Hitting the road again

In a few weeks I’ll head out traveling again. This time on an open ended world tour, without a return ticket in my pocket. So I decided I needed a better way of transporting my mobile office. This sturdy camera backpack turned out to be a close to perfect choice. It has enough space for a laptop, a skinny flatbed scanner*, a Wacom tablet, a Nikon 300D, chargers, cables, books, and all the other gadgets I need in order to work (and play). The stuff that used to float around at the sandy bottom of my previous hand luggage can now be stored in the nifty compartments I won’t need for extra camera lenses.

On the picture you can see that I drag around a HTC Diamond Touch Pro mobile phone (not lightweight at all, but it has a good keyboard), card reader, wall outlet adapters (I got more of these, just have to find them…), various sim cards for South America, alarm clock, reading light, waterproof watch for surfing and mud wrestling (or whatever), cheap compact camera (for dangerous backstreets), mp3 player, laptop mouse, wallet, passport, a minimal collection of black and white drawing gear, ear plugs, glasses, LAN cable, document pouch, and apples from the garden (needed some color in the picture - but apples are life savers when you get hungry on the plane, in the middle of the night).

I’m considering leaving the software CDs behind and transfer everything to the mini hard drive (black WD passport front left). In addition to this, I’ll probably bring my guitar too (an acoustic Takamine in a semi hardcase, I hope it will be ok). Needless to say, I’m not going to be ultramobile. But when you make “anywhere” your home for a year or so, you just need a few extra things you would otherwise live without.

I’m starting out in southern Brazil where I’ll concentrate on an exciting new web service I’m designing, together with fellow freelancer Eivind. More about that later this fall. We’ll stay put for as long as a tourist visa will allow us to, and from there: Improvisation. I might head to Asia via Polynesia or via South Africa. Time will tell.

*) CanoScan Lide 25, which replaced a CanoScan Lide 500F that got badly crushed in the overhead compartment on the plane to Nicaragua.