With high capacity, fast USB sticks and advances in programming it is now possible to carry a fully featured desktop and web-based GIS in your pocket. Whilst unsuitable for long term full-time use, a GIS on a stick can have many advantages. It is ideal for demonstration purposes, and avoids having to install the software on several machines (eg work and home). Further advantages include being able to provide new users with a full GIS suite that will work with a bare minimum of configuration and setup. I believe that this will help get new users into using open source GIS packages by overcoming the sometimes steep learning curve associated with installation, and will help more experienced users and developers by avoiding the many questions on mailing lists about this subject! I have concentrated initially on a windows-based setup as I believe that the majority of new, inexperienced, users are likely to be using this platform, and may not be able to choose the operating system on their primary machine (if it is at work for example). A project like this provides them with an easier, and hopefully successful introduction to the world of open source software and will hopefully give them the confidence to explore further.