Originally Posted by drbobguy

This is more of a tip than an item (although it requires a camera).

A tip a travelling companion pointed out to me and that I now use extensively is to take pictures of train/bus schedules posted at train/bus stations as you arrive, so you have the schedule stored on your phone/camera. Saves a few minutes planning out when you want to leave by writing down the schedule, or calling the station, or finding internet access to check the schedule.

Might be obvious to some, but I hadn't thought of it before.

The Amazon kindle or similar reader is a GREAT budget travelling companion as others have mentioned. Great battery life (over a week), you can fit hundreds of books in something that weighs less than a hardback, and there are travel guides as well.

To fill up a kindle or e-reader on the cheap check out the project gutenberg magic catalog, which has thousands of out-of-copyright ebooks you can download for free. If you save the magic guide to your kindle, you can download new books whenever you have an internet connection. See here:

http://www.freekindlebooks.org/Magic...iccatalog.html