Wednesday, May 24, 2006
how much technology do you want on the road?
Last saturday night was Eurovision night. For non Irish readers you should be aware that in Ireland, as in many other European countries, the Eurovision is a bit of an institution. Even people who admit to hating pop music watch the voting as the regional voting patterns are usually hilarious.
We were camped out in Achill Island (see pic), a remote spot on the western seaboard. But I managed to see much of the event thanks to Caddy's nifty little plasma TV and a portable aerial. As I commented to some of the other T2i members there - "Aren't we supposed to be getting away from this kind of stuff when we are camping?" (Didn't stop me watching though).
At the moment I'm considering what tech gadgets to bring with us on our six week trip. Bear in mind we have a three year old and an 18-month-old travelling with us, so a large part of the consideration is ensuring they don't get bored on long drives or if we are camped up in bad weather.
Power supply isn't an issue in my decision. Thanks to Caddy at the Ireland Air-Cooled Centre I have a sweet power set-up. There's a mains hook-up for camp sites and lots of 12V sockets running off a set of heavy duty lorry batteries in the back. A simple switch means I isolate the leisure battery when parked up and then switch it over when on the road again so that the batteries level out and re-charge.
Currently I'm looking at bringing a very old laptop (which I won't mind if it's stolen) for basic email and posting to this blog. A portable DVD player for the kids. A 30GB iPod so we have plenty of tunes. Then there's the small matter of the World Cup - with a lot of evening matches we'll have to stay close to the van with the kids so a TV could be a necessity. I'm thinking of maybe opting for a portable with built in DVD player so there's less kit to have to carry.
What does anyone else think? Is this a stupid amount of gadgets to be bringing on a camping holiday?
