It's hard to exaggerate the effect that modern communications have had on today's traveller. The internet, faxes and mobile phones have laid a tight net across the world that penetrates even the remotest areas. Of these technologies, perhaps email has been the most significant. Email has certainly changed the traveller's daily routine; for some a visit to the cyber café has now become as important as changing money or finding a place to stay for the night. The ready availability and relative cost effectiveness of email has meant that the traveller is no longer alone on the road; despatches and updates can be sent back to loved ones, friends and even the workplace. Email is fast, efficient and refreshingly unconstricted by the time differences that plague long-distance telephone calls.

Furthermore, email allows solo travellers to alleviate some of the loneliness that comes from staying in a strange environment, as well as to make arrangements to meet those travelling from near or far to join them.

Some might argue that this kind of contact goes against the very nature of immersing yourself in a new culture, however, the practicality of the matter is that more often than not you will be fighting for computer time with the locals themselves. Cyber cafés in large Indian cities have become a hub for those trying to find wives in a painfully strict and repressive society. In Singapore unwitting travellers have found themselves embroiled in the teenage dating scene, receiving offers of ice cream and kisses from giggling girls. I myself found a blossoming email scene in Beijing, as students took advantage of the new political freedom to make contact with their Western counterparts.

Indeed, the social scene surrounding cyber cafés goes beyond locals. You're unlikely to be the only traveller in town wanting to check in with home, so it's not unusual to find a fellow traveller at the terminal next to you. You'll quickly find that the cyber café can be as much about fun as it is about keeping in touch.

Finding a cyber café and getting set up

Cyber cafés are now common right across the world; certainly most big cities will have them. Usually they consist of a room with five or six terminals inside; often drinks and refreshments will be on sale to those surfing inside. Costs vary, but you will normally be charged an hourly rate to use one of their PCs. I use the word PC wisely. A version of Windows is used on around 90 per cent of the world's computers, so if you're used to a Mac you may be as well to take a crash course in Windows before you leave. Be aware, too, that you will have problems using a Macintosh floppy disc with most PCs, so if you are carrying work, a journal or internet bookmarks with you, be sure to use IBM formatted discs.

The standard of the equipment you'll get to use will vary, but don't expect it to be too primitive. The ongoing mission of the Western world to get the rest of the globe 'wired' and the charitable activities of the big computer companies mean that often the poorer the country you are visiting the better the quality of its equipment. Most set-ups will offer web browsing and some form of email package. While they'll certainly have some word processing software (such as Microsoft Word), graphics packages are expensive, so don't count on them being available.

Finding your local cyber café is easy. A guidebook will give you some idea of their location. You can also research locations online at the Internet Café Guide (www.netcafeguide.com) or The Internet Cafés Guide (www.netcafes.com). Neither of these sites is comprehensive (new cyber cafés are opening every day), but they do give a general global coverage and offer easy searching by county and city as well as some idea of current costs. If you really can't find an internet café anywhere, it is always worth trying the area's top-end hotels. Better hotels will have a business centre with a web connection, though expect hire time to be pricey.

There are two ways to handle your email on the move. Firstly, you can reconfigure a rented machine's own email client so that it connects to your ISP (internet service provider) at home. To do this you will need to have to hand the name of your ISP's POP3 server for received mail and its SMTP server to send mail from your account. You'll also need your user name and password to access its service. If you are finding these terms a little bit bewildering you will certainly be better off with the second option: using a web-based email system. Don't worry about losing mail from your regular account as you can arrange for your ISP to forward your mail automatically to your new web-based mailbox.

Web-based email is the traveller's choice. An invariably free service, it allows you to dial into your mailbox via a standard web browser through any web-ready terminal anywhere in the world. You can set up an account for yourself online in a matter of minutes simply by filling in an online form on your email provider's website. You'll also return to this website to send and receive email, logging in with a personal user name and password. Make no mistake, web-based email is phenomenally popular. One of the biggest, Hotmail (www.hotmail.com), attracted over 40 million users in just three years. Other popular choices are attached to search engines such as Lycos (www.lycos.com), Excite (www.excite.com) and Yahoo (www.yahoo.com). Publisher Lonely Planet also offers free email, as well as voice messaging and budget international calls, through its Ekno (www.ekno.lonelyplanet.com/) website.

A few words of warning

Check with the café staff before you start you session about the dos and don'ts of their establishment, particularly if you intend to start reconfiguring their machine or downloading files from the internet. No matter how proficient you may be with a PC, the café owners will, understandably, not want their PCs damaged by viruses or heavily reconfigured to suit your specific needs.

Be aware that while your café of choice may be bang up to date with the communication revolution, the country it's in may not be. The speed and time at which you can effectively connect to the internet is at the mercy of the local telephone system. Some remote cafés depend on shaky satellite uplinks, while a friend of mine in Moscow claimed that avid surfers soon learnt which cafés were in physically proximity to a functional telephone exchange.

Finally, web-based email servers regularly clear out dormant users, so if you neglect your Hotmail account don't be surprised to find that it has disappeared after six months. For a comprehensive guide to operating email of all kinds, visit Everything Email at www.everythingemail.com.

Other ways of staying in touch online

Via your own laptop: Apart from the problem of carrying a heavy and eminently stealable laptop computer around with you, those wishing to connect to the internet may have difficulties using local telephone lines. A line tester is required to differentiate between digital and analogue lines, furthermore telephone plugs, like electric plugs, differ from country to country, so you'll need to research your destination or carry a selection of multi-purpose jacks. At a push, a modem can be hard wired to a telephone connection, but some expertise is required. You can reamore about mobile telephony at The World Wide Phone Guide site at www.kropla.com/phones.htm.

IRC channels: IRC is an open channel that is located on a server, via which you can talk to people in real time. You can search for channels that may be of interest to you using a web search engine. Each channel, however, tends to be a tight community and of little use to the general visitor. You will also need some additional software to connect to these channels. For more information, visit www.mirc.co.uk/ircintro.html.

The future

Technology is constantly moving, and it seems to be focusing on making personal communication smaller and more globally available. The new generation of palmtop computers will provide an adequate email service and can be used to carry maps and city guides. Meanwhile we're welcoming the arrival of WAP mobile phones, which look set to take advantage of low-level satellites to offer excellent global communications and even to exploit the GPS tracking system.

All of the above leaves the traveller with a quandary. While it's nice to keep in touch, it's up to each individual to decide how far they wish to go. Personally, I'd hate to find myself at the top of a mountain trying to ignore the ringing of a mobile phone.