1

Salva! Que tal hombre? Pedaleando rumbo al sur entonces!
Personally I always carry a small short wave radio so I am usually more informed while on the road than I am when at home...
Don't know whether it's good or not, it's just a habit of mine.
I am leaving in a few weeks and I will pack it for sure.
Que te vaya bien chico!

2

I am sure if i had a short wave then i would keep up a bit but generally i don't follow the news too much. There just doesn't seem to be time. And I always feel it seems to matter less.

When i was sailing we had a short wave radio and i heard the news that the berlin wall came down from the middle of the Indian ocean. I listened a lot on that trip because i didn't have any books and there wasn't a lot else to do. But that's the only time i've really been able to follow the news whilst travelling.

3

No, and I find it rather pleasant not to hear much from back home. When I travel I don't even look at the thorntree or reddit. Its not for some idiotic reason, like the people that refuse to listen to an iPod because they will miss the children yelling "Sabaidee!" from the road side. I guess its just a time in my life when I have things going on other than research on the internet.

4

pay attention to the news when in a long journey,. No. Do I need to know it? Will my knowing it change anything? If anything of relevance to me happens it is unlikely it will concern me until, or I that can do anything about it, until I get home.
If WW3 breaks out or there is a disaster happening ahead of me the locals are sure to tell me. I'll cross the bridge if and when I get to it.
(Only time I can recall is coming out of Myanmar and I picked up we had a change of gvt. And as I expected our $ dropped. It explained the exchange rate, but on my budget didn't upset much. Again, knowing wouldn't have put it back up again.
Meeting news junkies/addicts on tour. Fortunately haven't. Most seem interested in the here and now where we are. Where the best sights, food, beer is/are.

The big pleasure of cycle touring is that I can largely leave the world to it's petty stupidity, need not worry much about time, or where I am, can switch off from so called must have gadgets. (And going flat batteries) Can live in life, my life. and leave others to theirs. Absorb and get lost in where you are now. Leave at home the computer, the internet,the email, the phone, the ipod. Don't need any of them. Mostly they are just time wasters, something to do. Only occasionally I bother to take the radio. And that is only on free camping trips where I will spend time out of villages. (So, I travel solo) Ok, the backtrack GPS does make life easier, but don't really need it. That and camera and voice diary are the only stuff I bother taking. (Yep New, leave the laptop home. Take an extra memory card. They make big ones now. And being small are easier to hide from being stolen)
If you can't eat it you don't need it. Works for me.
Travel to get away from/leave home is a good thing.

5

For me its either feast or famine. I am a bit of a news junkie, when not travelling I don't feel I've had a full day if I haven't had a good browse of the newspapers and some specialist blogs/aggregator sites I like. I'm not particularly interested in 'current' news, but I love good detailed analysis. And this particularly applies when I'm planning on travel as I like to get to know what's happening in any country I'm visiting - not just for safety, I'm just always interested to know what people are talking about, what the political situation is, etc.

When I started bike touring I never brought a phone or pc or radio and I loved the feeling of not knowing or caring what was happening in the world (even though I'd suffer withdrawal symptoms whenever I visited an internet cafe). On my last big trip, through the US, I had an iPad, which I intended to use just for email and as a book reader, but whenever I was in a place with wifi I'd end up catching up on world news. It was a nice way to relax in one way, but it also did mean I wasn't in my happy touring bubble any more. Given how useful I now find a netbook or iPad, I think the days when I could cut myself off from news are gone, which I find a little sad.

6

On Himalayan treks & climbs I'd listen to the English short wave news broadcast on my small pocket radio each evening for a few minutes . It was able to inform two young British recent collage graduates I meet several weeks walk from a trailhead that Ms.Thatcher was no longer their Prime Minister. They got very excited . I was also interested in what was happening in Nepal & at home.