On the road again? Don’t leave home without the right travel power supplies

Whether it’s a short business trip or a long holiday in the sun, modern life has filled our world with ‘essential’ gadgets that all need power. When you’re at home that power is easily available in the form of a mains supply, but on the road it’s a different matter. Travelling abroad takes you into countries that use different sources of power or different voltages, which may not be compatible with your usual connectors. This is when you need to make sure that you haven’t just packed your gadgets; you’ve packed some essential travel power supplies as well.

If you are running equipment on rechargeable batteries, your regular charger may not be compatible with a different country’s voltage system. Investing in a charger that has an adapter plug fitted will ensure that you can use alternative mains sources without fear of voltage spikes damaging the batteries. If you’re looking for a more environmentally friendly alternative, a solar-powered battery charger is a good option. The most traveller-friendly models are no bigger than a book and can be put into your hand luggage. They’re able to charge a wide range of electronic devices including mobile phones and digital cameras and are even capable of charging your car battery. The best models come with a range of universal DC plugs to fit most equipment and built-in battery compartments to charge AA or AAA batteries. The real beauty of solar-powered chargers is that they don’t need charging themselves!

It may not be a charger that you need, but a simple adapter to utilise the mains supply of the country that you’re in. Adapters are portable devices that allow you to connect to any configuration of wall-mounted power supplies as easily as plugging into your mains at home. They start at under £10, so it’s a worthwhile and cheap investment if you’re travelling abroad.

If you’re only taking one piece of equipment with you, such as your mobile phone, then a charger specifically designed for the purpose is a cheap alternative to taking a full selection of travel power supplies. Traveller mobile phone chargers are designed to deal with world-wide input voltage variations and are supplied with AC plugs for use in Europe, the US, Australia and the UK. Other user-specific models are designed for digital cameras.

If you spend a lot of time in your car but still need to ensure that electronic equipment such as laptops and mobile phones are fully charged, a travel power supply that plugs into your car’s cigarette lighter socket is a perfect way to avoid the hassle of flat batteries. These connectors take power supplied by your car’s battery and direct it into the electrical equipment, enabling you to use your laptop (when parked, obviously!) or mobile phone without running the internal batteries down. And if your car battery runs down, then a solar-powered battery charger can recharge a 12volt battery without having to access a mains power supply – idea if you’re on a camping holiday and you inadvertently left the lights on overnight!

So if you’re travelling abroad or just spending time travelling in the UK, packing a few, inexpensive travel power supplies ensures that all your equipment will be fully charged and ready to use when you need it.