How to charge a laptop and smartphone abroad if you forgot the adapter

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Last week I flew to London, where not only traffic is not like people, but sockets. I prudently acquired special adapters from European to British sockets and safely forgot them at home. I had to get out.

The first and most boring best way to solve the problem is to go to the hotel reception and ask if they have the necessary adapter, very often they are inherited from forgetful former guests. If you are renting an apartment, ask the owner, experienced landlords buy several adapters for guests from other countries. In extreme cases, an adapter can be bought at the nearest supermarket (usually at the checkout), but that would be too easy.

But it is likely that you, like me, will not be lucky, and there will be no adapter at the reception, do not worry, there are a couple of life hacks on how to charge your gadgets in England, the USA or another country with non-standard sockets.

To charge a smartphone, tablet or other small gadget, you can use any USB port, which are now in the most unexpected places, for example, in almost all new TVs.

Most often, the port is located somewhere on the side, but it can also be behind, above or below, I am sure that it will not be difficult to find it. Keep in mind that some TVs need to be turned on for charging to begin, and tablets, especially newer iPads, may charge very slowly due to the low amperage in the USB TV ports.

If you took a MacBook or another laptop with you, then, on the one hand, you can use it to charge various gadgets via USB, but on the other hand, you will have to look for an outlet to charge the computer itself. But even here such an unnecessary accessory of any hotel room as a TV comes to our aid. The sockets may be different in different countries, but the connectors in the power supplies are most often the same, so we are looking for where the power cord is connected to the TV and boldly (but carefully, there is still a high voltage) pull it out.

We insert the TV cord instead of the native cord from the laptop power supply. Voila, the MacBook is charging.

Contrary to advice, it was not possible to use the razor outlet in the bathroom. The plug entered it without any problems, but the charging went on and on, it may work in some hotels and I was just out of luck.

Remember that the best travel hack is not to forget anything:)