Powering Up on the Road

This is one of the most troubling things to do. You have a laptop, a camera, a battery charger, an MP3 player, and who knows what else. You need to juice up all these items, but you're in a hotel that only has one socket. Sure, you could lug around a powerbar all trip, but really that is one heavy device.

But what other option do you have? Well you could buy one of those adapters that turns two sockets into six. But in this situation you only have one outlet. And even still, say you had two outlets, you may find yourself outside of your home country, where you need to use a plug adapter, and then you're down to one outlet anyway.

Worst case scenario, and also the most likely for thrifty travellers like me, you will find yourself at a hostel and all number of other people are monopolizing the electrical outlets. There is an option available to you.

Note the picture above: This is called the socket squid. I have known about this product for some time, and have been on the look out for it, however I have always found my searches end in failure. I'm sure that it has many other names as well - but I am not aware of them.

I would highly recommend one of these for any travel, the simple reason that you can use any type of device, no matter how obnoxiously large the plug (with its own power converter) may be. Laptops? Cameras? No problem! The flexibility of this guy is great. And look at all those outlets. Best of all, you can get them with shorter cords, which makes this a highly compact, light weight, power option. And best of all? If someone at the hostel is using the outlet, just unplug him, plug this in, and reattach. Hey, he may even have more devices he needs to power, and you've just helped him out! There cooked be snacks and cookies in it for you.

So, as I said, this is a highly recommended product. Just one problem: I have no idea where to buy it!

If you have seen this for sale on the internet, or in a store, please let me know. I'd be most appreciative.