Tech Toys for Travel?
 

I admit it, I love travel gadgets and tech toys. I've been traveling with a digital camera, and sometimes laptop for almost 10 years.

This next trip, I'll be taking a Palm PDA, a wireless keyboard and a digital camera.
I also recently bought a new toy, a USB card reader for SD cards. http://tinyurl.com/29q8ed

With this, I can take the card out of my camera, and (hopefully) plug it into any USB port in an internet cafe where I can send emails with photos or update my blog. Or, take documents off the PDA, put them on the card, to access them in internet cafes.

I can also take that same card, put it into my PDA and send emails from there with photos if I have wi-fi access.

The PDA is loaded with music, audio books, my complied travel notes for the current trip (restaurant recs, sightseeing), Metro software, money software, checklists, etc. The calendar has my itinerary and I can access the internet if I can find wi-fi. This PDA thing is new to me, so it will be interesting to see just how "paperless" I can be. :-)

So, what tech toys do you take?

Oh, and for those of you who say "pen and paper", that's fine. But I find I'm more successful in keeping my journal if I can type up some notes at night before I go to bed.

Oh, forgot to add- I thought the USB card reader would be a great tool for people who want to upload/save their photos to a website to guard against loss or empty a card, rather than having the images burned on a CD.

Will internet cafes allow you access to USB ports?

That's a good question. Some won't, some will. I'm hoping that maybe the ones in the hotels I'll be in will allow access. It's just nice to have options.

GPS unit for driving about in rental cars. iPod.

HI K,

I have yet to find an internet cafe or hotel that will let me plug my medium into their device.

Buy another 2 gb SD card and do your transferring at home.

((I))

Ira-actually, I have 3 cards (512, 1G, and 2G) and I'll probably bring them all so I'm not worried. :-)
I'm interested to see if I'll be able to find access to USB drives because I'd really like to be able to post photos to my blog during my trip. Unfortunately, the blogging software isn't 100% compatable with the brower on my PDA and it won't let me attach photos. We'll see.

Just an update for Ira :-)
I've been able to find internet cafes with accessable USB ports now in both Budapest and Vienna. Not everywhere, but they are there.
If you want to see my trip Blog, go to www.wired2theworld.blogspot.com