Edit: Ack! There was something missing. Please look for underlined additions.

We're going on a trip to Italy and one of our options is to purchase a new 2nd generation iPod nano, but they're $200 each.

As an alternative, we can buy an external battery that augments the battery contained within the iPod. I've checked online and I've seen some by Belkin and Maxell.

We're going to go over to the new Apple store and The Domain later today and see what they have there. I'm just curious if anyone has had any luck with these external batteries for the iPods.

I have a photo iPod (4th generation) and both my wife and I have first generation nanos. I may leave the photo iPod home, but we'll definitely be taking the nanos.

We take a short hop over to Houston Intercontinental, then to London Gatwick, then to Florence Italy airport. A week later, we'll reverse the hops coming back.

my brother has an ipod. he would never let me borrow unless he wants me to upload a few songs for him over the night. what a turd.

I'm not sure I understand the question/statement.

I screwed up. Please review updated post above for something a bit more legible.

I don't really understand what you're asking. Why do you need a back up battery? Why don't you just take your AC adapter/charger?

One of the segments is 9 hours in a plane. I don't think that the battery life that we have left in the suckers will last.

I haven't seen too many A/C plugs in airplanes.

True.

I guess I just assumed that you weren't going to listen to your iPod for the whole entire flight.

Turn the backlight to minimum or off. That will buy you at least another hour.