Heavy Travel Books + Uploading Pics = iPad(w/Kindle) Best Solution?

You've come up with a good solution but for the difference in price you should get a new IPad2.

I agree about ipad2... For the cost difference it doesn't make sense to buy used 1st gen. If you happen to get a Scottie vest they have a pocket that accommodates the iPad. I say go for it.... I did!

Peter, I luuuuuuuuv my Kindle but after reading about the difficulties with reading/interpreting the maps, decided to go with my favorite: tearing the needed--& the possibly-needed--sections of Rick's books. I really don't like doing it but I usually leave the sections at the hotel as I'm leaving. You mention resale or re-use but that info will be old by the time you get home!
In all my decades of travel (hmmm, actually, I didn't have a camera when I was 3!), I have never lost, damaged or had stolen any pictures or camera.

We have found that, since we don't use the restaurant listings in the guide book, and all of our lodgings are taken care of before hand, and we're not visiting anywhere near every place listed in the book, we only really need about 10-20% of the book with us. So you have two low-tech choices; tear out the pages you need (the book is worthless for resale as soon as the year changes anyway) or take a photo of the pages you want with the iPad2's camera and view it as a photo and leave the book at home. As for photos; if your main interest is simply protecting them from loss or theft, you can load them onto your iPad with the $29 connector kit. As long as you take JPEG pictures (like 90+% of us) instead of RAW like more serious photographers, you'll have plenty of space. However, the best low-tech solution is to simply get a bunch of discount 1-2GB SD cards and change them every couple of days, storing the used ones in a very safe place (like in your money belt). That way, even if you suffer the loss of your camera, the photos of most of the trip are still on you. Finally, spending a lot of money for the perfect device for travel is counterproductive if it sits unused at home. Home should be where it get's 90% of its use. So don't buy a product with inferior characteristics for home, just because you like it for travel (for example, spend $100 more on the newest iPad that will come out in March, instead of a used iPad1).

re: Power - you just get a small adapter plug (Rick sells them too) and plug in with the regular charger that comes with your iPad to charge. All the APPLE products have a 110/220 compatible charger - you just have to put the small adapter to fit in the wall (1 for continental and one for UK are different). Bring a spare for the cell phone and/or camera as they also have the same ability these days, Just check the back of the plugs for 110/220!

I converted from a Kindle to a tablet (Xoom) for our recent trip. The tablet is a much better platform, allows you to "zoom" in on the maps a bit, and far better than the Kindle I used last year. Another trick is to scan those pages from books that are not already available on a Kindle and access them as PDFs from the tablet. Worked like a charm. The Xoom was not very well suited to Picasa. I like to not only transfer my photos from the SD cards, but to upload them to Picasa Web and have Mozy back them up, so I also brought a Netbook. Also meant hubby and I didn't need to share an interent device.

Once you travel with an iPad, you will never go without one again. I agree that given the difference in price, it's not worth buying an older model. In fact, depending on when your trip is...it's likely that the iPad3 will be introduced sometime in the March/April time frame. For rapidly evolving technologies like this, it's always a better "buy" in the long term to get the latest, even if it's a bit more spendy up front. iPads make a wonderful travel aid, useful for more than you can imagine.

Thanks for all your suggestions, guys! Yeah, I heard that a new iPad might be coming out, so I was hoping that would further depreciate the iPad 1. The wife and kids want one for the home so the trip is a perfect excuse to cough up the dough and acquire one. Everyone seems to be saying to buy the latest version... I was just worried about theft and damage. But I'll be keeping a short-leash on it anyway so maybe I'll just buy the latest :) On our last trip I used the "rotate SD cards" and it worked well... that way you don't lose all your pictures. Pete

You are much more likely to lose it by forgetting it that through theft. The only time we ever lost anything in Europe was when my wife slung her camera pouch across the back of the chair at a cafe. We got up and left forgetting it was there. When we came back five minutes later, it was gone. Theft? Yea, but it was our own fault. It's small enough to go with you in almost any bag. Just be sure to remember the bag. Oh, and if you have a scanner at home, scanning the guide book pages as pdf files would be better than taking a photo of them.

I would also consider the new color nook.

My strategy is to upload high (but not full) resolution pics on FLickr or Picasa while en-route. I also carry a very discrete and small 64GB memory sticker that I feed with essential data/photos/files.

Peter: I chose the option of taking my Kindle, onto which I had downloaded the NEW versions of RS guidebooks to read in the hotel room. But I also went onto Amazon and bought used copies (one or two years old - usually not any major differences, particularly in info on sights) and used those for my tear-sheets, which I then organized by location and just stapled together. That way, in Paris (say) I just stuffed those few sheets in my jacket and was able to pull them out anywhere, mark them up, etc. (plus have the added bonus of not looking like a typical RS American lugging a blue and yellow book!)