. But they probably would frown, for example, at a rollaboard suitcase, laptop bag/backpack + purse.

A 2 month trip is a long one and I can see why you might want to take a laptop with you. But unless you've got a superlightweight one, like a tiny Vaio, it's going to drag you down. You're also likely to end up worrying about misplacing it or having it stolen.

You could load other data onto a USB key, so that you could view and print it at any computer terminal. Print out the sheets and carry them with you, then rip and toss when you move on from one hotel to the next. Or keep the data on a PDA instead.

That doesn't solve the photo problem but is your desire to do that type of work every day really worth the weight and hassle of carrying a laptop everywhere with you?

The US airports are allowing one carryon bag + one personal item, and your smallish laptop bag would be the personal item. If you also carry a handbag, you'd have to be able to stuff that into one of the above bags, or else you would have too many.

At some airports in Europe, however, one bag means one bag, period.

If I were going alone, I think I would rely on internet cafes for email and websites rather than carry the thing around with me -if- my trip involved moving around quite a bit. However, if I were going to one or two places then maybe it wouldn't be such a pain.

We just took ours for the first time this spring and it was a nice bonus to have along, however my hubby did the lugging and we only had 2 trains between cities.

<i>I was thinking about taking a smallish suitcase (that could count as a carryon as he suggests, but then was going to take a laptop knapsack (don't they count laptop bags as separate at the airports?</i>

It would be okay traveling from most N. America airports to Europe; however if you fly through or from the UK it's ONE carry-on piece total, so your handbag/backpack/computer case/whatever would have to fit inside a larger carry-on.

With the carry-on liquids rules, and this idiotic UK policy (which may well be spreading to other European airports, further inducing mass confusion amongst travelers) we've just caved and gone for checked bags. The good news is that the roll-aboard dimension limit is therefore unimportant, meaning we can take more stuff (or, better, bring more stuff back); the bad news is that we can take more stuff.

I personally can't travel without my laptop, and with increasing wireless internet availability in hotels and cafes, having the ability to use Skype as well as email (thus requiring less use of rent-a-phones or buying local SIMs,) downloading photos, etc., is well worth the extra cargo. Your experience may vary, of course.

My Compaq V2000* is pretty small and light, so packing it isn't an issue. If I had to carry an additional piece of luggage to accommodate a computer, I would only take a PDA and carry enough camera memory so I wouldn't have to dump it to another medium.

* It's the size of a textbook and weighs little more than a 2l bottle of soda.

Is there anything in your list that you could not do at an internet cafe?

Is there a guaranteed safe place to store your laptop when not in use? a PC is a high interest item for thieves

i suppose i forgot to mention that photography is one of my main objectives of this trip. (I took over 600 photos in the Nevada desert in 2 days) 2 months in Europe will be insane.

I am flying into Munich, do you know if they allow 2 bags?

I have a small 12&quot; imac g4. It's 2 years old and although I would be very sad to lose it, I won't tear my hair out (that reminds me, I should back up my photos onto a cd also - just in case)

Thanks for the USB and PDA ideas though. I'll explore storage limitations with those two items and see if they work for me.

I had my laptop with me in Cuba, and loved that I could listen to tunes in my hotel room and work on photos and type up my travel logs...

I am certainly inclined to take it and looking for a compelling reason not to, or reaffirmation..lol

Flying INTO Europe is not the issue, it's flying FROM Europe, or in the case of the UK, flying THROUGH any UK airport, be it to Europe, America, or any other destination.

What we do is download pix onto the computer from the camera(s) then burn them to CDs and store the CDs separately from the computer, in the event it gets dropped or grabbed.

The laptop would either be on my back or locked in my hotel room.

Has anyone had hotel staff steal things from their locked case? Has anyone had their case slashed open? How often does this happen?

The laptop bag will have my laptop and camera when I'm travelling from city to city so i will be guarding it with my life (locking the zippers and locking it to the seats if I plan on sleeping)

I will not be going into UK at all.

