Do you need a laptop if you run a business whilst vagabonding?

As somebody who runs a business whilst travelling permanently (and blogs about it), I keep tabs on other bloggers who do or want to do the same thing.

One thing I’ve noticed recently is a trend towards people thinking about ditching their own laptops and instead working from USB data storage keys which have their main applications & data stored on them. They simply plug these into computers in internet cafes and that’s basically their office.

The other trend is towards using online applications only, meaning they simply log in to each service from any connected computer and once again, they’ve got everything they need at their fingertips.

I have to admit, I haven’t tried this way of working and I have my doubts about how effective it is to run a business like this. Perhaps for freelance writers or other professions where you can just plug & play, you might be able to do this but I’m not sure it would work for the business I run (a branding & online marketing consultancy).

The other concerns I have are the quality of internet cafes you may have available (have you ever tried working in one where your fellow users are all teenage gamers?), the fact that you never quite know what’s on someone else’s computer (key tracking software, for example) and the fact that I’d much rather sit on a terrace surfing wirelessly on my own laptop than in some dingy internet cafe working for the day.

But I’m interested to hear from any of you who do travel and work without your own laptop and how it works for you…