Are you going on vacation soon?
Then you might want to take your trusty laptop with you on your trips.
Finally, I bought it for mobility. It's great to be able to stay in touch with family and friends at home via email.
However, before you start packing, it's worth considering the downsides of traveling with a laptop, especially if you're planning to stay abroad. And who needs more luggage?
1. Weight
A laptop (plus accessories) starts to feel heavy very quickly. And who really needs MORE luggage to carry around?
For you, it's your laptop. For a thief, it's an easy bag of money. (about $1000). And this bag should protect every second of your vacation.
3. Power Issues
You need a different power adapter plug for each country you visit. You may also need a step-up/step-down voltage converter, depending on your laptop's power cable.
4 Connection Problem
You need to find a way to connect to the Internet. If your laptop has this feature and can find a local hotspot, you can use wireless Internet access.
Otherwise you will get stuck on dial-up modem access. That is, you must dial between:
- Make long distance calls using your regular home access number
- Sign up with a local ISP (hardly practical in the short term)
5. Phone Jack Issues
Types of Phone Jacks by Country is different. If you plan to dial up, you should bring a suitable phone adapter plug.
A digital signal tester is also required to test high voltage digital telephone lines. Otherwise, you can damage not only your modem, but also your motherboard.
6. Additional Coverage
Travel insurance is unlikely to cover laptops. Therefore, it is necessary to take out another professional insurance, which is not cheap.
7. Good night!
Want to take your office on vacation? Shouldn't you stay away from it all?
If you're starting to think that traveling with your laptop is too much work, you're right. (Ask the "Street Warrior"!)
There's another way:
Internet cafes.
Almost every town or city now has some Internet cafe. To find out when you are abroad, ask your hotel receptionist or a friendly taxi driver.
There are internet cafes at airports, train stations, large hotels, business centers, public libraries and even on cruise ships.
Before you travel, make sure you can access your email from your web browser. (This is called "webmail". Most ISPs provide this option automatically - ask your ISP if you're unsure. )
Alternatively, you can set up a free webmail address (hotmail.com or yahoo.com) and promote it while traveling. Everything they need to contact you.
Once you've set up webmail, all you need to remember is your email login and password. All other issues such as hardware, connectivity, security, etc. are someone else's issues.
In short:
Unless you have a good reason to take your laptop on vacation, you'd better leave your laptop at home and go to an Internet cafe instead.
And your laptop may be able to take advantage of your vacation!