As for coming home, I don't mind checking my bag (or maybe bagS at that point, if I do some shopping) I'm not in as much of a rush or as stressed when at my home airport.

Kaka,

If you really feel you have to have that laptop along with you and that it will make your trip more enjoyable then take it.

I've taken a laptop on some trips and have left it at home on others.

I think the key is learning what you really DO and DO NOT need on a trip.

Personally, I wouldn't take anything along I felt I had to guard with my life but to each their own.

Hi Kaka,

Since you'll be gone for two months, you might want to check your bank balances occasionally and also check your credit card charges occasionally. Those are things I wouldn't do at an internet cafe -- and would bring a laptop.

s

I agree that one should not use public computers for sensitive transactions.

But you don't actually have to have a laptop to check balances. I've done it from both my iPAQ (Pocket PC = PDA) and my RAZR phone using T-Mobile's WAP service, T-Zones.

&gt;&gt;I am flying into Munich, do you know if they allow 2 bags?

The English side of the website for the Munich airport (MUC) is www.munich-airport.de/EN. They discuss the liquid carry-on regulations, but nowhere do I see anything about a limit on the number of bags. The Lufthansa website gives information about carry-ons. In addition to the one regulation sized bag (55 x 40 x 20 cm, no more than 8kg or 17.6#), you are also allowed a handbag or small laptop bag, coat, camera, and reading material.

I have never considered flying to the continent via UK, because, with connection times, you arrive at your destination in the afternoon instead of morning - really bad for jetlag. Now the one carryon limit seals it for me.

&lt;&lt;&lt; or locked in my hotel room. &gt;&gt;&gt;

To which anyone with a key will have access.

We didn't fly out of the UK - we departed from Paris, and there was a one-bag carryon rule from there also. You need to be prepared to combine bags for this requirement.

You can buy a combination security cable lock that attaches to the pc itself and you wrap it around something fixed in the room. Costs about $25-35 for a combo version (the keyed ones are cheaper but who wants to keep track of keys?).

Room safes are often too small to hold a laptop.

That sort of lock deters a snatch thief but they are easily broken by quite modest tools

Well, beyond these measures one will have to fall back on insurance.

I don't know about the Munich airport, but I just flew out of Frankfurt on June 10, and we were allowed 1 piece of luggage AND a personal bag. One man had 2 bulging computer bags. We all went right through security with no problems.

I would take the laptop. There is not much English TV (BBC-CNN), and if you are a late night person like me, you'll be glad to have it. Most hotels have WiFi.

My first trip to Europe with a digital camera was in 2000. At the time, a 16 MB memory module cost $50-$100. I knew I couldn't afford enough memory for the trip, so I pulled out my old Compaq LTE that I hadn't used for years and took it along.

I quickly figured out two things. One, the laptop had so many valuable uses I would have one with my every trip. Two, at 7-1/2#, it was to heavy to use again.

Upon returning home, I found an NEC Mobilepro 800 on ebay and bought it for about $300. It's perfect; it weighs only 2.4# and has an 800x600 screen, so I can see the entire picture when I review and sort them. It also has Excel, so I can bring along train schedules, keep an expense report, and most importantly, keep a spreadsheet that projects the total cash needed for the trip. That way I always know how much I need to finish the trip and get that much at my last visit to the ATM.

It has served me well for four trips, but I decided I wanted the software versatility of a full Windows machine, so I have procured a Toshiba Portege 3025 for my next trip. It is heavier at 2.9#, but I like having the larger HD. It only cost me a little over $100, so I am really not risking that much. If I did lose it somehow, it would not be losing the monetary value, but rather the utilitarian value that would upset me the most.

For someone really intent on keeping weight down, someone who doesn't care as much about the size of the display, you can currently buy on ebay an NEC 900 for a little over $100. It only has an 800x240 screen, but it weighs only 1.8#. It also uses Windows CE, for which there is more software available.

One reason why I don't worry about my laptop being stolen, is that in its case, it looks more like a daytimer. I guess someone might try to steal the case thinking it contained credit card, but they would never guess it was a laptop.