We are taking our digital camera on our upcoming trip. How have others handled this-Did you take enough memory cards to last the whole trip? Did you upload your pictures onto a laptop or other computer, or e-mail them back home, to clear the memory cards? Did you find computers to be accessible (Kinko's, internet cafes, etc.) to be able to do this?

Luckily batteries won't be a problem, our camera takes AA (cheaper than camera batteries).

Any advice will be appreciated.

Where are you going?

We just got back from Ireland and took two 128 cards - wasn't enough at 2 mega pix - there was an internet cafe in Killarney and had them transferred to a CD -- cost me 10 Euro - then reviewed the CD to make sure they were copied and erased my cards and started over again.

I would think that most large towns/cities would have these types of facilities if you don't have enough memory cards.

See if you have any friends or family with compatible memory sticks. You can borrow them (promising to replace them if lost or stolen), giving you more memory space without having to buy anything, other than a fun souvenier for the gracious lenders.

We take plenty of memory cards. On our last trip, my husband also took a laptop, and dumped the photos each evening onto the computer. Two trips before, no laptop and insufficient memory cards, so we tried to find places to burn them on cd. Some places (we were in Scandinavia) charged obscene prices to do this; others had no clue how to do it, even though there were signs in the window claiming they performed this service. Finding a computer to do it at an internet cafe can be difficult, but you need a wire that goes from the camera to the computer, and not all of them have that capability.

Bottom line: I'd just bring a bunch of memory cards if you don't want to drag your computer on your trip.

There are portable storage devices that you can download your memory cards to. One is MindStor - called the "digital wallet". The company, Minds at Work, has a website. Other companies make similiar devices. They can store 20gigs, 40gigs, or even more depending on which model you buy. Much smaller and lighter than lugging a laptop around but you'd have to spend a fortune on memory cards to get that much storage. I've used mine for the past three years and love it. They cost a few hundred dollars (depends on the company, the size, etc) but are worth it if you like to take a lot of photos. They can store thousands of shots.

You can now download pics to an Ipod with either of two devices - a Belkin card reader made to connect to Ipod and a Belkin direct cable link suitable for most digital cameras direct to Ipod. there are various new storages devices that have come on to the market which are essentially small hard drives. There is a new product that has been launched by Nikon and will be on the market in the next month or two. It is called a Nikon Coolwalker MSV-01 - it is a 30Gb storage device with a 2 inch preview screen. It will be a little more expensive than the others but will be very reliable. It looks like a thicker version of an Ipod. Do a web search and you will find references to these things. Also Flash Memory cards are becoming less expensive and larger in storage space. There was an 8Gb one released a few weeks back albeit expensive of course.

We had (2) 256 cards and a 128 card and a batty recharger with outlet converter. We downloaded the day's pix every night onto our laptop and found it very enjoyable and relaxing to go over the days events as we watched. When the cards got full (over 400 pictures of the 256 card) we stopped off and had a disk made. We were in France and had no trouble in the larger cities/malls finding this service, though they don't have Kinkos. Once verified that pix were good on the disk, we then deleted the images.

Some people say leave the laptop at home, but we enjoyed having it along (but we also had the advantage of a car and not having to lug it around everywhere). It was fun to email photos home to the family to make them feel like they were right there with us, as well as serving up entertainment in airports, trains etc. If you don't have a recharger take plenty of batteries as they're pretty expensive if I remember in France.

Good Luck and have fun.

I very much enjoy taking photos while on vacation. I might have 250 pictures for a 10-14 day trip. I cannot imagine what folks are doing on vacation to warrant 400+ photos; does it seem you live your vacation thru a lens? (excluding those on a professional project, of course).

If you are an infrequent traveller, I think the safest and most economical method is to have the files transferred to a CD.

I wouldn't buy a device that solely stores pictures, such as a digital wallet, because they are fairly expensive and have only one use. Also, some say they are prone to failure, although I know no-one who has experienced such failure.

I have an mp3 player, just larger than a pack of cigarettes, that will play mp3 files, and also store pictures. Each evening I load my pictures from that day into the mp3 player, and clear my flash cards for the next day. During the long flights to and from our destination, I enjoy listening to my mp3 player, so I get double usage from it. I haven't looked into an ipod so I don't know how big it is, or what the battery life is; those are things to check out.

