Shopping for Dad

My wife and I took my dad shopping for some stuff. He got some new shoes that will be more waterproof than the ones he had. They're not quite hiking shoes, but hopefully they'll do the job for purposes of the trip. We also helped him pick out a new suitcase. It's a Samsonite "spinner". It has four wheels, and is really easy to move around. It doesn't seem very big to me, but is about as big as most airlines will allow. It's just like the one my son picked out a few months ago, which is interesting because he and my dad will be sharing accommodations during the trip. I've got a great big duffel bag that I'm taking. My wife is supposed to be getting some Space Bags for me to put things in. There will be at least some places that we won't be taking our big luggage because we'll only be staying one night, so we only get a small bag to go to the hotel. We have some "cubes" that we can put groups of clothes in so we can easily get things from the big bag into the little bag. My wife is an organization nut. She has the whole trip planned. I'm not sure the rest of the world is planning to cooperate, though.

Laptop logistics

I'm planning on buying a laptop to take on the trip. I haven't picked one out yet. I'll get to it later this year. I found out that if you buy electronics within six months of leaving the country, you'd better have the receipt with you or you may have to pay import duties on it when you return. I'm glad I found out up front, or it would have been an ugly shock. Anyway, I contacted the travel company to see what they recommend on the laptop issue. They assured me I wouldn't have any trouble. It can stay on the plane if I'm not going to need it at a particular stop, and if it's locked in my luggage, I probably won't have any trouble leaving it at any of the hotels. I'm going to want it for several reasons. For saving my pictures, for watching movies on the plane (you spend over three days on the plane over the course of the tour), and keeping up with this blog during the trip. I'm probably going to take a couple of games with me, too, to keep me occupied. When I pick one out, I'll post about it here.