Windows Phone Thoughts: The Minimalist Road Warrior's Guide to "Traveling Light" using a Pocket PC

"The 2003 Microsoft "MVP" Summit provided the ideal test for making an extended trip using only a Pocket PC and leaving the laptop at home...Before discovering the Pocket PC and having lugged a series of "portables" around which included a thirty pound Kaypro, my feet, back and shoulders constantly gave me adamant demands to reduce the load until my most recent travelling companion had been the two plus pound Sony Vaio "PictureBook" which yielded an acceptable laptop "carry weight" total of 7.5 pounds (3.4 kilos) when the minimal essential laptop accessories were included. My educated guess at the summit would be that the majority of attendees were hauling about 15 pounds of computer and gear with some likely approaching the 25 to 30 pound range. That works out to around 5.6 tons of gear making unreasonable transport demands on 1496 sore feet and other parts of the human frame, not to mention that a significant fraction thereof was transported by air from around the world for this event alone."



Beverly Howard has updated his article on travelling light, and it's a very interesting read. Though I always take my Pocket PC with me on trips, I have to admit that I still can't leave my laptop behind. Email is something that I do a great deal of, and Pocket Inbox is still too lacking in the types of features I need (especially IMAP support). If you're interested in travelling light, make sure to give this article a thorough read. What kind of gear do you travel with, and what kind of strategies do you use to keep from lugging too much gear?