The pros and cons of traveling with Kindle

— -- When the second edition of Amazon's best-selling electronic reader launched in late February, the Kindle 2 piqued new interest among travelers eager to trade a carry-on crammed with books and magazines for a single gadget that weighs less than a paperback.

Slimmer and easier to use than its predecessor, the $359 device is an "unbelievable travel tool," raves BootsnAll.com co-founder Sean Keener, who has been "devouring books" on the Kindle 2 during his current backpacking trip through the South Pacific. Peripatetic bookworms can tote a library of 1,500 books, plus blogs, newspapers and magazines; ordering is via a computer or Kindle's built-in wireless store (only available in the USA) that lets readers sample, buy and download books in under a minute.

But for all its gee-whiz features, most major travel publishers have been slow to jump on the Kindle bandwagon. Of the 260,000-plus titles available on Kindle, about 1,500 are travel-related, a category that also includes essays and travelogues.

Among Kindle's latest offerings is a $40 digital collection of 12 Frommer's city guides that would cost more than $200 — and weigh more than 8 pounds — in print. By summer, Frommer's will offer 18 of its 300-plus titles through Kindle.

Kindle 2, though still limited to a one-column format and black-and-white images and maps, "has a lot more graphical capability" than the original version, says Brice Gosnell of Lonely Planet, which will sell a single series of guides through Amazon's Kindle store starting this summer.

But travel author Rick Steves, who praised the first Kindle when it made its debut in late 2007, says it remains "clunky for guidebook layout."

"I'm not thinking about Kindle much. I think it's fine for novel-type reading at this point," adds Steves. His publisher, Avalon, sells five Rick Steves city guides through Kindle now; seven more titles are planned for release in 2009.

And their buzz among the technorati notwithstanding, e-readers and other electronic devices seemingly haven't replaced ink on paper in travelers' hearts: In a recent poll on flight search engine Skyscanner.net, 24% of respondents said "a good book" was their most essential travel item, followed by MP3 player with 22%, perfume or deodorant with 14%, and laptop or PDA with 10%.