bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

It is probably terribly boring that I always write the same thing. Be a "traveler" with a small, but capable camera. Don't be an ugly "tourist" with gear that weighs you down and intimidates the local citizens you want to take pictures of!

frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

Sound advice by many of you: travel light, plenty of SD cards, backup to WD Passport, enjoy trip and PP when we return.
Will carry the Sony P&S for the occasional email or FB post if we feel like it.

Your advice may save my marriage :)

Six weeks in AUS and New Zealand, followed by Alaska in the Spring.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Jeff,

You left off the detailed information such as where you are traveling and for how long that would allow us to give you specific recommendations. If you are traveling outside of the United States, weight could become a serious issue. When I flew Air New Zealand to London in May they almost didn't let me take my cameras in the passenger cabin because they exceeded the 7 Kg (15 Lbs) limit in economy coach. Air New Zealand at LAX (Los Angeles) weighed everything including my wife's purse at the ticket counter (they did not do that at Heathrow). If you are going to Africa or will be flying on regional airlines once you get to your primary destination, the weight limits may be lower than the limits on your primary carrier. As a result, I would ditch the computer and external hard drive and anything else you do not absolutely need. I use to take a roll-aboard with four or five lenses and two bodies when I traveled. Over the years I found that over 95% of my travel pictures were taken with lenses in the range of 24-70mm. I have never needed the backup body in years of travel. I have learned by much trial and error to always travel light unless their is a reason to add equipment such as a specific subject that I plan to photograph that requires that special equipment.

I now travel with one D800 body, one 24-70mm lens with hood, a single shoe mounted electronic flash unit, a CPL, spare batteries and charger, lens cleaning kit, a supply of flash memory cards and occasionally a lite weight carbon fiber monopod or less frequently, a tripod. That's it! My camera has two memory slots, so I use one memory to backup the other, but I have never had a Sandisk flash memory failure. I save the editing for when I get home. Even when I travel domestically, I carry the same complement of equipment and life becomes allot less complicated.

erickter Loc: Dallas,TX

Too much time tinkering with gadgets. Travel, shoot, relax, enjoy, shoot some more, and save the PP for home.

therwol Loc: USA

Ditto.

PhotosBySteve

The way I deal with photos I want to post while on the road, is to, download those certain images to LR Mobile on my phone. Make any necessary adjustments to them in LR Mobile and share them online to the appropriate social media site(s).
I generally accomplish this task straight from camera to cell phone via Wi-Fi.

frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

Good idea also!

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

My small travel cameras have smartphone companion apps that pick the photo from the phone for sharing via email, facebook or instagram.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I shoot RAW and process at home.

cascoly Loc: seattle

I take my laptop. which is lighter than my traveling tripod. I save most weight by taking just one 18-300 zoom. I shoot for microstock and my average day is 500-1000 images so I go to the bar for a beer while I download to the laptop, do quick purge for quality and rename all images to YYMMDD-xxx format.

then I add just a few keyframed captions in excel - eg 201 museum #1, 301 church #1, 357 church #2, etc that way a month from now i'll know that image 187 is museum #1 and image 343 is church #2. I also take pix of signs et al to help with later IDs. sometimes a long day requires 2 beers

s

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

Some good advice given. I will only add that you should have a way of storing all those memory cards while on the road. You don't want to leave them loose somewhere and risk not only losing some, but also damage to some. B&H has multiple choices for storing anywhere from just a couple of cards to storing many. Take a look! [Not expensive.]

LA Loc: Little Rock, AR

I do a lot of traveling and am not convinced by those who say, "Don't take a laptop." I take a Mac Air which is about the size and wt. of an ipad, along with a Passport HD. Weighs about 2 pd altogether and lets me have three copies of my photos, also lets me do preliminary post-processing during what is otherwise a long, useless time as on the trip to Europe I just returned from, meaning the flight back. I find it easy to get work done without compromising the experience, and this includes a couple hours a day writing my travel journal. There is always time to be had.

mk1max Loc: UK

Hi. New registered member but I've been reading (thanks to the daily digests) for a while! Thought I'd finally contribute a bit! :)

A few months back I came back from a 6 months backpacking holiday. We went to a variety of countries including New Zealand, some in SE Asia and the USA. I had this exact conundrum going through my mind before leaving. I too was debating taking my 13" MacBook Pro, or my iPad or buying a MacBook Air. In the end, I took the ipad with a light external keyboard, as well as a Sony A6500 with one lens and a Sony RX100M3 for carrying every day. Oh and a Verbatim MediaShare box. I made a conscious decision to spend my time outside exploring where we were visiting rather than sorting through my photos. The advantage of the Sony cameras is that they can both transfer images via WiFi to a phone/iPad for immediate sharing with family. I shot in RAW + JPEG because for sending to family, resized JPEG images are fine. I have the RAW photos now I'm back home (except from a couple of weeks where I was running out of space on SD cards and they weren't readily available so I shot only in JPEG... And I took great shots in those weeks so am a bit gutted I'm limited in post-processing!).

I was able to do everything I wanted with this combo and in the end didn't miss having a laptop. Okay, I couldn't do full on photo editing etc, but that was fine. We actually spent our evenings planning the next days/weeks worth of travel or things to do, or just exploring where we were, so there wasn't much time for sorting out photos anyway. I've been slowly sorting out photos since I've been back and it's been fabulous reliving the memories.

Bear in mind that laptop generally means having to carry a charger too - and being worried about its safety. The iPad isn't cheap but if it had been stolen/broken I wouldn't have cried... much. They're pretty easy to replace and get the main programs & user data off of iCloud. The iPad, Verbatim mediashare device, cameras and phones all shared the same USB charger (with 4 USB outlets) which was light and had a multi-country plug. I just carried 3 cables, one of which I needed to replace quickly which was very easy. In a pinch, the mediashare device could provide emergency charge to a camera or iPad, and also share a hotel/hostel wifi connection (Though there are several flaws in the mediashare device's software implementation).

I carried several SD cards of varying capacities as well as a couple of large, fast USB sticks (well, we each carried one). I backed up photos almost daily from cameras to USB stick using the mediashare box, and then every few weeks was doing another backup to a large capacity SD card from the USB sticks. I posted 3 of these large SD cards home as they were getting filled up (one of them got lost, but the USB flash drives survived fine, so that didn't matter too much).

I'm not saying my method was perfect, but it worked really well for me and I would do exactly the same again. There were times I missed having a laptop during the six months but that was more for things like arranging visas, than for sorting out photos or journaling. Really I cannot emphasize enough how I was more appreciative of not carrying a laptop than I found myself missing it! I also now don't feel a need to rush sorting out my photos and have something to look forward to in the winter nights later this year if I haven't finished by then!

If you're still not sure, I suggest a trial pack or two; I repacked five times taking something else out each time which helped make my decision!!

Hope that helps a bit!

mk1max Loc: UK

That was a long post just to say you'll be happy with the original set up you have specified! Sorry!

frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

Thank you kindly.