Are you off on your holiday soon?

Are you tempted to take your laptop along for the trip, after all, you bought it for its mobility, and it's nice to stay in touch via e-mail with your family and friends back home. However, just before you start packing, its pays to consider the downside of traveling with a laptop, particularly if you're planning to go abroad:

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1. The weight

A laptop computer (plus all it's accessories) starts to feel heavy very quickly. And who really needs MORE luggage to carry around on a trip, that is unless you have a caravan or a motorhome?

2. Security risk

To you, it's a laptop computer. To a thief, it's a bag of easy money. (About £1000). And that bag is something you have to guard every second of your holiday, is it worth the stress of having to keep an eye on it, you have so much valuable information on the laptop, can you afford to lose it?, if you do take take it with you, make sure you have adequate insurance, covering theft and accidental damage. Get great value insurance from Churchill, backed up with services you want! Buy Churchill home insurance online and get a 20% introductory discount plus an additional 10%. var uri = 'http://impgb.tradedoubler.com/imp/inv/1006613/1236869?' + new String (Math.random()).substring (2, 11); document.write('');

3. Power supply problems

You'll need a different power adaptor plug for each country you visit. And depending on your laptop power supply cable, you may also need a step-up / step-down voltage transformer as some countries have a different mains voltage to our 240v system.

4. Problems with connections

You'll need to find a way of connecting to the Internet. If your laptop is suitably equipped with wireless networking and you can find a local hotspot, you can take advantage of wireless Internet access, otherwise you're stuck with dial-up modem access, which means a choice between:

- using your existing ISP's local dial-up number in the country you're visiting (provided your ISP has a local number! AOL and Compuserve generally do.)

- making a long-distance telephone call to your regular dial-up number back home

- signing up with a local ISP (rarely practical in the short-term)

5. Telephone socket trouble

Different countries have different types of telephone socket. If you're planning on connecting via dial-up access, you'll have to bring a suitable telephone adaptor plug.

You'll also need a digital signal tester to test for higher- voltage digital telephones lines, if you don't test the line, you could end up damaging your modem and possibly the motherboard on your laptop too.

6. Extra insurance cover

It's highly unlikely your travel insurance policy extends to laptop computers. You'll therefore need to arrange separate specialist insurance cover, which isn't cheap, so shop around.

7. You're on holiday!

Do you really want your work with you on holiday? Aren't you supposed to be getting away from it all? If you're beginning to think that traveling with a laptop computer is a big headache, then you're right.

However, there is an alternative:

An Internet café

Almost every city and large town now has several Internet cafés. To locate one when you're abroad, just ask your hotel receptionist or a friendly taxi driver, you will also find Internet cafés in airports, railway stations, major hotels, public libraries, and even onboard cruise ships.

Before you leave on your travels, simply ensure you can access your e-mail via a web browser. (This is known as "webmail". Most ISPs offer this option automatically - just ask them if you're unsure.)

Alternatively, set up a free webmail address (at hotmail.com or yahoo.com) for the duration of your trip and give it to anyone who might need to contact you.

With webmail set up, all you have to worry about is remembering your email login and password. Everything else - hardware, connectivity, security - is somebody else's problem.

The summary:

Unless you have a very good reason for taking your laptop on holiday, you'd be wise to leave it at home and use an Internet café instead, an internet café is so much easier and less hassle!!.