An Essential Travel Accessory
Why I chose to review this handy little travel accessory/gadget: There are many little travel gifts and travel accessories for the serious traveler, so it's hard to choose just one as the best, but if I had to choose the best gift for a traveler, it would be a travel adapter/surge protector.The reason I say this is that even though you might think otherwise, every country has their own electricity configurations, and what works in one country will not work in other countries. I wonder who thought up this idea? My guess would be electricians, but I digress.
The USA uses 110 volts, and along with Panama, they are the only countries who do. All the other countries use 220 volts. And as if that weren't enough to fry your electronic devices, they all have different plug configurations! So if you are traveling in Europe, your plug for your computer, phone charger, camera, etc are not going to fit in every country. You really don't want to get in late and try to plug in your computer or phone and find out you can't. Travelling can be stressful enough without that aggravation!
Now many hotels do provide them, but not all do. And even if they do, they almost never have surge protectors and you don't want to fry your laptop now, do you? So it's best to bring your own adapter/surge protector.
Before I left the United States for my around the world tour, I looked into this because I had just purchased a new laptop, and a new camera, and I have an iPhone, so I wanted to be sure I had surge protection in addition to adapters. What I settled on was this handy gadget:
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I have been completely happy with it, as there have been times when my hotel did not have the correct plug for my devices, and there have been other times when the wifi was very "iffy" and sporadic, so I would have been worried but I wasn't, because I had this wonderful gadget with me! It takes up very little room for the piece of mind you get from it, so I think it's my favorite travel accessory of all. I am sure my computer was saved more than once from power surges on our trip.
Note: This is not a voltage converter. Most computers and electronic devices these days will work on either 110 volts or 220 volts but be sure you check before you try to use them in a different country! My phone, camera and computer all worked fine and had no problems. If you aren't sure, check your manufacturer specifications. (And if you threw them away, just "google" them.)
On Amazon this accessory has lots of positive reviews and I noticed one that said they don't travel outside the country but their family hangs out in the living room together with all of them using their own electronic devices and they all need to charge their devices at once so it works for them as it has 6 USB ports. That made me laugh. Family time now means everyone using their devices in one room. Well I guess that's better than no family time at all. I'm still laughing.
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