I'm going to be honest, if you are a true brother girl which from your many posts I gather you are, you probably will not really bond with a bernina, they are very very different. I sewed on the 550QE for an entire day and having spent years with every brother imaginable I just did not care for it so I would go to a dealer and try one to really make sure its what you want because they aren't cheap and you will be missing some of the features on the cheaper brothers that are not present on more expensive berninas. me personally I would look at a brother SB4138 or similar model for travel