International Travel Electricity and Voltage
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.
| Item | Dual Voltage? | Need |
| Hair Dryer | Y | Plug Adapter |
| Video Camera Charger | Y | Plug Adapter |
| DVD Player | Y | Plug Adapter |
| Laptop | Y | Plug Adapter |
| Curling Iron | Y | Plug Adapter |
| Iron | Y | Plug Adapter |
| Cell Phones | Y | Plug Adapter |
| Razor | Y | Plug Adapter |
| Battery Charger | N | Converter (13 W) |
| Heating Pad | N | Converter |
| Nintendo DS | N | Converter |
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)
Very good blog, this website goes more in-depth and allows you to check the wall socket of the country you are going to.
http://www.countryplug.com
Great blog. We just used our Dell laptop in Beijing, plugging it directly into the “American” style socket in the wall in the hotel, and were able to run it without any problem, however I want to make sure we didn’t do any internal damage somehow, by doing this. If so, wouldn’t the laptop have just fried itself if the voltage was way over capacity?
I noticed our battery life has shortened dramatically, but from what I understand, that is a Dell battery problem and not the fault of the computer itself.
If you happen to know if China now accepts (in at least some hotels) direct American plugs without need for adapters and converters, please let me know.
Thanks!
China uses 220 volts everywhere in the country. The laptop is able to handle both 110 and 220 volts. So there was no damage to it and it will work just fine. China uses a number of different plugs, including those that accept American plug types.