Thinking about hand helds for travel.

What use is an F-call? I'm about to go on a couple of trips and thought that it might be a good idea to have a radio with me, if nothing else, a great opportunity to talk to some locals on their local repeater. I have a portable kit, that is a Yaesu 857d with 2 x 26Ah batteries which goes forever using 10 Watts. My back of napkin calculation says that on 2m I can transmit continuously for over 12 hours with that - more realistically, if I transmit 10 minutes out of every hour, over 40 hours, though I've never tested it and likely the numbers will be different for HF using SSB with my Antenna Tuner plugged in. This amazing battery life comes at a cost, namely size and weight. The batteries fit in a medium size tool-box, and each battery uses more than 8kg from my luggage allowance, so, if I was keen, I could stick my radio and 16 kg of battery in my suitcase and take my toothbrush but I'm pretty sure my hosts would prefer I packed some clean clothes as well. I've been shopping around for a hand-held and I know that for $100 bucks or so I could select from any number of cheap hand-helds which for some reason that I'm yet to determine the Amateur Radio fraternity appears to refer to as Handy Talkies, rather than Walkie Talkies. The closest I can come is that a HT, or Handheld Transceiver once got explained by a Walkie Talkie User as a Handy Talkie and it stuck, but I don't know; what's in a name? Anyway, I'd like to be able to use the same accessories I already have, like the nice remote microphone that cost more than the hand-held I can get, my battery charger, the mount I already have in my car, etc. A friendly HAM had loaned me a hand-held radio for a previous journey and I'm borrowing another one this weekend from another HAM - which is a fantastic way to try before you buy - but I'm not yet convinced. I've begun to investigate solving the problem in another way. Pack my current radio into a satchel, add a small lithium ion battery of some description and I've got my "normal" radio with me when I travel. I don't yet know if that's going to work - for example, I've not yet figured out how to deal with the antenna, since the radio isn't really designed for sitting on its tail with an antenna hanging out, but perhaps I can set it on a flat surface and poke a multi-band antenna out the back. I won't be able to attach it to my belt and at this time that's not a great concern. Ironically, when I started, I skipped the hand-held option and my go-kit has gotten larger and heavier every time I find another essential tool. I think I might need to make two go-kits, one mobile and one portable - hi hi. It seems that even if you bought yourself your ultimate radio, your needs change. I'm Onno VK6FLAB