I travel alot and am looking for some professional opinions....I currently bring a La Pavoni Europiccola and a burr grinder which shall remain nameless, on the road with me and I set up shop in hotels for a week to 2 months at a time. I have never had good results from the La Pavoni (probably my grinder and poor skill set) I am going to upgrade to an M3 grinder and i would like to hear some opinions on an excellent machine. The primary restriction is that I cannot hard plumb the machine, weight is not much of an issue.

A small hand grinder is portable, quiet, and can produce excellent results with a lever machine if you have the ~30 secs or so it takes to turn the crank. You'll find a few crema-laden videos here, all ground by hand:

http://www.home-barista.com/forum...r-video-t3687.html

PC

Here are some lever travel kits - An Espresso Travel Kit: Taking charge of your coffee when away, and Portability / Traveling with espresso equipment.

Some (non-espresso) discussion here in Coffee on the road quandary