How to take photos at night without a tripod

I'm going overseas soon, and will be taking night photos a lot in fact. I have a nikon p100 and I understand you need a low shutterspeed for the lens to grasp a lot of light at night. If I don't want to lug around a tripod everywhere, is there another way to capture them?

You look for ways to steady yourself. That means, walls, chairs, lamp-posts, whatever!

I have a little device called a steadepod, it's over-priced and not well made, but it's very compact and does work after a fashion.

*If you want a laugh have a look at this video. Great advertising, I'm sure that little video recorder would work much better if they took the lens cap off though!

An old, cheap trick is to make a washer and string stabilizer.

Use a wall, You could also take a bean-bag or a mini tripod

Leaning heavily on any solid object wall, lampost, tree etc.stops all upper body movement. A monopod is better than nothing, just well practiced good camera holding technique can make huge difference. It's the page in all manuals that everybody ignores, but holding the camera rock steady when the shutter is open is basic, even very slight movement will soften the image and you will loose sharpness. Holding the camera at arms length and looking at the rear screen is the worst possible way to take steady shots.

Use a rock, step, handrail, bench, whatever to set the camera on.
Or get a small tripod (I have one that's less than 6" long, extends to 12" high, and will easily hold your camera), they're about $20.