For those of you who travel with your laptop in Spain and other places, how easy is it to find internet connections? Will the internet cafes let you use your own computer? Can you write emails off line and then just hook up and send them from a cafe?

It seems that a few hostals are now offering internet access which makes it even more attractive to travel with a laptop.

I considering the purchase of the Dell Inspiron 300m because it is lightweight, but am curious about its usefulness overseas. It seems that it would be great to have in conjunction with a digital camera!!

Any suggestions as to which wireless options or digital imaging packages are best?

Hi Sel,

I just got finished with a 60 day trip in Spain using my Sony Vaio GRV550, and altho heavy, *loved* having it!

Dialup and DSL connectivity were great for me. I did not find any 'hotspots' to use for my wireless card, tho. I have both web-based and email client capability with email, so... When in doubt I just rely upon the web-based email.

I was lucky tho, my buddy in Ciudad Real allowed me to pirate his DSL connect and so I had basically an ISDN persistent connect from his place.

A few tips for laptop use:
1. A/C adaptor that supports btwn 120 and 260 current - by default the Japanese manufacturer's do this, but i'm not sure about Apple or others.
2. know how to adjust your TCP/IP settings - you may need to use static IP's on some connections
3. have a good laptop bag with a strap that won't break, like mine did. prolly didn't help to have 20 pounds extra of wine in the bag tho (nothing broke, luckily)
4. uhhh... what else...
5. internet cafe's are a plenty, but don't count on being able to hook up your laptop! know ahead of time how to get around that obstacle...

Good luck!

andrew

If you are willing to hang out at Starbucks in Spain, they now have wireless access. Of course that means to have to be somewhere near Starbucks and pay more for your coffee than in other locations.

I am a bit ignorant about the wireless option. My kids have had to have their computers configured to assess the wireless on their college campuses. Do you have to have something special to be able to use the Starbuck wireless? Does anyone have a simple explanation?

Since I have not bought this computer yet....any suggestions, advise, preferences?

I hate to haul a computer to Spain if I cannot get it to access internet!!

Last time I took my laptop to Spain -3 years ago- I used the free dial up from Terra.es
http://www.terra.es/bandaestrecha/carac_basico.htm
Since then, I didn't bother carrying it. It's nice to go in a "real" vacation

For wireless access the only thing you have to configured as megia said is the TCP/IP and DNS settings to obtain the address automatically.

Hope it helps,

Chus

Regarding the Starbucks suggestion, there are only Starbucks in Madrid and Barcelona (in Spain). Also, I don't know if all of the ones in Spain have wireless access. They don't advertise wireless on their Spain website. In the US they are partnered with T-Mobile to provide wireless accounts. I think here (in the US) they can set you up with a temporary account, if you need one, so if they do have wireless access in the Spain Starbucks maybe it works in a similar manner. The Spain starbucks website does have contact information If you are interested in pursuing this option: stabucks spain .

My brother took his laptop to Spain and had no problems, but his hotel provided internet access. If you know where you will be staying, you may want to inquire about internet access.

As far as recomendations for laptops go.. Well, I have a Toshiba for personal use and my work laptop is a Dell. I have been pleased with both. Most of the newer ones seem to have wireless capability built in. You should make sure the wireless "modem" is 802.11b and 802.11g compatible (those are wireless standards, 11b is older and more widely available, 11g newer and more secure).

I did not take my laptop to Spain because we were moving from city to city quite a bit and I didn't want to lug the thing around, nor have to worry about keeping it secure when I wasn't carrying it around.

Good luck!

We always take our laptop with us when we travel ... lets us update our trip diaries as we ago as well as edit photos. In Madrid last fall, we used several Internet cafes, but the only one that allowed us to connect our laptop was CyberFutur@ which if I recall correctly was on C/ Montera. There is more information about it elsewhere on the boards - a search should turn it up for you.

We also used dial up from our hotel - another free ISP in spain is GoNuts4Free - worked like a charm although our hotel charged an outrageous amount for local calls. We have a USB memory stick this time so sometimes we will probably do our writing and photo editing off line and then just save it to the stick and upload from any Internet point.

This time (we leave this afternoon - yipee!) we have a different sort of wireless option. We have purchased a cellular card for our laptop. It's basically a GSM mobile phone that slides into a PC slot just like a wireless card (in fact you can buy one that is a combination of the 2 cards). It's an Option Globetrotter - their Web site is http://www.option.com/ . We're looking forward to this as we are now no longer restricted to staying at hotels with telephones!
(We also had to purchase a Spanish SIM card so it will work there. At some point will report back on how this option has worked for us.)

Finally, our laptop is a Dell (Inspiron 2500). We also have a Dell desktop machine and have been delighted with both and also with Dell's customer service and technical support.

Hope this helps!

Susan

Having to always cart a laptop on business trips I am looking forward to a leisure trip without one. We will be carrying a digital camera that we would love to be able to download pictures from before we get home.

Does anyone know whether we will have any luck finding a cyber cafe that has accessable USB ports and/or CD burners to offload photos?

4 weeks and counting to departure.....

We had no problem finding internet cafes to download onto memory sticks and/or cd's for us( we used primarily "Navegaweb" internet cafes). There was no charge for downloading to the memory stick, but we had to ask them to do it. We couldn't just do it from any terminal. Burning the CD cost 6 euros, but that's because we forgot to bring our blank CD, so that included the cost to buy a CD right then and there. It is much cheaper if you bring your own CD. Also, like the memory stick they didn't just let us burn the CD from any terminal.

Also, often photo shops will burn a CD for you. We didn't explore that option because we were going to the internet cafe anyway.

Hope that helps.