If you travel outside of North America you’ll quickly realize just how different we do things with regards to power. First, power in North America is typically around 110V, but can range from around 100V all the way up to around 125V. In Europe and many other parts of the world, a voltage of around 220V is normal.
In the old days, prior to intelligent power adapters, if you plugged a device designed for 110V into a wall socket wired for 220V, you could pretty much kiss that device goodbye as it would likely fry with a puff of smoke. The same goes for razors, hair dryers, curling irons, etc.
Different Voltages Used Around The World
You probably won’t destroy your device by plugging a device designed for 220V into a power socket wired for 110V, but your device likely won’t work at all.
Intelligent Power Adapters
Nowadays most commercial power adapters are dual voltage, meaning that they will work on either 110V or 220V. The best devices are ones that can determine the voltage automatically and switch without you having to do anything – the power adapter for my Macbook Air is a good example.
The next best thing is a device where you can manually select the voltage, such as hair dryers which typically have a physical switch that you can use to switch the voltage. Those work great, if you can remember to switch them. Forget to do so in Europe and you’ll likely smell something burning fairly quickly after plugging it in. So whenever possible try to find devices that have power adapters that can switch automatically between different voltages.
Different Plug Types
The difference in voltage is unfortunately only half of the problem. The other half is that the type of wall socket and plugs that many countries use are distinctly different from each other. For example, most of North America uses plugs with three prongs: two flat ones and one rounded one for grounding. In much of Europe you’ll simply find plugs with two round prongs, which of course won’t accept any of the device connectors from North America.
Different Plug Types Around The World
Prior to going on any trip, I usually consult Mr. Google. to figure out which plug types I’ll encounter in a new country. Here is a handy internet resource you can use to figure out what plug type a country uses.
How To Power Your Devices
Here are a few quick guidelines for how to power your devices when you travel.
Go out of your way to buy devices that work on all voltages. Usually on the package it’ll say “120V-240V AC” or something like that. If it just says 120V or 240V, I’d just keep looking as often you can find something else. For example, I recently bought a new razor in Ireland. The first few I looked at only supported 240V, but the last one supported 120V-240V AC, so that’s the one I ended up buying – there’s no sense buying a razor in Europe if I can’t use it when I get back home to Canada.
Try and find a good universal plug adapter that isn’t a huge burden to carry along. I’ll highlight some of the items I bring with me when I travel further down in this post, but everyone should carry a plug adapter with them. If all your devices support dual voltage and you have a plug adapter, you’ll be able to power your devices all over the world.
What I Bring When I Travel
These are the tools I bring whenever I travel so that I can make sure all my devices can stay powered.
Apple World Travel KitApple Power Kit – My friend Dale actually bought this for me as a Christmas present a few years ago, and it’s been really great to travel with. Basically if you have any Apple devices, including a laptop or an iPhone, the power kit comes with all the various plugs you’ll need to connect your devices to power all over the world.
My only real issue with it is that you can really only power one device at a time with it, which is why I think it’s a good compliment to having a universal power adapter. You also can’t use this to power anything that isn’t an Apple product, so most people will need something else as well if they have a digital camera or other accessory.
Universal Power Adapter – The Apple Power Kit works great for my laptop or my iPhone, but unless you want to always power your iPhone or mobile phone from your laptop, you need another solution. So I usually bring along a universal power adapter such as the one linked to above. You can almost always find these in various supermarkets or hardware stores around the world, but I always bring one with me in my laptop bag. Basically you can connect your device to any socket around the world using this one adapter, so it’s a great compliment.
One thing people should realize is that these adapters don’t convert voltage in any capacity. So you need to make sure the device you are plugging in will work properly at socket voltage.
Power Strip for TravelTravel Power Strip – I only started bringing a power strip with me this last year, but it’s been a great addition to my normal travel gear. Basically I can plug my Travel Power Strip into my Universal Power Adapter and power up to four devices without having to use an adapter for all four. And because it’s meant for travel, it folds up really small and hardly takes any room in my suitcase. Between my girlfriend and myself, this power strip is usually full charging various iPads, digital cameras or mobile phones when we travel.
At the bare minimum, everyone should probably have a plug adapter to take with them when they travel. But if you’re going for more than a week or two, a travel power strip is a great addition too. If you’re a hardcore Apple user, then the Apple Power Kit is a great addition too. I often usually just grab the adapters I need from the kit before I go on my trip and leave the rest at home, so it doesn’t take up much room in my bag.