I think a laptop would be even more versatile, as many hotels and apartments have internet access, and you can also carry all the lists and homemade guidebooks that I have to put on paper, and I think it would be very useful in keeping a diary of your trips. My only questions regarding using a laptop are its size, and how much battery life it has.

Thank you for all the helpful tips. Although, this will give DH an excuse to get a new gadget...

I would also recommend the AA Energizer E2 Photo battery. I think they last about 10 times longer than the conventional battery. Take a back up set with you and you should be OK. It saves carrying around a charger and with the possibility of being in a country that you will need a power adapter. I usually get about 6 months out of these batteries, and that was when I used my camera for my real estate business. The big draw on the batteries is the LCD viewer at the back of the camera. Try to use the normal viewer as much as possible and you will prolong the live of the battery. As to memory, I have the ability to store about 800 shots on my cards and that seems to be enough for me in two weeks.

I agree about the need of taking higher storage baterries or multiple batteries. I usually carry three. One way to look at the advantage of digital pics Travelnut is that you can fire off many more so as to get a higher proportion of very good ones. I recommend the Apple Ipod from the point of view that it is reliable, better supported than most variants and can be used to store up to 40Gb of music and pics while travelling. If you add a set of Bose Quiet Comfort noise reduction headphones then you have a very worthwhile package for reducing aircraft and other noise. I thoroughly recommend them. You can pull out the input plug to them and walk around the airplane or sleep in relative silence as well as listen to music.

Hi. I'm one of those who takes 400 photos a day, although in our recent trip to London, I kept it down to around 200. I guess I wasn't as inspired as in France and Italy. Oh well. Yes, I do see the sights and not just through the lens of my camera.

I take my laptop, two memory cards, a battery recharger with converter and adapter and three sets of rechargeable batteries.

Every evening I download my photos onto the laptop, burn them onto a CD so I have two copies and then clean my memory card for the next day. I recharge batteries while we go out for dinner and am set to go the next day.

We enjoy the laptop for access to family via e-mail because we usually go to France for a month or two. We do lease a car so we have extra room and don't have to carry things on trains or buses. On the other hand, we only take a carryon each plus a small backpack each so the laptop isn't a problem as far as luggage.

As someone else mentioned, it's fun to review the photos at the end of the day and gives you lots to talk about during those delightful 2/1-2 hour French dinners.

400 photos a day... let's see... for a 12-hr day, that would be 33 pix per hour, or one every other minute, non-stop, for 12 hours...
no, I think you are seeing your vacation thru a lens...oh, and a laptop screen. but that's just me.

TravelNut,

You must not be a photographer because you wouldn't think that SalB is seeing his travel through a lense. It is easy to take several pictures in 10 - 15 minutes. Also, it is my experience that photographers may see a country through a lens, but because by nature we see more details than non-photographers, we see much more than people who like to boast that they take few pictures because they don't want to see a country through a lens.

Travelnut.....It wouldn't necessarily be 1 pic every other minute. I have reached about 300 shots in one day. Thats because every photo op I take about 4-5 shots at different settings to make sure I get correct exposure, composition, etc. I am pretty quick with the camera so I can take these multiple shots within a minute. So, this equates to about 60 photo ops in a day, which is a little over double what you normally take in a day.

While I haven't taken 400 pics in a day, I take an avg of 30-40 pics per day during my trips.

What can I say: pictures (just like journals) speak thousands more words and captures feelings and moments that otherwise are lost forever with time.

Don't get me wrong,I LOVE my photos and albums, and go back to look at them frequently, and I would never travel without a camera. I'm just an average user, not the least 'professional' and find that 200-300 for an entire vacation will give me a very good representation for a memory book. I don't get that many blurry or unusable photos; especially with scrapbooking, where you can do some cropping and grouping to improve or overcome any flaws. Occasionally, I have a photo in my album that someone asks me if it is a postcard.

I just used a digital for the majority of pictures on a trip, but I have some learning to do on settings and controls. Biggest flaws were too much light and blurring. There's a learning curve there.

At any rate, I don't want to spend any time in Paris downloading, uploading, or anything else 'technical'; I want to be strolling, window-shopping, café-sitting until I can't stand up anymore. Then it's a bath and bed until it's time for croissants again

Extra memory can be bought very cheaply on Ebay.

We took a very lightweight dual voltage battery recharger, eliminating the need for taking so many batteries. It came with two sets of batteries.

For a 12 day trip I took two 128 cards and one 16. And yes, I filled them all up!