Hi travelbug, welcome to the forum.

How about a few more details on the type of travel (is the backpacking on foot or just to keep your stuff together) and how much writing (are you churning stories for a magazine or blogging or just email to friends) plus just exactly what do you expect to do with the photos (storage only or easy editing or do you need photoshop)?

I travel around the Pacific Rim (West Coast of USA/Canada to Asia and down to Australia in case you don't know what that means). I go between continents by air and around mostly by train with some car rental. Never to Europe though.

Acer has a big sales presence in Europe and support. A co-worker takes his around Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

I use an Asus 901 a lot. It's hard to find one now and I wouldn't recommend it for lots of typing but it is a sweet carry partner. It handles my camera's SD cards well. It's tough, ugly, cheap, lightweight and an SSD drive makes it durable. I have a backup SSD.

For the lightest weight but not meeting your requirements I carry an iPod Touch. It does good net stuff. I carry extra SD cards for the pix.

The photo part of your post is the limiter. You will have to match your expectations carefully. The more you expect, the bigger the computer and the more expensive it gets.