Hi Sharon, and others contemplating a hi-tech visit to the UK: May I suggest: A cassette recorder or minicassette recorder, for spoken recollections by elderly relatives, or a DV-cam or camcorder if you want to film them (and plenty of tape, plus blank CDs or DVDs for recording your photos, digital video etc.!) Your laptop has a great little program for recording notes - Wordpad. I'm planning a trip to England next year and have also found a convenient telephone recorder gadget at Radio Shack that plugs into any telephone with a headset socket and can record to a cassette tape - useful as I have elderly rellies in Canada and US that I occasionally call, and have found that I can only write down a small fraction of what they tell me while I'm listening on the phone. Make sure you have a suitable power converter for 230-240V that will operate these items (your laptop probably operates on 100-240V anyway.) Wireless internet availability would be useful. I have a program on my Sony laptop called Boingo Wireless, that can get you hooked up to wireless hotspots anywhere e.g. Starbucks, so that you can send/receive email etc. I haven't activated that yet, as there is a service fee after a month that I don't want to be paying until I actually need to. If you don't have a wireless card, that might be a useful adjunct, to enable this. Your cell phone (if it's AT&T Wireless anyway) may operate overseas as well. I just found an ad in US News about that option. Keep a backup of your genealogy files at home, or wherever else (safety deposit box?) As with all computer data, it can get lost or damaged. Password-protect your computer. Keep a small notebook available for commenting on photos you take - it's often amazingly hard to remember what you snapped and why! Don't bother with travelers' checks, though! we did, on our last trip in 1997, and found out that (a) most shops and restaurants don't accept them, even in sterling, costs them too much to cash; (b) you can cash them at banks, for an outrageous fee; (c) a Visa debit card works in ATMs over there to get cash as you need it, at a charge that is usually less than you pay at other banks' ATM's here, and no exchange rate problems. Keep your carbons -we got hit by a restaurant in Hove, just after returning to the USA - someone tried to bill tile purchases in Brighton worth over $1,000 after we'd already left England, and it took several weeks to straighten that out! A plastic mac (available cheaply there) may help protect you and your gear against inclement weather! On one trip, years ago, we visited the Tower of London, and when leaving the nearest Tube station, there was a man selling umbrellas for £2; the price didn't increase though the rain was coming down in buckets! Finally, wheels on your baggage! Very important especially for Gatwick where there is a lot of walking and carrying baggage is tiring for the long distances inside the airport. Hope this helps Martin Willcocks Taylorsville, UT. USA.