Charging Batteries is one of the biggest stumbling blocks you’ll face when you travel. Outlets can be scarce in hotels. Charging your battery can be more of a hassle if you’re traveling by train: If you take an overnight train in Europe, they don’t have power adapters at the seats (certain trains do, but it’s not something you can count on). I suggest bringing at least two rechargeable batteries, three if you plan to travel with overnight trains, or don’t think you’ll be able to charge every night. If your camera uses regular AA batteries, consider yourself lucky-you’ll find those everywhere. Bring your plugs. Some digital cameras typically come with a power brick that can handle international voltages, so you won’t need a voltage adapter. However, you will need a power plug adapter to convert a US outlet plug to the local plug. “I’m not shooting at the best resolution, because I need the room on my memory card.” A 1 GB card is very useful, and should suffice for low-usage shooters.

What I discovered is many who had digital SLRs, that had 5 megapixel or more reported they were traveling with a laptop to off load their images. If you’re first buying a laptop, and intend to travel with it, I suggest going for the smallest one you can. Most newer laptops have integrated memory card readers, but otherwise, you can buy a small external card reader. For the wire-free approach, use a PC Card slot adapter for your memory card; and invest in a 32-bit Cardbus adapter (Delkin and Lexar Media offer these), for speedier transfers. If you bring a laptop, I also suggest investing in a portable hard drive.

If you don’t want to bring a laptop, and already have an Apple iPod, Belkin sells an attachment for using your iPod with memory cards; or, consider the pricey units from Nikon and Epson. And if you’re in a bind, remember you can always buy memory overseas.

Cards were more readily available, too, than they were when I last traveled through Europe three years ago. I never had problems with my 35mm SLR, but with my digital SLR, I constantly find dirt gets trapped inside, when I change lenses.

A digital point and shoot is a good option but I usually carry a point and shoot 35mm to use if I run into any problems just so I won’t lose any precious pictures.