I'm driving for the uk to South Africa and would like to take. My macbook to write blogs and edit photos

Do other people take theirs on the trips? Have you ever had your vehicle searched and had it stolen?

I'm just after some advise please as to take it with me or not

Thanks

camera, phone, wallet, computer, vehicle. All invaluable in their own way and all highly stealable.

We are pretty slack with our security and so far have been lucky, but I'd say our time will come.

Refuse to get paranoid about it and do take a few half-hearted precautions regarding backups and having selection of photos and copies of all important documents online.

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Tony
Click here for Travel Photos & Travel Map

Take

On my recent trip around Thailand and Laos I had my MacAir, External hard drive, wallet, GoPro, Montana GPS etc and left my bike all over the place. Even stayed in a village over night and attended a party for hours, my stuff was left in a hut in the village with no lock on the door and remained untouched. You have to be mindful of your valuables but not paranoid

Wayne

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Take what you will use. Do you need a macbook or will a notebook and a bunch of hard drives work like are you editing on the road?

Just be mindful and the rest is luck.
Lock it up and make sure its not an easy target.

Hi Mr wood. Like you I already left to Africa, almost at the straight of Gibraltar. I just got my chromebook with me to get online and post pics on a blog. I do have my wallet with me but nothing in there except some money. All my docs will be locked away on my bike the whole time, at least i hope. I do have a fake wallet with me for if I get robbed with some change in it to give quickly. For the rest some old stuff like camera and some sd cards. The less expensive the less it hurts when lost! Cheers

Dummy wallets are a good idea for "stick up" robberies. But if the thief has time ... or if you're under arrest, then they might find your "real" wallet and valuables anyway. Just make sure the "real" valuables are well hidden.

I agree about storing valuable pics and document copies on line. Some like money belts, some stash on bike, lots of ways to approach this.

My dummy wallet is fairly convincing ... has local currency, US dollars, some expired Credit cards and old driving license. If it's taken I loose about $50 USD, a bummer, but not end of trip.

Never had to use it ... but I keep enough money in it for day to day expenses (fuel/food). Replenish it from "real" wallet, which is hidden. A PITA, but could save you if robbed.

Hard to hide a lap top and Camera. I think a low cost computer or Tablet is a better idea. Maybe $500 vs. $1500? Camera? No advice. I use a Lumix point and shoot.

I've always carried a computer with me, never had any concerns about the thing being stolen.

I suggest, though, that you consider getting a computer that is smaller than a MacBook - perhaps an iPad with a keyboard, if you want to stay with Apple products.

For years, I carried an IBM ThinkPad. It fit in the pannier (just!), but took up a lot of space. Two years ago I bought a Microsoft Surface Pro, which computes just as well as the ThinkPad, but only occupied one-fifth of the space in the pannier. You won't appreciate (perhaps 'regret' would be a better word) how much space a full-size portable computer occupies until you have travelled with a tablet-type computer.

As for concerns about losing it - I think the biggest concern is loss of the data, rather than loss of the hardware. I use a service called "Carbonite" that keeps an online backup. I just leave the computer turned on overnight (when it is charging up in the hotel, connected to Wi-Fi), and that gives it enough connected time to keep the remote backup current, even on slow Wi-Fi connections.

Michael

PS: Remember that you will have to put the computer (whatever kind it is) inside some kind of padded sleeve to protect it, so allow for the size of the sleeve when evaluating how much space the thing will take up.

I just finished (early) my 3 year trip.
Had expensive camera stuff, computer, hard discs etc. Nothing stolen during the trip (maybe I was just lucky?).

I would be most careful in hostels where are western backpackers. Most of them are nice and good company, but have heard many stories of them stealing stuff...

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I travel by car, so I have a bit more space.

I strongly suggest to carry a real Tablet, not just an iPad or similar.

With an microsoft surface or an Macbook Air (or similar) you have a lot more functionality. For bikers the Macbook Air with 11" may be one of the smallest and most powerful solution.

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

YES! When traveling off the bike, staying in Hostels, several robberies happened ... and not by locals ... done by other backpackers.
Sad but true.

If simply doing email, posting up on forums and storing pics, why is anything Microsoft make better than the latest iPad Air 2 for these basic purposes?
What specific functionality do you need (or is absent) beyond what the iPad can do?

The connectivity tech of the latest iPads seems pretty amazing. I guess the Surface is the same ? ... except it's in a language I can't understand and a system that is continually hacked and constantly crashes?

Not being a computer guy and never having learned MS/dos I have no desire to be mired in anything from Bill Gates and company! ... and of course YMMV ...

I struggled with a Windows thing for years, only managing to get it to connect up to hotel wi-fi about one time in ten (even my Kindle managed better than that) so an iPhone was a revelation. It worked (more or less) every time and led me on to looking at iPads. Even in a case the full size one may be a bit fragile for bike travel (we've broken the screen twice in a year) but an iPad mini in a case has survived the last 12 months unscathed. Being small it fits into my bike jacket pocket so not quite so obvious as a laptop

When I have the need / space I have a small bluetooth keyboard for it and that's probably the setup I'll use across the US this autumn. For low level stuff (web searches, email, Skype, blogging etc) it's just as good as the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on and I'm not sure I'll be doing much video editing or Photoshop stills work as I travel.

I carried MacBook Pro mainly because I wanted to edit photos and videos.
Another reason why I selected MBP was for it´s aluminium casing = strong.
I had SSD drive on my MBP, no problems at all.

I also carried several hard discs for photos and videos + back-up disc for them.
2-3 HDDs got damaged due to vibration, so I would strongly recommend to carry back-up disc and make those back-ups regularly.

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I use a four year old cheap (€200) netbook with Linux to update my weblog when I am traveling and a few year old Nikon D5000 camera. I usually have them in a small rucksack that fits in the locked topcase of my bike.
When I leave the bike for a longer period, I put my crash-helmet in the topcase and take the rucksack with me.
I also use a fake wallet and hide the rest.

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Jan Krijtenburg

My bikes are a Honda GoldWing GL1200 and a Harley-Davidson FXD Dyna Super Glide

My personal homepage with trip reports: https://www.krijtenburg.nl/
YouTube channel (that I do together with one of my sons): motormobilist.nl

Yes. My experience has been that the Microsoft Surface Pro (the one that runs the full Windows operating system, not the 'Surface' that runs Windows RT) is perfect for travel. It does everything that a normal full size computer will do, including running applications such as Garmin's MapSource and BaseCamp.

I'm not that familiar with the capabilities of the Apple iPads, but I think that they can do pretty much everything that a traveller would want. There certainly is a big installed base of them out there.

The New York Times (formerly known as the International Herald Tribune) published a very funny article about iPads yesterday, it's worth reading if you would like a smile... even the most dedicated Apple fanboys will appreciate it. Here's the link: Magic for the Modern Child

Michael