Get a cheap laptop. Nothing fancy needed say 300-500Mhz reasonable HDD size and an internal or external DVD writer. That might sound like an absolute fortune in the spending but really it's not.

For some reason people just don't want to own old laptops despite the fact that they are still incredibly usefull. You should pick up all of the above for 500 (dollars or euros) orless, plus you gain its ability to play music, games and it's great to keep a journal on while you move from place to place. It really can be a boredom killer on those long journeys.

The only downside is space and weight. Older laptops are relatively bulky and weigh a couple of Kilos. However I think Lowepro do good all-weather laptop carrying bac-packs.

It is certainly something to consider. This solution worked great for me when I took a trip to Barcelona - but I didn't stay abroad as long as you intend to.

Get an iPhoto. It's just like an iPod, brand new last week or so. 15 hours battery life for mp3's, 5 hours for straight photos, and it comes in 40 or 60gig models. I have a regular iPod and can attest to their durability! Those things are tough and I love mine a ton. If you still are going with the price isn't much of an issue, then this is your ticket!
iPod's are small, come with all the different power source connectors for everywhere in the world(okay, I don't know about ALL of them, but most of the main types), great for listening to tunes, you can do slide shows of your pics as you go, and you'd probably use it for the rest of your life ta boot! Sorry, I'm a big fan of macs and all their products. They are also a big name with a good one year warranty or you can get the Applecare deal for 3 years and be set!

Here's a link:http://www.apple.com/ipodphoto/

Don't get an iPod Photo - you can't view pictures on it that you upload via the Belkin (that's right you can't do it with just the Apple)

Get one of these - Elio. Don't know about America, but this is the site in the UK:

http://en.europe.eliohome.com/

Only problem is that there is very little information on them. Mine should arrive today so I'll give a review on a day or so (if the girlfirend will let me play with it)

Actually I've had a change of heart since Nov. The thing phil just posted about might be okay, but I know that the Epson P-2000 is the way to go for portable storage. Read the review at dpreview http://www.dpreview.com/news/0410/04...pson_p2000.asp

Reads RAW files, has card reader slots. Best option out there hands down.

I am toying with buying a Camera Buddy from USB Tech.

It's a combined harddisk storage device (up to 80GB) and MP3 player. Trouble is I've not seen any 3rd party reviews and the battery lifelooks very short. Not very good if you're going off the beaten track and electricity is not readily available.

Has anybody seen or tried this product.

Can't view photos, but this is 60Gb and takes most all cards.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/insideco...opd8ipost.html

I highly recommend the Epson P2000 for your trip. I bought mine just before an eight-day trip to San Miguel de Allende, Mexicolast month. I used it to download photos from a Lexar one-gig CF card from my Nikon D70. I downloaded a total of 2,484 large/fine photos from that camera during the trip. When the CF card started to fill up, I would just find a sidewalk cantina and put the card in the P2000 and start downloading. Faster than you could say "Una cerveza, por favor", the download would be complete. I would then review the photos on the high-resolution monitor to make sure they were all transferred to the P2000. Once I was satisfied that the photos were all safely aboard the Epson, I wouldput the card back in the camera and reformat it. That made theNikonready for another 300 or more large/fine photos.

I added the FlashTrax media adapter (about $40) to the camera bag so that I could also download the 640X480 mpeg clips from the Memory Stik in my wife's Sony DSC-P32. The viewer will store but will not playMPG files for display on its screen. I used the SD card capability of the Epson P2000 to download an SD chip from one of our fellow travelers and her AVI files played beautifully.

All in all we downloaded and carried home nearly 9Gb of JPG and MPG files from Mexico. The transfer to our home computers was quick and complete using the USB 2.0 interface.

The P2000 is rapidly becoming the second most valuable piece of equipment in my camera bag (I still love my D70 best).

Gazelle 2

Yeah - The Epson p2000 i really a nice pice of work.

You may have been right when this was posted, but with the latest Ipod Photo firmware update you can now view photos that have been loaded on with a card reader.

Have you seen this little ugly Runt?

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=110597