[pct-l] continuing the photo question

[dude at fastmail.ca (dude)]

I agree with a few others who've already posted.  Trying to find enough 
drugstores with this service along the trail will be extremely 
difficult at best, and nearly impossible at worst.

Here are a few ideas that I have heard to help with this problem:

1.  Instead of buying two or three 256Meg cards, buy like 30 16Meg 
cards, then mail them home as they fill up.  Many times, these smaller 
cards are much cheaper and you can find them for really good prices.  
This method also has the added benefit of reducing the rick of losing 
all your photos due to a damaged/corrupted/lost card (IE: if you lose a 
256 meg card due to damage/misplacement, you can say good bye to 200+ 
pics).  A friend of mine did this on a bike ride from Houston to the 
tip of South America.  It worked great for him.  He even mailed them 
home in a regular envelope.

2.  Carry a portable storage device that you can transfer the photos 
to.  These devices are sometimes called "digital wallets" and they 
typically have a slot that can read a Compact Flash or Smart Media card 
and operate on regular AA batteries or similar. I think you can find 
these that are anywhere from 1GB to 10GB or so.  Here are a couple of 
pages that explain the decives in detail:
http://www.dcresource.com/specials/DigitalWallet/
http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/DW/DWA.HTM

3.  A Pocket PC like an iPaq, a Dell Axim, or an HP Jornada.  This 
would be very similar to the solution above.  Most of these devices 
will have a compact flash slot (I know that iPaq's do).  If they do not 
have a slot for the media card you have, then youw ill also need a card 
reader or a USB/firewair port to connect directly to the camera, just 
like your regular PC.  Storage is pretty limited with these units and 
the biggest problem will be charging it since most of them require 
sitting in their cradle to charge.  One added benefit might be the 
ability to connect to a wi-fi network at a trail town.  Another option 
might be a tiny laptop such as a Toshiba Libretto or some of the Sony 
Vaios.  You could even throw the small laptop in a drift box.  Here is 
a couple of good looks at a Libretto:
http://tinyurl.com/5s593
http://tinyurl.com/663bo

4.  Portable CD-Burner, as others have mentioned.  I am not really sure 
about this, as you would still need some way to read the card, so I am 
not sure if you'd also need a laptop or what.  

HTH.

peace,
dude

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