If your staying in hotels on your travels you may well find they have wi-fi zones or wi-fi in the room, or a cabled connection - I would certainly expect it in Singapore and Hong Kong. You could check on the web if you know the names of your hotels. Mobile broadband can be very expensive to use abroad.

em.. yes i remember last year some woman used her 3g card whilst away to download the soaps to watch when she got home ....she got a bill for something like £2700 i thought at the time how sad... that she couldnt miss a few episodes or use a vidio or dvd recorder [even if she had to buy one]

wiz

We always take a laptop away with us. Something we have discovered is that, although hotels may charge you to use your laptop wifi, you can often go into their business centre and use one of their computers on the internet free. They don't often advertise the fact though!

I thought I was sad checking my email while on holiday but lugging a laptop,why not get a Blackberry far better.

Glad I took my laptop on my last holiday...it got me a job. Having it meant I could tailor my CV to the job I applied for, transfer the CV to employer, quick telephone interview then back to sit round pool in the sun. A nice little netbook's next on my list, so I'm not lugging so much.

We don't have to lug our laptop - it's tiny and very light.

We just got back from Egypt, and met a great couple there who we made friends with. We just heard from them that when they were loading the car up at Birmingham airport, they forgot their laptop in the car park. The case was black and it was dark. They didn't realize untill the next morning when it was too late. The problem being they run a large hotel business and they had all their business details/accounts e.t.c on it meaning they couldn't pay the staff or anything. They've phoned the airport but nobody seems to want to help them!!

Just remembering our last visit to Florida. Hubby had a portable PDA and we drove round looking for hot spots so he could do work. Our villa owner didn't have any internet connection so we piggybacked on another house nearby whose Wi Fi was not controlled by a password. The only trouble was that we were really on the edge of the reception area and so it involved stacking up stuff on the windowsill and leaning at strange angles through the blinds. God knows what people thought of us...peeping Toms

When we were in Australia we found lots of hot spots. Where are you going? Federation Square in Melbourne - found a shady place to check emails.
Surfers Paradise - over the road from McDonalds - near the big sign which says SURFERS PARADISE - used to walk up there in the evening and sit at the table and benches provided on the sea front.
The shopping centre at Broadbeach - nice leather settees in there.
Sydney - lots of places.

If you just want to check your emails (so you don't stay too long) you can use the Law Courts - they provide free internet - anybody can use them.
Find the local libraries - they are also free.
Internet places can be quite expensive in Australia - especially with exchange rate as it is now - so finding the freebie places became a challenge - we were there for 3 months so had the time.

Thanks for all your replies. We will be in Sydney, Melbourne and then touring both north and south of Perth. I have checked that some of our hotels (not just in Oz) offer free wi-fi, otherwise I am sure there are plenty of places that for the price of a cup of coffee will offer me internet services.
Incidentally, did look into Pay-As-You-Go mobile broadband packages, but the sales assistants in the 3 or 4 shops we visited did admit it was an expensive way to go for abroad.