We are leaving next Friday for 16 days in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic (Prague). I am thinking about taking our laptop computer-- not so much to connect to the internet, but to download digital photos, use word processing (vs. longhand) for my journal, and perhaps some entertainment for our daughter. I know it will be a bit awkward to cart around, especially since we will be on trains part of the time.

I would appreciate input from anyone on how to deal with a laptop in Europe (especially these countries). Do I just use a normal electrical adapter, or is something else required? Is there anything else I need to know?

You need a normal electric plug adapter and probably a telephone plug adapter (although many countries are switching over to US style telephone plugs).

Here are my notes about traveling with a computer:
http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/instructions/computer.htm

Pauline from Slow Travelers

Radio Shack sells a European adapator pack for laptops. You don't need a transformer, as laptops automatically switch from 110 to 220.

Recently I bought a rolling briefcase-size bag with an extra pocket inside to protect the laptop. This is going to double as my carry-on bag, and I think it's going to make hauling the laptop around much easier than the backpack bag I used last time which as too heavy.

We are in our sixth month of travel in Europe and have been in the countries you mentioned. Have the laptop with us and it is a pain but really usefull for transfering pictures. (Now have about 6000 pictures)

It has been extremely difficult to find a way to hook up the laptop in the internet cafes as they do not generally have the facilities to allow you on their network. Have found a few but they are very rare. As for dial up, really expensive and slow to connect to your ISP in the US.

What we do is compose notes on the laptop, copy to a floppy disk, and then when at the Internet cafe copy the note to our e mail service. Check first as some cafes do not have an "A" drive where you can use the floppy. We use Earthlink which has a web mail site that you can log on to retrieve/send your mail from any Internet access cafe. Find out what your provide has for accessing your e-mail from a "public" computer. It you use MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc. its no problem although some places have to give you some special instructions on how to get on AOL. You do get some funny punctuation with European keyboards though.

Power is no problem, as an earlier contributor pointed out that a regular adapter is all that's needed since the power transformer on the power cord handles both 110/120 and 220/240.

Fred

Do you have a PC or a Mac? If you have a Mac then it is made to work on both US and European electrical systems. All you need is an adapter for the plug.