Having a camera that takes big high resolution photos is a total waste. High res pictures are a pain in the ass on the road. You run out of memory in a second and then you're fucking around with buying more memory or burning CDs in internet cafes, which is not how you want to spent an evening. I'm even traveling with my laptop, which should mitigate the problem since I have a hard drive to dump them onto, but laptop hard drives aren't big, and pretty soon you're stuck in the same position.
Most of the space on my disk is already taken up by music. And when it comes down to it I'd much rather be using the space for music. What would you rather have when you're thousands of miles from home: one of your favorite albums from highschool, or 10 photos you took yesterday?
Saving space by being choosy about what photos you snap or keep defeats the whole purpose of digital photography for travelers, that being the way a series of photos can tell or anchor a story. And buying extra memory cards like you would rolls of film defeats the other purpose of digital photography: not blowing a ton of money.
The other reason not to take big photos is that these photos will only be seen on a computer screen. It's not like you're going to make 5x7 prints. And it probably isn't even worth keeping most of them on your computer; everybody else will see them on Picasa or Flickr. And bigger pictures don't just use extra storage space, they also take much more time to transfer on your computer, and more time to crunch down to a size suitable for uploading.
So you're going to end up taking pictures at a resolution that most recent cellphones are capable of.
Traveling outside the US without a cellphone will INDISPUTABLY have a SIGNIFICANT negative impact on your trip. Not traveling with a GSM* cellphone is my #1 biggest regret. Here's why:
If you have a phone you will get more peoples' numbers. When I have my cellphone on me I am way more likely to just pull it out and get somebody's number than I am if I have to interrupt the conversation to go searching for a pen and a bar napkin. Plus when you're traveling you can get numbers in situations where at home you'd have to earn it. This is so important, because meeting people who live in a place instantly opens up all kinds of scenes and experiences that would otherwise be closed to you as a traveller. It also gives you a real insight into the culture of the place. Meeting people is how you get away from skimming the surface Lonely Planet-style and start sinking your teeth into a place. The best thing is, it works even if you're only there for a few days.
If you have a phone you will lose less peoples' numbers before you wake up sober the next morning. Sometimes you will wake up in the morning with names and numbers in your phone and be like, "oh yeah, I should call them". No phone and those numbers are gone, dude.
If you have a phone you're more likely to follow up with these people in meaningful ways before your time runs out. You know how it is; plans get made that night, and kids might call you up if they have your number but they won't track you down at your hostel. In countries where everybody has a phone, making plans to meet without them is really difficult. You're late. She's late. One of you decides to bounce and now no gorgeous girl with a cool accent for you, buddy. You're working with very small amounts of time and lots of other barriers (you don't know the language, the city, the scene) so you can't afford missing connections.
Email is not a substitute. Even if you check email every day, the people you meet probably won't, and even a day or two of latency is too much if you're just there for a week. Plus with foreign handwriting on bar napkins and emails from people speaking in other languages or with weird syntax looking like spam to either you, them, or spam filters there are many possibilities for email attempts to simply fail. Some of the people you meet will be very, very beautiful women. Why take that chance?
If you have a phone you will have more independence from hosts or larger groups. Staying with friends is awesome, but communication problems can make it hard to go off on your own for a bit, because you don't want to worry or inconvenience them. Having a cellphone solves this problem. A similar thing happens when you're traveling with a group. You might stick with the group even if you'd rather do your own thing just because of how difficult it will be to reconnect. Being tied to a group sucks, and no matter how cool and gracious your hosts are, being forever tied to them is a drag.
A new GSM phone with a pretty good camera costs between $200 and $400. You could easily spend that on a camera, and if you have a nice digital camera already you could sell it for that much. Be serious about your trip. You're spending a significant amount of money just to be in these new and interesting places; it's stupid to scrimp on something relatively cheap that will hugely improve your stay. And it's even dumber to bring along another piece of expensive electronic equipment that will be much less useful.
*Why GSM:
GSM phones (the kinds with the little swappable chips that link you to a number and a service) are perfect for traveling because you can keep the same phone and just buy new prepaid chips when you enter a new country. A chip gives you a local number and sets you up with a local carrier. In Brazil, a chip costs like $7. If you have Cingular/AT&T or T-mobile you already have a GSM phone (though you may need to unlock it).
