Dignified solutions for all that baggage we carry around

There I was, standing in an airport security line with my family. My son was hauling his iBook (and two dozen games), my wife was lugging her new PowerBook along with 3kg of reading material, and I was loaded down with my old faithful TiBook and enough photographic equipment to do a location portrait for my wife's bimonthly magazine.

We've carried all of our fragile electronics equipment ever since my well-packed Nikon arrived in Vancouver with a large dent and a shattered prism.

Standing in this line, I suddenly realised how silly we looked toting five heavy carry-on bags while trying to look like sophisticated world travellers.

And, of course, when we got to the checkpoint we had to remove all the computers and have my film examined by hand while trying to remove shoes, belts and jewellery for the metal detector. The idea that there has to be a better way crossed my mind more than once.

Since a private jet is out of the question for now, when I got home I investigated the idea of a single, wheelie-type, carry-on camera case that would also hold three computers and accessories. It seems there is quite a selection of specialised bags for toting, lugging and hauling your Macs and just about anything else you can imagine.

The features that won my heart were the large wheels for negotiating gravel, dirt driveways or trails and its multilevel access, which makes it as handy as the press-style Domke camera bag that I normally use. I also like its see-through internal pockets and its heavy duty construction.