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January 25, 2006
Travel With or Without a Laptop?
I recently received an e-mail from one of our readers and thought I would share it with you along with my answer.
Question:
The reason that I am writing is that I’m taking off for about 15 months. I’ll be travelling for 6 months in South America, coming back to the States for 2 weeks, and then doing a 9 month round the world west to east. I also got a part-time gig doing travel writing and photography for a new guidebook in England, and I wanted to ask you guys whether or not you travel with a laptop. I’m debating the issue of convenience of typing documents whenever I feel like vs. the risk of theft and added weight issue. When you get a chance, let me know your thoughts. Using internet cafes internationally is fine, I just would hate to have the thing crash on me.
Here's what I wrote back:
Good question on the laptop, most of the time, I choose not to take one because it’s just too much of a hassle. It’s heavy and I’m always worried it’s going to get stolen or broken. I think it just depends how long you’re going to stay in one place and how much use you’ll get out of it. Like you said, there are Internet cafes everywhere and most of them are cheap so it may not be worth lugging your laptop everywhere.
On the other hand, if you’re planning on staying in one spot for a while and you know that you’ll need to use your computer every day (for that writing gig for example), it may not be a bad idea… I was in France for three months this summer and decided to take a laptop because I had to work on a guidebook but I also knew that I could leave it at people’s houses whenever I was traveling around and didn’t need it for a few days.
If I were you, I would see how things go in South America without a laptop. If you feel like you really need it, then take it when you come back here for the rest of the trip… or get a cool one in Asia if you have some money!
Also, on the crashing issue, what you could do is use an online backup folder. I have an SBC Yahoo account and it comes with a free online folder to which I can upload Word documents. It worked great while I was writing the book. I also used www.onlinefilefolder.com to upload Word docs and photos. And I saved drafts and e-mailed myself (to different e-mail addresses) important information so I would have it in different places in case one file was deleted by mistake.
Do you have a travel-related question? Send me an e-mail at editor@insideoutmag.com.
Posted by insideoutmag at January 25, 2006 04:00 PM
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