In our six week sprint around the world back in June, I opted to take my MacBook. I anticipated the paranoia this might inspire on the many trains, buses and hostels we'd encounter but I figured it couldn't be any worse than taking my video camera to Kenya which passed without incident. I got a sleek case for my little Mac-Beezy that would fit inside a day pack and an extra battery for the legs where I'd be away from a power supply.

Traveling with an I-pod, headphones, digital camera and a laptop feels like a lot of electronics but as long as you bag up and organize all the chargers in ziplocks, everything you need to watch like a hawk is in one backpack. If you're a passionate writer or you work from the road, I'd highly recommend trying travel with a laptop--even third world.

Every Internet cafe you can either plug in or jump on their network and for the downtime in airports, train rides etc, it's money to be able to get some solid work done on Word, to publish later.