What do you do if you want to send an email, look at a website or even read the Guardian on holiday? Business travellers may have a laptop, and the better-off may own a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) but many mobile phones now have access to WAP (wireless application protocol) technology, which travellers can use to catch up with the information they don't want to leave behind - football and cricket scores, news and comment, weather reports and emails.

Net Café Guide
The ICG lists the addresses and details of more than 3,000 internet cafés around the world. All the listings are searchable, so there's no need to heed the frequent exhortations to buy the book - unless you have no itinerary whatsoever.

CitySync
Palm owners can download city guides on to their hand-held computer for just under $20 each. The cities currently available are Paris, London, Sydney, San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Bangkok.

eKno
eKno is a free service, run in association with Lonely Planet, which enables travellers to store passport and other details in a virtual "vault". If the documents are stolen, copies can be retrieved in an emergency. E-mail, voicemail and "text-to-speech" mail (meaning you can check e-mails without the need for a screen and net connection) are also part of the package.

So you need a PDA?
A critical guide to the PDAs on the market, with links to their respective websites. This is a regularly-updated but brief summary which you might want to supplement with one of those glossy, heavy old-media magazines that exist to review and advertise new gadgetry.

Wapalize
Anyone wondering whether to bother with a WAP phone - though apparently it might be worth waiting for the old-fashioned-sounding but much faster GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) versions - can see how the Guardian Unlimited WAP service looks on screen by visiting this site.

AvantGo
AvantGo provides a means of receiving internet services on a PDA, anywhere in the world. In other words, it enables you to download various channels via a computer with a net connection. The 52 dedicated travel channels include information from reviews from Fodors guidebooks, flight tracking, interactive maps, American Express and lastminute.com.

Steve Kropla's help for World Travellers
Chiefly of help to laptop users, this is a guide to the various types of phone line used around the world, voltages, plug conventions and direct dialling codes.