Travel Blog

If you live in the United States and plan on traveling internationally and bringing electronics, you need to do some research. Most countries outside of the United States use 220/240 volt electricity. The U.S. uses 110 volt electricity. This may mean that your electronics won’t work in far away places. But, that is not entirely true. Many electronic devices sold today are dual voltage, which means that they will work under 110/120 volts and also 220/240 volts. To determine this, real the label and see the section for input. If it had 220 or 240 volts, then it will work just fine with a plug adapter. If it only has 110 or 120 volts, then you will need a converter.

International Travel Electricity Requirements:

1. Plug Adapters: Bring along plug adapters. They allow your U.S. plug devices to plug into international plugs. Research the countries you are going to, so that you purchase the right adapter. There are a number of good universal plug adapters you can buy that will work for nearly all of the places you could visit. Also it is recommended that your plug adapters have a built-in surge protector. This will protect your electric devices from frying during surges.

2. Electricity Converter (Transformer): This handy little device will convert 220/240 volt electricity to 110/120 volt electricity. This will allow any of your devices that are 110/120 only to work. This will need to be used in conjunction with a plug adapter for the specific country you are in. Get a converter that is powerful enough in watts to support your most power hungry device.

On our European trip, we visited England, France and Italy, and only needed a multi-plug adapter, an Italy plug adapter and a 200 watt electricity converter. This work for all our devices; Portable DVD Player. Laptop Computer, Camcorder Charger, battery charger, hair dryer, electric razor and our Nintendo DS. Out of all those devices, only the battery charger, Nintendo and heating pad required the electricity converter, the rest all had 220 or 240 volt inputs.

I made a little spreadsheet analyzing the devices we were taking to determine our requirements.

Here are a list of the items I bought for our trip.

Italy Plug Adapter at Amazon.com

Samsonite Worldwide Adaptor Plug from Amazon.com

200 WATT Step Down Voltage Transformer 110120volts.com
(They also have smaller and larger watt transformers)

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