I have traveled extensively with a digital camera for over three years with no problems. I was a film shooter for most of my life and thought I would never give up my Nikons. I sold all my film cameras last year. Some thoughts and suggestions:

1. Absolutely have at least one spare battery and charger with euro plug adaptor. I have two spares, one in the bag and the other on charge during the day while we are out. Rotate them everyday. Check to see if your camera will operate, in an emergency, on regular AA or other easily available batteries.

2. One of the best things about a digital cam is that you can edit in the camera as you go. My wife and I have a routine where at the end of the day we stop somewhere for a glass of wine and sort through the days shooting. We ruthlessly discard marginal photos that no one would look at anyway in order to free up space on the memory card. We have found that really improves the quality of our photos. On a recent trip to Italia I shot close to a 1000 pictures and brought home 172. Much more manageable.

3. Don´t forget the camera manual in case there is a problem. Keep a couple of baggies in the bottom of the camera bag for unexpected rain or dust.

4. Another solution to the storage/backup concern: If you are comfortable with the technology there are many on-line operations that will store your photos. You can up-load them to a protected area and even alert family and friends to the location. You e-mail them the protected url and they can see your photos on a daily basis. Great fun. I use a site called Photo Base but a search will turn up quite a few. http://www.pbase.com/

A final philosophical note. There are two kinds of travel pictures: Those that document everything about the trip(buildings, people, rooms,places) and those that capture a moment, mood or sense of place and time. The latter is more challenging but far more rewarding in my opinion.

Sorry for the long post...hope it is helpful.

Harry In Southern California where it is supposed to rain today.