Hershey. If you choose to use disposable cameras, buy them before you leave. They can be very expensive here.
There are no Walmarts here yet, but I believe they own the Asda chain of grocery stores. Our equivalent would be Woolworths (though much smaller than Walmarts).
If you chose to go digital, make sure you get the simplest camera you can find because they can get as complicated as a website to use.

Maybe the alternative is to buy a normal film camera, a little better than an instamatic, that has a point and shoot, maybe a simple zoom lens, and a flash built in. Otherwise you're going to have to be prepared to learn about how to download the pictures and how to operate the camera itself and I don't believe you have that much time left before you leave.

If you ask, I'm sure some of the new friends you meet can email some digital photos to you when you get home.

I agree with those who say go digital. I have both a digital camera and a film SLR camera and I use the digital far more. As far as throw away camera are concerned, you still have to carry them around with you until you get home so you can get them developed.. the choice though really is yours to make and what you feel most comfortabel using..

For those here in Aus who havent been to the US, Walmart is a bit like our K-Mart and Big W stores.

There is a Walmart just around the corner from the TT hotel in Munich, Holiday Inn Sud, I think it was called.

The BEST thing about buying a digital camera is that you can be SURE that you have the photo you wanted. With a disposable, you don't know whether you got a good pic or not until you get it developed. With a digital, you can see immediately whether the photo is to your liking. It would be a shame to believe you have a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime shot and get home and find it is non-existent, blurred, or something.

I entirely agree with you, Betty. I can't count how many times, with a film camera, I've waited with eager anticipation to get a film back from being developed only to discover that, unbeknown to me at the time, someone had walked in front of the camera at the precise instant of my photographic masterpiece . As you say, with a digital camera you can see instantly the results and take the shot again if it's not to your liking.

If you're running a modern operating system on your computer, such as Windows XP (and I believe Mac OS X does the same), transferring your pictures to the PC couldn't be easier - simply plug in the camera using the supplied USB cable and the computer transfers your pictures automatically.

I'm a big fan of digital cameras!

Regards,

Chris

I couldn't agree more - digital is the way to go. I have an SLR camera and a digital camera, and have also recently used a disposable camera. While I have seen good results from disposable cameras, the results tend to be hit or miss. I was very disappointed by the quality of the pictures from a disposable that I purchased recently to take some panorama shots.

The SLR camera now seems very heavy to carry when I compare it to my little digital camera. There is also a substantial difference in the weight of the two cameras. And it is so nice to be able to directly upload my photos to my PC and "develop" them myself.

The only "disadvantage" to the digital camera is that I tend to take too many pictures.

Oh well, it just gives me that many more reminders of my travels.

One of the things I am enjoying most now that I have gone digital is being able to print only the pictures that I want. When I think about all the bad pictures that were developed over the years I shot film . . . it is simply a huge savings to be able to print only your favorite shots. Not to mention being able to use your memory cards over and over. I would never go back to film.

I've used a disposable camera on one trip (in Morocco) - but it was just for one day though because we went out to the sand-dunes & I didn't want to risk sand getting in my good camera (which was a film camera at the time). It was a waterproof disposable so I thought it stood a good chance of being reasonably sandproof also. Most of the pictures I took turned out well.

I have this year gone digital though & it is good to be able to delete any dodgy pics without having to wait to get the film developed (I've had the same problem as Chris M - & no doubt plenty of other people - with people walking into the shot just as I'm taking it).

Hershey,
if you're not ready to go digital yet, I'd suggest getting a compact film camera with a bit of a zoom & auto functions (flash, redeye reduction etc) as I think you'd be happier with the shots from a normal camera rather than a disposable one & it would save having to buy a no. of disposable cameras as you run out. (rolls of film take up less space in your luggage than disposable cameras). I'm sure you could get a reasonable one for not too much money (if you don't take too many photos in between trips).

Cheers,
ClareS

Hershey, I had a friend who went to Greece in May and bought disposable cameras there. Her pictures were excellect! She did take them to a camera shop for developing. sandra

Hershey-
I did as ClareS suggested as I had not used a digital camera before my trip. I found a neat little film camera (Canon) at Target with all the features mentioned. It was small and light, easily fit in my shoulder bag, which was very small. It makes gorgeous pictures. No big hassle-just point and click.

I'm curious - in what way do people consider digital cameras more difficult to use than film cameras? I find them a lot easier to use personally, because you don't have all the hassle of changing film, etc, and you can see the pictures you've taken, of course - that's the real "killer blow" in favour of digital, to my mind!

We used both digital and disposable on our trip. The digital camera battery decided to give up near the end of the hop on bus tour, we hadn't recharged it the night before, so we resorted to using the cheap throwaways we had bought for the girls to use. Pictures turned out pretty good we thought.

In the past I have always used throw away cameras. They do have zoom throw away and one's that have panoramic pictures. I have always have been able to get really great pictures during the day but they will not come out if you take them at night. I am technically challenged but I borrowed someone's digital and surprisingly it was easy to use which was my biggest fear in buying one in the past. My question to anyone who has traveled with a digital camera is do they hand inspect the camera and the memory discs or do you have to run them through the x-ray machine? I usually have my disposable cameras hand inspected in the U.S. airports since I use 800 speed and the x-ray machines will damage the pictures. My experience in Europe is the x-ray machines are not set like they are in the U.S. and they say that it is safe. But when I went to Greece this year I had to go to Brussels and check my cameras through the x-ray machine and then again when I left Athens. Some of my pictures were reddened due to the x-rays. The film processor told me it is safe to go through once but not twice if the x-ray machine is set low.
Regards,
Sir Mozzie

Sir Mozzie, I took my digital camera to Ireland in March (I got it for Christmas and was still very new learning to use it). I put it in my carry on and ran it through the scanner (with the disc) and the pictures were fine. I was so afraid of the camera that I took regular cannon camera and the digital and used both (50/50). I also took my film and ran it through the scanner as well. It was fine too. I will probably take both this spring on my Grand Alpine tour. The batteries tend to die at the wrong time in the digital camera!