It is fun to plan such a trip and it is fun to play with thing you can use for such a trip – so we naturally have a number of gadgets with us for good use and for fun. First of all I wanted a good computer, with a fairly large screen for picture viewing and editing with us. It needed a big screen, so a 17” would be a natural choice, but we also wanted something reasonably handy around the bus and other places. Since I had a Lenovo T60p at work, with a 15” wide screen, I ended up with the same one (well, a T61p), with the extra large battery, for the trip. We did also consider getting an extra large, external, hard disk for picture backup, but ended up with just using DVDs to have a copy of the images.

Besides being used for reviewing pictures and writing emails we also wanted to use the laptop to view some movies for Felix, so we ended up with a small collection of movies in Danish, German and English for him to watch if (when) traveling would be to boring for him.

To be sure that we could recharge the laptop on the RV battery we bought a 150 watt converter, since the charger was stated as 90W (Update July 12th: After the first time having run out of battery and wanted to use the converter I’ve found that either it does not work, or the laptop charger use more than 150W – I wish I had tested this from home).

We did consider getting a Verizon, or ATT, Internet adapter for the laptop, so we could use the phone network for Internet access on the road, but since these all only came with a two year contract we opted for using public accessible wireless on the road.

Many people have asked if we were going to take pictures, and yes we have taken all the photo equipment we own (say for an old tripod). Primarily I have my new Canon 40D, with 5 lenses (10-20mm, 19-35mm, 50mm, 28-75mm, 100-300mm), a sturdy tripod, some filters and a Canon Power Shot SD950IS. It is not too long ago we “upgraded” our cameras so we brought the old digital Rebel and Power Shot S330 as backup in case anything should happen with the others.

I have never been geo tagging images before, but we thought that on such a long trip it could be very fun to bring along a gps logger to let us tag the pictures with location and to show off to people where we actually have been. I bought a Qstarz BT-Q1000P as it was suppose to last 36 hours on a trip. (Update July 12th: Unfortunately this is not the case for us – one week into our trip I can say that twice it has failed to deliver; Once after we went to Supai. And once when walking to Phantom Ranch, in Grand Canyon, but in both cases at least we got the most interesting stuff recorded, but it did not last for 36 hours of logging).

What else did we bring – we actually brought a good old compass to be able to easily tell where sun-/moonrise or sunset will be located (we wrote that down in another gadget we brought – a trip planner (just a spiral notebook)), we brought our bikes for getting around at the locations, we brought a light tent and sleeping mats, for camping at Phantom Ranch in Grand Canyon, baby carrier, tent and lots of paper and a diary to record our trip.

Finally my colleagues gave me a Garmin Nüvi 680 to find the way around – I’ve never used this before, but it does look like great way to find to the next destination (just be sure that the next destination can actually be found.