MicrostockGroup

That's 2/2 posts bumping threads to promote your product - if your only involvement in this community is to advertise a product why not just buy a little box at the top of the page?

As far as monopods go, I tried one for a while, but found it was an extra thing to carry in the end and restricted my movement too much in practice. In the situations where it could have been of use, a small tripod would have been much better.

I've just got one of these tripods for those situations: http://www.zssirui.com/en/products.html?proTypeID=100036810&proID=100322584&proName=T-1005X - came across it in a local store - it has the same features as this one featured on DPreview: http://www.dpreview.com/news/1010/10102801benrotrvaleangel.asp - but compared to the Benro tripods I saw in stores here, build quality seemed much better, and is small enough to fit inside my camera bag. Total weight is 1.3kg with the G10 ball head. Amazon have this combination for about $170 - it was $140 here in Thailand.

Another alternative that's often suggested is a small beanbag to be able to rest the camera on things that you find around you.

1.3kg is too much for me when I hike.  I have a 450g Slik tripod, which is the only one I carry when travelling, but it's not sturdy for the DSLR.  Maybe if I bought a proper head for it (it has a fixed tilt&pan head), it might work better, but it was anyway not designed for this.  I have use it many times with the DSLR though, but for verticals it's a poor solution.