A few years ago I visited New Zealand and fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams. The highlight of the trip for me was undoubtedly my trip to Matamata, New Zealand to visit the actual, real-life set of Hobbiton from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Due to time constraints, I only spent one month there and only saw the North Island. I had wanted to head down to the South Island at the time and possibly rent a campervan, but it didn’t really seem like something that would be that fun by myself. So I decided at the time to head back to Canada and enjoy Christmas with my family.
A New Trip
Luciana and I were recently trying to figure out something to do for New Year’s eve, and found a ‘cheap’ (all flights to New Zealand are relatively expensive) flight to New Zealand for around the same time. So we decided on a whim to spend New Year’s Eve in New Zealand, and a few weeks exploring the South Island.
I’m a huge fan of camping, and love the idea of just driving a few hours every day and seeing something new. Many people who visit the South Island in New Zealand actually rent campervans and simply drive around visiting various sites and campgrounds, so there are tons of businesses that help with that. Luciana and I decided it would be a good way to spend some vacation time, and decided to put in a request to book a campervan and see if we would be able to reserve one. Because it is summer down there and there is lots of competition for campervans, we weren’t originally guaranteed a reservation. But we received confirmation this morning that our campervan was reserved, so we’ll be spending two weeks in January bouncing around New Zealand’s South Island.
Jucy ‘Cabana’, Our Chariot For Two Weeks
We looked around various websites before booking, and eventually settled on the Jucy ‘Cabana’ Campervan, as it is a good balance between affordability and features. You can get some vehicles that are much cheaper, but they are often extremely old. Gas prices in New Zealand are around $2 per litre, so going anywhere in a vehicle already costs a ton of money, even more so if you’re driving an old, inefficient vehicle. So while we’re paying more for the Cabana, I think it is a good investment due to gas efficiency and comfort. For example, the Cabana has a built in DVD player, so we can sit in the back and watch movies while relaxing.
We’re both really looking forward to our New Zealand campervan adventure, and for seeing some of the more beautiful locations from The Lord of the Rings in January. I love sleeping in a tent, so I think a campervan will be a great experience for us both. They’ve included a picnic table in our purchase as well as a few chairs, and we’ll likely pick up a basic BBQ while we are down there and enjoy a few weeks of BBQ-only food.
We fly back to Canada in December to spend a few weeks back at my apartment, and then will leave for New Zealand a few days before New Year’s eve. Thanks to the international date line, we’ll basically arrive just in time for the New Year’s celebrations. Then it’ll be business as usual around Auckland for a week, and then off to the South Island for a little R&R. I can’t wait!
It’s November 1st, which means that shortly we are going to start seeing Christmas lights, trees, and of course all the great sales leading up to Christmas. It’s only about 7 weeks away now, and I’m sure that time will go by quickly.
After travelling the world for almost three years now, I thought I would share some of my best ideas for Christmas presents for people like me. If you have someone in your family that loves to travel, or is thinking about taking a big trip, then hopefully this list will help you. I’ve ordered it by price, lowest to highest, so hopefully there’s something here for all budgets.
So without further ado, here are some great presents for people who like to travel.
Written by famous travel blogger Matt Kepnes (known on the internet as Nomadic Matt), this book describes what you need to do to travel around the world for only $50 per day. I read it recently as well, and agree that it can be done. Certain destinations as much more expensive than that (Australia and New Zealand for example), but if you include really cheap places as well, such as Thailand, a person could definitely travel for only $50 per day on average.
This is a great introductory book for anyone who loves travel and is thinking about going off on an adventure, no matter what age. It’s probably a great book as well for people about to start their gap-year.
If you’re interested in grabbing it, you can find it here.
I recently pulled my Passport out of my wallet here in Portugal and managed to snag the front page on my jeans, causing it to rip. Since it’s the main page of the passport, technically countries could now deny me entry upon arrival. So take it from me, you want to protect your passport somehow while you travel.
This leather passport cover is a great way to try and keep your passport looking better than mine.
A friend of mine bought this present for me a few years ago, and it’s been absolutely great to travel with. It contains various Apple-friendly adapters for all the plugs you’ll likely encounter around the world. Since all Apple devices support dual voltage (120V/240V), all you have to do is change the plug whenever you land somewhere new, and you can easily charge iPads, iPhones and whatever Apple laptop you have.
This device was a recent addition to my travel kit, and I use it all the time. Basically you can use the Mophie Powerstation Duo to charge any USB device while you are travelling. A great bonus with this particular version is that you can charge more than one device at once, perfect for couples who travel together. The Mophie Powerstation Duo has enough power to completely charge two iPhones two times (or one iPhone four times). It comes with a charging cable (surprisingly it’s not a typical USB cord), and easily fits inside a typical laptop bag.
