Thursday, Jan 25, 2007 at 18:05
If you go the way of not taking a computer, try the "Telecentre", "Community Centre" etc (name varies by state). Often in the same building as the library, they are generally set up better for travellers to go on line. Libraries are primarily for research on the internet and sometimes have time limits, or you need to book etc.
We generally find one of the on line centres every few days and find we can do all our emails in and out, plus printing for $5 to $10 a time. Takes a long time to justify a laptop if you don't have one.
The other thing we do is unsubscribe to on line newsletters (yes - even ExplorOz) and resubscribe when we get home. That reduces the number of email messages we look at on the web. I also ask my brother in law to pause forwarding to me his "funny" emails.
We don't download emails to the computer using Outlook Express etc. The normal way is to go on to your internet provider's web site and look at their "web mail" - you may have to check out how to do that before you go.
Many info centres, caravan parks etc have "Internet Kiosks" - all in a compact space and with no printer. They are generally very expensive by comparison.
We are real troglodytes with phones too. When we have used up our 200 minutes a month of free off peak we find a phone box and use a "GO Talk" card for our long distance calls. Heaps cheaper than CDMA - though very unfashionable. At least that means no one else waiting to use the phone box.
Hope those couple of ideas help.
Max
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