I'm not quite as light as Ford Prefect in the novel The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - for touring the Universe he made do with a leather satchel containing a Sub-etha Sens-o-matic, Electronic Thumb, Babel Fish, the Hitchhiker's Guide (an electronic book containing enough text to fill several large buildings) and a towel. But I'm definitely more agile than a Victorian era traveler, who packed, along with a wardrobe trunk and valise, such indispensable accessories as guide books, hat case, boot bag, toilet kit, leather sandwich case and portable writing desk. If that was backpacking they must have had pretty broad backs in those days.

But travelling wired isn't just a matter of buying the most expensive devices you can afford and slinging them into a bag. As far as I'm concerned you can keep your priceless cellphone with teensy keyboard and screen - I know its operating system is incomprehensible, it can't be expanded and it's basically just a brick, and a gold one too, because it invites theft. For me, what it boils down to is lifestyle and attitude - you don't let the gear rule you, you decide what you want to be able to do and then make your choices.

I usually read up on where I'm going on the Net - for Europe the indispensable guide is Rick Steves and for rail travel schedules the incredible German Railway site. Then I clip what I need and put it I in my PDA. The only other gadget I bring along is a digital camera. Sometimes I pack a tiny solid-state MP 3 player for whiling away long train rides but that's it.

A digital camera is indispensable (mine is a 2 megapixel Kodak) for two reasons. Its reloadable cards -- Compactflash in my case -- let you take hundreds of pictures wihout worrying about film costs and its circuitry allows shooting in dark places without a flash.

The heart of my travel gear, though, is my PDA. Five years ago, I became the first journalist in this country to use the Palm and I haven't looked back. I rapidly jettisoned my paper datebook, address book and assorted bus tickets and receipts which I'd been using as scratchpads. My current handheld , a Handspring Visor Prism, is a discontinued model but still priceless to its owners. A Swiss Army knife of PDAs, it has a slot that can take attachments such as a phone, backup module, camera, voice recorder, GPS and even shoulder massager - see, there are these two coated electrodes dangling off two leads, you determine the power setting and frequency and…oh never mind.

The beauty of a Palm is its ease of use and the thousands of largely free apps you can download and run off it. I can mix and match the software I need depending on where I'm going. I bring along guides, a program called "City Scene", a basic translator called SmallTalk and the coolest app of all, "Metro", a freeware program which lists the transport network of more than a hundred cities. I also have 10 novels which I can read on the long flights from Manila, and to ease the glare from my bright screen I use a utility that converts the display to red on black, the recommended combination for night reading.

I do need accessories to sustain my lifestyle. A dozen Kodak AA Ni-MH batteries and a rapid charger have served me well. I also bring a charger for my PDA, a unversal plug adapter for the mystifying electric outlets I encounter, several modules and a few compact flash cards.

But I can leave most of these behind when I sally from the hotel. I put my PDA in my daybag, or a beltpouch, or even - jumping geek joy - a Dockers product called Mobile Pants. These slacks do away with having to drape gadgets on your belt, making you look like an out of shape, poor-copy Batman. The Dockers slacks
have several hidden compartments that swallow gear like cellphones, PDAs, flashlights, etc and won't show it. To round off your ecstasy, the pants come in three colors, are Kevlar-coated and dry rapidly when washed (I'm speaking from experience). Another piece of attire you might consider is a Scott e-Vest, a jacket studded with secret pockets and internal linings for holding wires in place so you can keep your cellphone in one pocket and have its headset emerge near your collar - personally I draw the line at digital dementia here.

Does all this puttering around with geeky gear take away all the fun and wonder from travelling? Foolish question. When it's a late summer afternoon in Venice and the skies have just cleared and the sun's about to set in a burst of gold and blue at the pier beside Piazza San Marco, I am moved in a way no computer program can simulate.

Of course I also take a picture of it with my digital camera. I can show it to you on my PDA too, if you make the mistake of asking.