I recommend usb external drives because they are cheap, reliable, and easily transportable when travelling. I keep my catalog and photos on one I label master, and make two backups. One backup is kept at home, the other in my safe deposit box. I've used Western Digital and Toshiba, but mostly Seagate. Out of at least a dozen drives, the only one that's ever failed was the Western Digital.

The camera generates the wifi signal that is received by your phone -- no cellular signal is involved. You can probably get an older smartphone free from friends, or pick one up on eBay for a few bucks. You don't need to subscribe to any cellular phone service to be able to use the wifi capabilities of the phone.

The first thing you need is to put some good keywords in the subject line of your post. When people do a search of this site, the search can only pick up the subject line, not the body of your post.

Since you stated that you don't intend PP on this device, there's no need to spend a fortune on a Surface Pro or any other ultralight laptop, just stick with a tablet. If price were no object, I would have bought one of the Samsung tablets I drool over every time I go to Costco, but I'm cheap. I recently bought an Amazon Fire HD8 for $89 and am very pleased with it. I got the 32GB model and added a 128GB micro SD card for another $33. It will take up to a 200GB card, and you can use a flash drive with an OTG adapter or get one of the dual drives that has a micro-b usb tip. It's reasonably light at 12 ounces, a convenient size, and the 8" display yields vivid color and 1280 x 800 resolution. 12 hours of battery life. Although it comes set up to access only the Amazon app store, there's a simple workaround (downloading and installing half a dozen apps in a specific order) that gives you the ability to download Chrome and access the Google Playstore for your apps.

We went on the Celebrity Expedition in mid-May 2009. Ship held 96 passengers plus crew. The accommodations were excellent and all-inclusive. Multiple tours daily and the naturalist guides were amazing. While not specifically photographer oriented, I felt I had sufficient time and opportunity to take all the shots I wanted. I would definitely recommend Celebrity to anyone.

Looks like a choice you'll be happy with.

PP is fairly intense computing, so you'll regret it if you try to go for the cheapest system. I'd go for nothing less than an Intel i7 processor. 8GB RAM minimum -- you'll be happier with 16GB or more, but you could upgrade to that later if funds prohibit it now.

Recently got the Fire HD8 and I'm very happy with it. There is a series of 5 or 6 files you can download and install to give yourself access to the Goggle Playstore, which I recommend doing. Now I can have the same apps on my Fire as on my Samsung cellphone. Google to find the instructions for doing this -- something like "Install Google Playstore on the Amazon Fire HD."

I just bought a RAVPower FileHub Plus on Amazon for $40. It is small and light-weight, it has an SD card slot and a USB port for a thumb drive or external hard drive, and it doubles as a wireless travel router and a 6000mAh external battery pack. You control the file transfer with an app on your cell phone, and you can view your pictures on your cellphone to verify successful copy. It appears durable and with this there will be no need for a laptop or internet connection to back up your pictures. I've tested it a couple of times and it seems to work as advertised. I've purchased several other RAVPower electronic items in the past from Sunvalleytek via Amazon and have always been impressed with the quality of their products and their customer service.

Definitely leave the tripod home. I never found a use for it on the islands, and your group will resent you if they have to constantly wait for you. Some of the walks can be strenuous, so you won't want the weight either. Birds in flight would be the only use for a very long telephoto -- most of your shots will be fairly close range. One albatross built her nest right in the middle of the path and refused to budge, making everyone walk around her! I recommend taking a laptop with you for backups, quick editing, and emailing home. Don't expect to find any photo supplies for sale there. Our "wet landings" never involved water more than a foot deep, so just take a garbage bag to stuff your camera in for the few seconds it takes to disembark to protect from splashes. Definitely take your best camera -- you'll never get shots like this again!

I just bought a RAVPower FileHub Plus on Amazon for $40. It is small and light-weight, it has an SD card slot and a USB port for a thumb drive or external hard drive, and it doubles as a wireless travel router and a 6000mAh external battery pack. You control the file transfer with an app on your cell phone, and you can view your pictures on your cellphone to verify successful copy. I've tested it a couple of times and it seems to work as advertised. I've purchased several other RAVPower electronic items in the past from Sunvalleytek via Amazon and have always been impressed with the quality of their products and their customer service.

All you are sending in the email is a link for them to click on, so it doesn't matter how many pictures are involved. The only limit is the limit you have on the size of your dropbox account.

For those of you who keep saying "he doesn't use a smartphone," may I also point out that he apparently doesn't use a camera either. That doesn't preclude camera recommendations or smartphone recommendations. From what has been posted, it seems to me that a phone with the Evernote app may be the simplest solution. And it is certainly the cheapest -- he probably has a dozen friends with older smartphones laying around the house that they would be happy to give him, or he can pick one up on eBay for a few bucks. It doesn't need a phone activation to still have all the other functions of a smartphone, i.e., all the various apps and WiFi connectivity.

The middle of a trip to somewhere so special seems to me to be the worst possible time to receive new equipment. She will either set it aside and have to lug the extra baggage around, or will use it and miss half her shots while trying to get used to the new camera. Either give it to her well before the trip so she can get some experience with it first, or wait to give it to her when you're back home.

If it were me, I'd prefer a box with a bow and some cake. I hate jokers.