One of the things that is a must-have on your
packing list is a UK voltage converter and charger. Of the many electronic
items you may choose to bring with you on your trip (laptop, iPod, tablet,
e-reader, cell phone, digital camera, to name a few) most, if not all, require
some kind of charging; hence the need for a converter to safely plug in your
devices. UK outlets run at about 230 Volts while US outlets run at 120 Volts.
So if you don’t want to potentially short-circuit your pricey equipment, look for a converter rather than an adapter.
Adapters work perfectly fine on most things, but to save yourself some worry I’d
suggest getting a converter.
For some reason when I was shopping for my trip
abroad I had a hard time finding US to UK converters. I needed one for my
laptop and cell phone. (I decided to bring my cell phone from home to use
rather than purchase one over there. The options you can take regarding cell
phones will be discussed in another post.) The only one I could find was this
monster of a converter. I’m not sure why I didn’t think to check Amazon.
I don’t remember exactly where I bought it, but I think it might have been
Fry’s. Since I was leaving soon and it was the only one I could find in stores
at the time, it ended up being the one I brought with me. It certainly took up
a considerable amount of room and precious luggage weight. I can only describe
this converter in the following way:
Picture a brick. Imagine its general weight and
dimensions. That’s what my first converter was like. A brick. It was similar in
size and was definitely heavy enough to be comparable.
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| Why yes, I did lug something like this around with me to and from England. (source) |
I used my converter all the time while I was in
England. Beside its size and weight, the only issue I had with it was that it
got hot after it was used for a while. That was until I found a much more
compact one. One day I went to the electronics store Maplin to find a watch
battery and stumbled upon one much more conveniently sized. Considering the Maplin
in my area had a small storefront, I wasn’t expecting to find anything of sort,
especially a US to UK converter (UK to US, yes I would have expected). Compared
to my original converter, this new one was tiny
so I bought it. Yes, I did have to pay a lot more for it due to the dollar/pound
ratio, but it was worth it. It ended up being a wise purchase because I took
the smaller one with me when I traveled within the UK and often used both at
the same time in my flat: one to power my laptop and the other to charge my
phone. Sadly, I didn’t think to buy a European plug converter as well, so there
were a few times when my camera ran out of power while I was on vacation and I
had no way of charging it.
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