Travel Gear: The Must-Buy Adapter
How To Stop Fights Over Who Gets To Charge Their Phone Tonight
"I'm only on 7%, I'm charging my phone tonight." We've all been there. Fortunately there's a fairly simple solution.
One of the first things Fatima and I realised when holidaying together in Vietnam is that we both always needed to charge our phone at night. We weren't using our phones much during the time but after spending some time on the wifi during the evening – Instagramming, checking the latest headlines, sending messages back home – the battery on both our phones was basically dead.
This can lead to arguments but we were lucky as we already accidentally had a solution with us. I have a plug adaptor that works for every continent and it's probably one of the first things I pack whenever I travel. Fortunately, it also has two USB ports, which means we were both able to charge our phone at night.
You can typically buy the charger – I actually stole it from one of my cousins – at the airport although I'm sure it's probably cheaper if you find a similar version online.
My only gripe with it is that it's not great when travelling to the US or Europe and you have to fit it into a rounded two-pin plug. That's because as soon as you plug in your appliance, the charger tends to fall over (my solution is to rest it on a book but that feels a little unnecessary and can get annoying, fast).
If you're looking for something a little simpler, we also have a two-port USB charger that's proven to be super handy.
We bought this TeckNet charger for £6.99 from Amazon and it pretty much does what it says. You plug it into the wall, and then plug in our USB cables into your devices. The left port charges slightly faster for when you're in a rush.
One day we'll be able to charge everything wirelessly, but until then, we have to rely on this kind of tech.
The one thing to point out though is that if you're travelling abroad, you'd have to plug this into an adaptor – or buy the relevant adaptor directly from TeckNet (similar to Apple chargers, you can slide off the plug at the end to replace it with another).
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