How to store digital photos while traveling
Reader of This Just In, Corey Larsen Bauer, writes:
Got a dilemma we need help with....our teenage daughter will be leaving soon to be an exchange student to Norway for a year. What's the best way to store so many photos she'll take? Should she take a laptop to download them on? Or quite a few memory sticks or what?!?!
Well, Corey, Thanks for your message. You must be so proud of your daughter getting to go to Norway! [By the way: Budget Travel has often covered the country often, including this story: "Have You Cruised in a Fjord Lately?"]
My suggestion is that your daughter get an annual "Pro" subscription to Flickr.com, a beguiling website for storing and sharing photos.
The Pro subscription will let her upload her photos from her laptop--or from a friend's computer. That way, her photos will be saved someplace safe in case the camera dies or the memory stick is lost.
What's more, Flickr makes it easy to share photos with others by email, or to make postcards using sites like Moo.com. The site is free to use and to store a small batch of photos, but you need to get a $25-a-year subscription to store an unlimited number of snapshots. However, I think the fee is worth it.
When your daughter takes daytrips around the country or Europe, she could bring along a small 256 megabyte memory stick, which costs about $50 and which can be used as an interim storage device for storing a couple hundred photos (depending on the size of the images and the quality of her digital camera). If she doesn't plan on bringing a computer, she can borrow someone else's to download her photos, if her camera uses a standard cable (such as a USB cable).
Another argument for using Flickr instead of another photo-sharing website is that it is owned by Yahoo, so it will have the financial wherewithal to last for a long time. In other words, by using this site, you have a lower risk of having to switch to another storage site in the near future. For more info on options, consider visiting Digital Photography Review.
Another reader, Vanessa O'Donnell, offers the following tip:
Another option would be to use shutterfly. Photos can be uploaded in the same manner as Flickr but without the cost and prints can be ordered directly from the site. I've used shutterfly numerous times and frequently receive "coupons" from them for things such as 25 free 4x6 or 1 free 8x10
Hey reader: If you have a helpful suggestion, please post a comment!