Secret to a good trip?

People frequently ask me about what they can do to have a better trip. One thing I’ve been telling them lately is to carry the right cards.

I’m not talking about credit cards here, but rather the kind of cards that fit in your laptop computer. They’re called PCMCIA cards – that’s shorthand for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association. But everyone just refers to them as “PC cards.”

To borrow a phrase, I don’t leave home without mine. (I hit the road with at least three: a fax/modem card, an adapter for high-speed access to peripheral devices and a memory card.)

Why am I talking up PC cards? Because they’ve saved my hide on the road, and they could save yours too.

Just last week, between trips, I was trying to synch my laptop to a workstation and getting foiled at every attempt. Then a PC card came to the rescue. The $69 gadget, which I had almost forgotten that I owned, enabled me to connect to a hard drive using a high-speed FireWire hookup. I downloaded everything I needed in time to make it to the airport.

There’s a PC card for almost anything – wireless communication, networking, digital photography and memory, to name just a few of the applications. But many of these contraptions seem as if they were made specifically with road warriors in mind. Why?

They’re small. Most PC cards fit snugly inside your laptop or PDA.

They’re light. These wafer-thin peripherals typically weigh less than a roll of nickels.

They’re compatible. Many PC cards are “plug and play” and work on any portable computer.

If you’re an experienced travel technologist, you’re probably wondering why I’m stating the obvious. Well, mostly because these cards are so tiny, so feather-light and so unobtrusive, that users connect them and then forget about them. That’s a mistake. If you hit a technological hurdle while you’re traveling, a PC card could mean the difference between closing a deal and coming home empty-handed.

Here are my favorite PC card strategies:

Carry the card you don’t need – but might. Think of the most mission-critical aspects of your trip. It’s more than the data on your PC or PDA. What if your hardware gives up the ghost during your trip? Modems, for example, are vulnerable to power surges. Internal modems sometimes stop working when you upgrade an operating system (it just happened to me). Robert Donaldson, a vice president of a Flagstaff, Ariz., consulting firm, doesn’t go anywhere without a networking card. “I can connect to the Internet almost anywhere I may travel,” he says. If the internal modem that he uses stops working, Donaldson can easily plug in the networking card – which doubles as a regular modem – to restore his connectivity.

Pick a PC card that does one or two things well. Not to slam multi-function cards – there are a number of excellent peripherals that perform many tasks. But with prices on these devices so reasonable, you should consider buying one card that does one or two things very well. That way, if it breaks on the road, you won’t lose many capabilities. Example: modem cards that also let you access a network or fax/modem cards. C. O. Stannard, a genealogist from Ault, Colo., swears by a fax/modem card, for example. “It’s my favorite PC card,” says the frequent traveler. “I use it all the time for research and to keep up with e-mails.”

Take a card that lets you overcome technology gaps. There are a number of innovative cards on the market that help you overcome inadequate, or slow, technology. One of my favorites is a product Adaptec developed that gives you two USB 2.0 ports on your laptop computer. Ron Peppe swears by his 802.11b wireless adapter. “My office is my laptop,” says Peppe, general counsel to a steel company in Point of Rocks, Md. “Airport time or hotel lobby time used to be downtime. With this card, if I am someplace with a wireless hot spot, I can get to the Internet and get some real work done.”

Let me put this another way: If you’re enough of a traveler to own a laptop computer, you must not leave home without at least three PC cards in tow. I can’t tell you exactly which three because it varies by business traveler. Typically, it will include at least one backup modem, an adapter of some kind and a third, more specialized kind of card – one used for, say, presentations or graphics.

I’ll say it again: It’s not optional.

Why not? Because the cards will come in handy, and may even save the day for you someday. They have for me.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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