I had to laugh when I read Troy Wolverton’s “Have gadget, will travel” article in yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News. Our family spends nearly as much time considering which gadgets to take on a trip as we do planning what clothes and shoes to pack—maybe more.

For example, when we head off for our upcoming Fourth of July holiday, we’ll be traveling with: one cell phone, one Treo, two phone headsets, three sets of earphones, an iPod touch, a digital camera (that also takes video), a laptop and a USB memory stick.

Even with all of this gear, I disagree with Christina Tunnah, director of marketing for the Americas at Lonely Planet, that we’ll be “losing out on a potential conversation with a local or an interaction on the bus, and that taking a lot of gadgets tempers the experience of a place.”

In fact, it’s been our experience on more than one trip (and in lots of airplanes and airports) that our gadgets are actually great conversation starters that have led to more interesting discussions about a variety of topics from homelessness in San Francisco to dining in Kiev.

In addition, many of these gadgets have been both time- and money-saving, not to mention, sanity-saving for our family. On the iPod touch, for example, we get G movies inexpensively, and they become wonderful distractions during 5+ hour layovers (which we recently had in Dallas and New York).

We can’t imagine traveling without our gadgets, which is why at our vacation rental search site, we have been giving away gadgets and gift cards monthly as part of our PickPackGo Getaway Giveaway contest.

So although others may claim we are adding a layer of complexity to our trip with all of our gadgets, we won’t be leaving them at home anytime soon!