#tech4travel: My top tip for people traveling with lots of electronic devices is to bring along a plug bank. Sounds simple or overkill? It’s my personal travel best practice!
Back in 2018, this room in a tiny rustic village in Taiwan had only two wall outlets, crammed under the side table. Imagine charging the phones, tablets, camera batteries overnight for a family of four. And you have laptops that plug while in use or being charged. The plug power bank is a life-saver!
Travel is resuming slowly and steadily despite the pandemic.
One of the most stressful chores during travel is charging the plethora of electronic devices that we tend to bring along for the trip.
The bulk of carrying loads of chargers and charging cables alone can contribute to the bulk and weight of the luggage, especially since I tend to carry them in the carry-on luggage.
For greater peace of mind, I use this APC power bank by Schneider Electric that has surge protection for your gadgets, with six three-pin sockets and two USB-A ports.
That’s because if a charger is lost or delayed in the checked-in luggage for the flight, the associated gadget becomes unavailable for the trip – until I go shopping for a replacement charger/cable – which is a great inconvenience in terms of time and effort.
Another impediment to charging lots of devices overnight is the limited number of wall outlets in many hotels – both cheap and expensive ones.
It can be quite stressful every night charging up all the gadgets belonging to a family of four to cycle through the limited number of wall sockets.
Sometimes you’ve got to get up in the middle of the night just to replace a device that has completed charging with another waiting to be plugged in.
Add to that the trouble of having to bring a plug converter for each wall outlet if the country doesn’t use the right three-pin or two-pin socket for its wall outlets.
Hence, my top tip for people traveling with lots of electronic devices is to bring along a plug bank.
I carry along a 6-in-1 plug bank so a single wall outlet in the hotel room becomes six, and only one plug converter is needed for the plug bank.
And there’s enough space to easily plug in the six plug-heads, without having to go through the gymnastics of fitting a few plugs onto one multi-plug (which fits at most only three plugs in crammed and awkward orientation).
The only drawback is the danger of overloading the room’s electrical circuits.
So resist the temptation of lugging more than one plug bank, or further loading the plug bank with multi-plugs.
The good thing is that if you’re just charging electronic devices at around 5V each, it unlikely you’re going to fry the room’s circuits with a single plug bank.
Tags: APC, chargers, power, Schneider Electric, tech4travel, tips, travel, TUCU
That’s a great idea! simple but should solve the problem. We’re always fighting over who gets to charge who’s device first because of the limited number of wall outlets in the hotel rooms. Some of the rooms we stay in, even the expensive ones, have a dearth of power sockets! I’m gonna pack a power bank the next time we go on a family vacation!
Glad to help. It might seem bulky and an overkill, but it’s totally worth it! Until such time that rooms have plentiful wall outlets, at least.
Thanks for the tip!
You’re welcome Mike! 🙂