Hi guys, I’m planning to bring my either Canon EOS 20D or Powershot G5 on a 60 day backpacking trip to europe. I usually take most of my pictures in RAW format (northwards of 20MB per picture) as I do heavy photoshopping on them. Since I’ve done my search and read that most places charge 3-5 euros for a CD, it’d definitely be a ripoff for me.

So are there many places with DVD writers for you to transfer your photos onto? These places are extremely rare in Singapore(pretty much on the upper scale in terms of technology).

Also, I’ve read that many of these places actually have morons behind the stations who are actually able to corrupt your memory card (I’ve done transfers to CDs many times in developing countries such as Indonesia and have NEVER experienced such a case). It’ll be quite irritating knowing that you’re on a tight schedule and suddenly all the great photos you’ve taken for the past few days are gone.

Thus I’m also considering bringing along my 12" PowerBook, which weighs less than 2.5KG including all the accessories. It has a superdrive and it’ll be great to be able to burn my images onto DVDs on the go and also keep intouch with my family using the webcam and etc(60days is a long time for me). However, I’m quite concerned about the gypsies(this word tends to replace the word "thieves" in this forum) who slit your daypacks/backpacks open and take all the stuff inside. I’m planning to get the Deuter Quantum 55+10 backpack. Would it be safe enough to remove the daypack and carry it over your front torso when carrying both the daypack and the backpack? Also, will it be necessary to bring a bicycle chain/lock to chain the backpack onto the overhead compartments on the trains?

Thanks in advance.