iPod ipod when traveling

First, there are a couple of things I don't understand...
First, what exactly was your original plan for putting songs on the ipod? Will you also be taking a computer for home use?
Second, How will you be getting the songs on your computer (assuming you take one)?

If you are taking a computer, the itunes program is free to download and will deal with all the songs on your computer whether purchased at the itunes music store or not (except for wma files, as far as I know). So no reason to panic there. If you'll be borrowing a computer, generally it is not possible to sync an ipod to multiple computers and to do so requires a little know-how. Plus it is unlikely that the borrowed computer will have the songs you want already downloaded, (since they will be according to someone else's taste). And usually, people don't like others installing programs on their computers, and often that ability is blocked.

I lived in Japan for a year, had my notebook with me also, and never had a problem myself.

Hope this helps.

Well, then you might find some difficulty. When an ipod syncs with a computer, it replaces all the songs currently on it's drive with whatever is on the computer hard drive. That being the case, even if the place allows you to save the converted mp3's to their hard drive, which would be generally necessary, the ipod would want to trash all the old music and replace it with the new mp3's.

The only way around it that I can think of involves buying an external hard drive. There are some that are usb-powered (but more expensive) that will only need to be plugged into the computer, and some that need an electrical outlet as well. Just make sure that it has the same or greater capacity than your ipod has.

The procedure for the workaround would be to plug in the ext. hard drive, let the computer find it, open itunes, go to preferences=>advanced, then change the "itunes music folder location" to be your external hard drive (whatever the computer names it). You might have to wait a minute while itunes compiles a directory of your existing music. Then you could 'import' (or convert) your new cd's, which would then save on your ext. hard drive. Then plug in your ipod as normal.

It sounds complicated, but it really isn't too bad.
there may be other ways around it as well, but I just can't think of any.

Could you keep the iTunes installer on the iPod too? Just enable it for disk usage (through the iTunes preferences) and then allow for manually managing songs (similar spot) and you should be able to go to any computer in the world running a recent version of Windows or OSX (get both installers, although you probably won't need the OSX one) and import your music onto their hard drive, copy it across to the iPod and then delete it off their computers.

There you go, an easier and less expensive alternative to mine. But as a suggestion, try practicing on some English computers first. My experience in Asia has been that very few computers have English Operating Systems, so all the menus are in the language of the countries. So, unless you can read technical words in the language of every country you will be visiting, you might need a little practice. I know I would.

You must enable the iPod for disk usage through the preferences in iTunes (under the iPod tab). For the record, I've never personally tried this and technically it shouldn't work but I've heard it does so try it out and hopefully you'll get it all updating nicely. Fingers crossed.

One thing you should know, at least with my 4G 20 GB iPod I can't access in on a PC unless it's been initially formated on a PC. So if you set up your iPod on a Mac (it will only format for mac) it won't be able to be used on a PC. So format your iPod on a PC then it will work on both Mac and PC. Once you add the songs that you have here before you leave make sure you enable disk usage and that you manage songs independently as mad jew said. You will have to make sure you do the manage songs independently for every computer you want to transfer songs from or else it will erase all the songs on your iPod and add only the few that you have on that one computer. This is the default setting, to automatically update your iPod, so make sure you turn it off. It's just simple button that comes up when you plug your iPod into a different computer and if you're not paying attention one click and your library is gone. Hope this helps

At last check, iTunes was the only one that worked. It's free and it works on Windows and OSX so you may as well use it IMO.

Plus, it's supported by Apple.