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thinking I might just take over my whetstone and try and put an edge on the knives there...
Need to do a bit more practice sharpening knives anyway..
cornelius_blackfoot-
Went I went travelling I sawed the end off a regular whetstone, maybe 1" or 1 ½" wrapped in a bit of old cloth - which I then used to stop it slipping.
Hostel knives always suck balls so if we stayed somewhere a while I'd sharpen them up a bit. A perfect edge is great, but really you just need something that can cut easily. A few strokes on a stone before you use a knife usually is enough.
I think you need a bit of perspective as well. Taking a sharpening system and / or half your kitchen draw for a holiday sounds a bit much.
That butterfly sharpener looks amazing, but £30?
Where are you going? If it's France then every supermarket has cheap knives.
hugo7
I agree with @aggi, the Lansky system is pretty good. It's still possible to bugger a knife up, especially with the coarse stones (which you tend to have to use more if you have a seriously ruined edge) but once you get used to it you can quickly get a good edge and maintain it.
I put an unncessary secondary bevel on a bushcraft knife the first time I used it, but since then I've been slowly bringing it back to a Scandinavian grind.
The limitation of the system is that you have a specific range of angles you can use, and obviously your knife might currently be ground somewhere in between the available options. You do have a bit of adjustment as you can choose to press the guide rod against the top or the bottom of the chosen angle slot. A version with an infinitely adjustable slot and ruled guide would be amazing (runs to patent office).