We did take it. Issues to consider:

1) How handy? It’s probably not so wise to leave it in your backpack so you’ll be carrying it with you all the time.

2) Going alone? Then forget it, I guess you’ll be taking your picture camera in any case, you’ll waste loads of time looking at the sights through the lens of the camera, then video camera – don’t have time to look with your eyes!

3) Any basic video montage on computer skills? And enough time after the trip? The thing is, 80% of your movie will be a crap. Just total crap, not really interesting even for you, and the friends who see it will be bored after 5 minutes. It took us (3 people) almost a year to make a really nice and cool 1.5 hour movie about our 3-week Eurotrip, with titles, music and other stuff (initially we had 9 hours on our tapes). The movie is great to look at, but we decided not to take the camera on the next trip.

I’d wouldn’t advise it either. It will just be one more thing to worry about and you’ll probably do better with just a camera.

I took mine on my last trip. Yeah I got mostly crap video : )(including about an hour of my feet walking because I thought it was paused) but I’m happy I had it for some of the unbelievable and hillarious things I did get with it. If your worried about looking like a tourist, don’t bother.otherwise, if you can get ahold of a good compact digital video camara I’d say go for it! Mine (panasonic dv-203)was small enough to fit in a small purse which I used instead of the bigger camarabag it came with.I carried it with whenever my bag wasn’t well secure (most the time)but it was no big deal. The charger and converter had to be packed plus I bought an extra large battery which was expensive but I was happy to have it. Also since I was traveling alone it was nice to get good pictures w/me in them with it w/o asking strangers. (it takes digital stills and stills from film). My camara is my favorite toy, it’s miraculously survived 2 trips to Europe and more than it’s share of abuse….the videos are priceless