So make sure the person you love is never without a charged phone after this Christmas. You can find out more here.
Everyone who travels should have some type of an eBook reader, since often you’ll be stuck waiting for trains, busses, and airplanes. Plus if you’re in a foreign country, sometimes you won’t be able to find any local books or newspapers that you can read. I personally use the Kindle App on my iPad (discussed later), but for someone who doesn’t have an iPad, the Kindle Fire is a great option for them.
You can simply buy books from Amazon, even while travelling, and they’ll instantaneously show up on your device for reading. You can grab the Kindle Fire on Amazon.
I’ve seen two trends emerge over the last few years regarding how much stuff people take when they travel. Some groups of people seem to be travelling with more and more stuff, often wearing a backpack on their back and another one on their front for balance. To me that’s insanity. To most people I know who travel, the more you bring the less likely you are to enjoy yourself. Try going up 8 flights of stairs carrying all of that (in many parts of the worlds you don’t find elevators) and see how happy you are that you brought 20 pairs of jeans with you.
The other trend is towards minimalism, which I am a big fan of. Most people who bring a lot with them their first trip quickly realize that they hardly use any of it, especially clothes. With that in mind, I recommend a backpack like this since it’s large enough to hold a week’s worth of clothes (which is all you need – just do laundry every week) and it is still small enough to fit on the plane as carry-on.
I’ll be heading to Australia and New Zealand in the new year for a six week adventure, and I’m only going to bring a backpack for it.
Wait, what? Why is a thermostat on this list of cool presents for traveller? Because it’s awesome, that’s why.
I have one of these on my wall back in my apartment near Vancouver, Canada. Whenever I want, I can log into it via my iPhone and adjust the temperature. I can also set up a schedule via my phone and their website to try and minimize power usage while I’m away from home, and also impose various minimums (for example, you can force the A/C to go on if it gets too warm inside, or force the heat to go on if it’s too cold so that your pipes don’t burst).
I typically travel with both a laptop (a Macbook Air) and an iPad, but I know many people who choose to only travel with an iPad. If you’re simply replying to emails back home and browsing the web occasionally, the iPad is the perfect travel companion.
I also do quite a bit of reading on the Kindle application that I installed – that way I can buy new Amazon Kindle books whenever I’m bored and read those. It’s a perfect gift for a solo traveller who might be a long ways from home. You can check it out here.
My first travel camera was a huge digital SLR. It was heavy, bulky, and attracted unwanted attention whenever I took it out to snap a few photos. When I got back home that year I immediately went out and purchased one of the Olympus E-PL cameras, an older version of the one above. It’s the perfect size for travelling, and the photos are absolutely gorgeous since they use larger sensors than most entry-level cameras.
If you know someone who likes taking photos and also travel, then this series of cameras is the perfect gift for them. Check it out.
Nothing says love quite like a $1,000 Apple laptop. Imagine their surprise when they open this bad boy up at Christmas time, and all the adventures they will have with it in their backpack. My Macbook Air is with me during every trip I take, and it’s great to video chat with friends and family back home, as well for all the work I do while I travel.
If you feel bad about how much money you are spending, don’t worry – just spend some time drawing your own Christmas card for them to go along with the gift.
If you’re a routine flyer around North America, you may have heard today that United Airlines dropped a bombshell on its loyalty program members. But chances are you didn’t, because it seems that they chose to release the information at night. You know, during Halloween, when everyone is reading the news.
The long and short of it is that many people with accumulated mileage, myself included, are facing a pretty severe devaluation of our mileage. On some international routes on other Star Alliance airlines, it will now take almost twice as many miles for the same flight. Their domestic routes fared much better, but anyone using United miles to fly on partner airlines is now facing a large increase on many routes.
I asked United about it on Twitter, and here was their response.
They further clarified the information they gave me with this information tweet to this guy.
Another helpful response here:
And so on:
I understand that managing the backlash from something like this can be pretty taxing on a Twitter team, but there really doesn’t seem to be much sympathy from United over this. The Continental/United merger a few years ago was supposed to make things better for their travellers, but things just seem to getting worse for United customers as time passes.
I myself just spent all year trying to get Gold status on United, so I’m obviously a bit bummed that the program is getting progressively crappier. For example last week United reduced the baggage allowances for gold, which is yet another elite status perk that I was looking forward to.
I suspect that some of the competitors to United, such as American Airlines and Delta, are going to offer some great deals in the New Year to try and entice upset United customers to join them. Given how the hashtag #UnitedUnfriendly is now trending on Twitter, I suspect that many United Mileageplus and elite members will happily be looking for a new home early next year.
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