Hi,
First, Tom! Your pictures are absolutely beautiful! We are planning our first trip to Italy with our 3 kids and we just browsed through all your pictures and cannot wait to see what you captured in pics.

We always travel with at least one laptop. It makes it easier at the end of our day of sightseeing to bring everything over. Another thing I do is use my video ipod to bring pics off the memory card in my digital camera to the ipod. That has been a lifesaver when I did not have a laptop.

Jasmine

There have been reports of people losing photo data in their ipods so be careful.

Tom: After viewing all of your beautiful pics I am coming to the conclusion that you must also live in the Seattle area?? You have really captured New Years Eve at the Space Needle! It looks so much more spectacular in your photos than on TV. I find it hard to believe that you are an amateur photograher! If you ever do any pics of the San Juans I would love to see them as I feel sure you could capture their beauty.

If we are moving around a lot or on a very short trip I will probably not take it. We normally don't stay in hotels on holiday but I would not be concerned about leaving a laptop in a hotel - I really don't understand why many are so concerned about leaving things in hotel rooms. When travelling for work I would always have my laptop with me and would be in a hotel room then. On holiday we find it useful for checking e-mails, researching places, skype and occasionally for watching a dvd - especially in non-English speaking country without satellite tv in the apartment. I hate having to look for internet cafes and some are pretty dodgy - I would be much much more concerned about having a handbag stolen in an internet cafe than anything in a hotel room.

Could someone please explain to me what skype is? Several have mentioned it here. I did a search on google but I would love more info about it.

Thanks

skype is the name of a service that lets you make calls for free over the internet. You have to have broadband, and so does the person you are calling (to make it totally free). A lot of people are using this service. In Europe some mobile service providers are alowing its use on their cell phones, making international cell calls cheaper.

skype computer to computer is free. I use skype 'out' mainly which is computer to landline or mobile - it is incredibly cheap especially to a landline and the call quality is better for me than computer to computer due to where I am. It is fantastic. Also excellent for chat. And you can use a webcam with it as well.

The rules on backing up data regularly, and on offloading any sensitive information before hitting the road, apply whether one is travelling between one's office in NA and home, or on vacation in Europe. (But of course, you know this already.) And of course, you may not care if you lose any data along with your laptop. (I might, though, if you happen to work for my bank....)

I don't say "don't take it" since of course thousands of travellers do (business travellers at any rate) but I also would not assume that because this or that person left it in the hotel room with no problems, that this means hotel rooms are safe, or for that matter, any car you might happen to rent.

My only caution is that on vacation, one tends to be distracted, and to do things one otherwise might not do - generally for better, but sometimes for worse.

I ALWAYS take my laptop. I too have concerns about it being stolen so also take a cable to lock it up in the event there is no safe to stash it. I am currently looking for a new laptop and definitely will be buying something that is thin and light and ideally it will have a fingerprint reader.
I also have a pocket pc whch is sufficient for shorter trips in the US but for Europe I take both. When I feel like a stranger in a strange land my computer is my "best friend"

i€ always take mine. I would not necessarily want to hug around a 6-7lb laptop, however. Mine is a 3 lb tablet.
I check email, get maps, buy theater tickets, check restaurant reviews, make reservations, google info, etc. Down side is high cost of hotel charges. Always left the computer on the desk in room. Maybe I am lucky but I have never had anything stolen from a hotel room in the last 15 years.

T2 - You are right. I live in the First Hill area of Seattle.

I am glad you like my work. And no, I haven't photographed the San Juans yet. But it is on my list.

Tom

1jan:

I bought a Cingular 8125. It's about the size of a Blaackberry, but I like it much better because it has a slide-out keyboard that's far easier to use (much bigger kes) than the Blackberry.

And for you Skype fans, IMO Jahja is even better (cheaper).

We took our 12", 4lb laptop on a five month trip around the world with our small child. We'd take it again. Here's some tips I haven't read here yet:

1. You need a surge protector, perhaps more than a converter. Many laptops are already ok with EU voltage. You may just need an adapter (make sure it's grounded) and a surge protector.

2. Italy still has lots of Internet cafes, but you have to remember to carry your passport with you!

3. Wireless wasn't everywhere, but most Internet cafes would either have a laptop connection, or let me plug into one of the desktop connections.

4. Laptops don't always mean work. Someone else mentioned pictures. Load music cd's for tunes in your hotel room. You can watch dvds (at least region 1). You could load a game or two. Of course, our dvd collection had lots of children's cartoons for long plane rides and early morning wake-ups!

5. Bring a beefy flash drive and blank cd's for when you can't hook up your laptop. You can still transfer files. The blank cds are good for backing up important files. You can buy these overseas, but they are cheaper here.

yes -- I really like being able to play music from my laptop in the apt or hotel, as well. I used to carry a small speaker system for my ipod but that was a pain and I returned it. Sound quality isn't great off the laptop but it's totally fine for ambient music when I'm getting ready in the morning or when I return late at night.

I'd also echo that intenet cafes are the most sketchy places I've frequented in Europe -- it's like hanging out in a train station and there are signs everywhere warning you to not put your purse or bag down, etc.

Your laptop may never be more vulnerable to theft than it is in the security line at the airport. There are thieves who specialize in picking them off of the scanner belt. I have a friend whose laptop was swiped at Heathrow Airport; it was returned to her a year later by the US State Department with a note saying it had been found being used by an Al Qaeda terrorist!

Thank you everyone for your comments and help!

Christy, great info! Things I will definitely make sure I look for and take. The help and comments on this forum have been a wealth of info for me for all my trips!

Tom, your sunset pics reminded me of when we lived on Lopez Is. and my family repeatedly accused me of taking way too many pics of sunsets. Can you ever take too many pics of sunsets! (Of course your pics make mine look like childplay.) Did the hotels always have room for your computer in their safe at the front desk?

"You need a surge protector, perhaps more than a converter. Many laptops are already ok with EU voltage. You may just need an adapter (make sure it's grounded) and a surge protector."

Probably the only computers that don't need a surge protector are laptops - most have an external power block that is 110-220v adaptive and copes with fluctuations in current very well - 2nd is the battery, in line between the power supply - so your delecate components will not be exposed to any possible power surge/outage.

Traveler -- sounds like you'd really prefer to put the laptop in the hotel safe. The one thing that would make me worry about that is if they were to put something heavy on top of it since the screen is the most sensitive part of the laptop. If this is an unfounded worry I'm sure someone will correct me. Again, unless you're staying in a hostel type budget hotel, travelers routinely leave their computers in the room without incident.

Is it fair to say that no on this board has ever reported a stolen laptop from a hotel room? Maybe one of the old-timers can pipe in since I've only been on here little over a year...

Only laptop I had stolen was at Paris CDG airport - whilst queuing for a coffee! Wasn't paying enough attention to the bag at my feet - and then it was gone.

Never had a problem with a laptop in a hotel.

I bought a cheaper but somewhat lighter laptop for travel purposes so I don't worry about leaving it in the room or anywhere. I put all my important data on a separate removable memory so I can access it from any of my computers. I tend to lose anything expensive within a day or a week, but I never lose anything cheap, they keep coming back even if I leave it behind.