Whatever way you go with choice, as you want to use it to travel get something not too heavy.
I travel quite a bit with laptops (mine and work) and the lighter devices are much easier to lug around. My current work laptop is a Dell with removable docking station that holds the DVD burner and extra ports. Disconnect it and you reduce the weight by 1/3.
As for storage, consider an external HDD rather than just the laptop - the laptop will quickly fill up. If your budget can stretch it, go for NAS (network attached storage) with RAID (usually two drives that mirror - so you don't lose data as easily if one fails) - that will secure your images. They are getting quite cheap now. If I can convince my wife......
Happy hunting.....