Travel for the Over 30s

The Asus eee pc is a perfect notebook for camping or travelling. Its small, light, cheap enough to not be a disaster if its misplaced. Robust too thanks to the flash drive its much more likely to survive rough roads than a more expensive machine with a conventional, spinning, disk drive.

There are some accessories that will make life on the road for a notebook, much, much easier. The big one is a travel inverter. The 4g Asus that I have has a battery life of around 2.5hr without wireless enabled (if there is a wireless network you will probably have access to power, but if you are not online turn the wireless off to save your battery power). Australia’s camping sites have a gap in the market: powered campsites will cost you more and power your laptop – but are expensive just for that. Other power points are normally found in the bathroom, kitchen or laundry – its surprising how many people end up perched on the sinks managing their holiday snaps

There’s a better option though if you are a driving vehicle with a cigarette lighter (what are they known as in these politically correct times). Buy an inverter. These nifty devices plug into the the cigarette lighter and provide a standard 3 pin plug with an output of 150W. In practical terms this means that they won’t run a hairdryer, toaster or jug but will power a laptop or battery charger, some come with a USB port too to directly power your iPod or MP3 player.

You can also buy specific or generic laptop power packs which run from the cigarette lighter, but the inverter is cheaper and more versatile.

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