I'm now sitting in the train to Lindau. The whole trip will take 7 hours, almost the longest train ride I can take in Germany from my hometown Hannover. But most participants have traveled from much further away (from a total of 70 countries), whereas I don't need to bring a passport, dictionary or exchange money. When packing my suitcase last night I thought about what to take with me other than the usual stuff you carry to conferences. And please also read the Lindau survival guide by Jessica Riccò.

Colorful T-shirts

The weather forecast promises extremely nice summer weather - Germans call this kind of weather "Sommermärchen", and we have it every 4 years during Soccer World Cup tournaments. A unique T-shirt is also a great way to find someone in the crowd of almost 900 people attending the Lindau meeting. I packed a green SciFoo t-shirt and a dark brown PLoS Open Access T-shirt (which I wear today), unfortunately I don't have a printed t-shirt for every day of the conference. Lars Fischer reminded us on Twitter that we should also bring a few ironed shirts (and a jacket) for the more formal events of the meeting.

Sunscreen, sunglasses, bathing suit (and a small umbrella just in case)

Again, the weather forecast looks very promising. This will be a very busy week, but there should be a few hours each day that could be spent outdoors. Who says that blog posts have to be written in hotel rooms? We should expect thunderstorms later in the week, that's why I also brought a small portable umbrella. Bringing a bicycle would also have been a good idea, but that was too complicated for this long train ride.

An iPad

My newly bought iPad is currently my favorite tool for blogging and tweeting. Mobile phones are also good for Twitter, but are too small for writing longer texts such as blog posts. And laptops are not only heavier, but their batteries just don't last through a whole conference day (and this is also true for netbooks). The iPad is also good for carrying around (and reading) PDF documents such as the conference program. The only disadvantage is the lack of multitasking - it is a little tricky to insert links into blog posts or tweets.

Power adapters

Having the right power plug adapters can be a nightmare when going to a conference abroad. As someone living in Germany I obviously don't them for the Lindau meeting, but I brought a few spare adapters fro Apple power plugs (MacBook, iPhone, etc.) in case someone needs them (just send a direct message on Twitter to @mfenner).

A Moleskine notebook

Moleskine notebooks are my favorite tool for note taking, particularly during meetings. I hope to fill this one with a lot of interesting content until the end of the week. Not everything has to be done digitally, notebooks are especially good for writing down little bits of information (references, phone numbers) and for preparing blog posts. I only wish they were available in different colors. The only time I have seen them in conference bags is at Google, more conferences should follow this example.

Scientific papers

Everybody prepares differently for the Lindau meeting, but it probably includes some background reading. This year is particularly difficult, as we have an interdisciplinary meeting covering chemistry, physics and medicine, and not just one area. Another problem is fulltext access to papers published more than a few years ago. I decided to do some reading on the Nobel Prize website, and did background reading about synthetic cells. This is obviously a hot topic since the Craig Venter Science paper a few weeks ago, and we will also hear two lectures by Nobel laureates (Jack Szostak and Hamilton Smith) on the topic. For the rest of the reading material, I will rely on electronic access to papers, if necessary using my institutional VPN for fulltext papers only available through subscriptions.

A digital voice recorder

I have planned several interviews during the meeting. Interviews are a wonderful format for science blogs, and I have done a number of them on my regular blog Gobbledygook. Although there are several software solutions available for laptops and mobile phones, I decided to bring an Olympus VN-6800PC voice recorder. This small gagdet has served me well in the past.

Foursquare

A significant number of meeting participants will bring mobile phones with GPS, and it will be interesting to see if location-based social media tools such as Foursquare (I'm user mfenner) will be useful for the Lindau meeting, which is a week long and spread over several locations. Twitter can also send location information and integrates with Foursquare.

Headache pills

I packed a few acetaminophen pills. This is not because I'm afraid I might get headaches from the Nobel laureate lectures, even though some of the physics and chemistry will be way over my head. But I expect a week of day-long scientific discussions and little sleep. I didn't pack any more medical equipment (I'm a medical doctor in my day job), as I'm sure the organizing committee has made preparations for more serious medical needs.

A vuvuzela

Not really. But this year's Lindau meeting coincides with some important games of the Soccer World Cup, and today's opening ceremony will overlap with the game England-Germany, probably watched by half the population in these countries.

What are your special things you brought to Lindau?