Powering your gadgets overseas

I made an interesting find at Fry’s shortly before my recent trip to Europe- Monster’s Outlets to Go.  (This isn’t an advertising blog, really!)  I hadn’t really considered taking my own power strip along before but it actually turned out to be a really handy thing to have.

I like to have all the comforts of home when I’m traveling (i.e. internet access and all my various electronic gadgets).  Unfortunately that requires toting along a bunch of power adapters.  The problem you face when you have to take along a power supply for the laptop, camera battery charger, camcorder power supply, phone power adapters, etc is that the wall outlet plug adapters (or even finding enough outlets in your hotel room) become a hassle.  Why not carry one plug adapter and then plug all your gadgets into an North America-type power strip?  Much simpler, no hunting for more outlets, save space packing, and really no extra cost over buying a couple extra plug adapters.  Monster’s is designed to be compact.  I got the 6 outlet strip- 3 outlets per side, spaced far enough apart so that the “wall wart” type transformers won’t block their neighbors, cord is low profile and winds onto itself/self stores.

One downside: it’s Monster and that means it’s pricy.  But at least with this one you get a good design for the extra ca$h.

Cell phone traveling to Europe for US residents

I recently returned from a vacation to Europe and wanted to share my observations since an advertisement for someone’s overpriced pre-paid SIM card is the top result on Google.

First off: I’m only addressing people who already have GSM cell phone service (T-Mobile or AT&T and perhaps some other smaller carriers).

A certain website claims that buying a prepaid SIM card is an ordeal in Europe.  From my personal experience in Germany and the Netherlands, nothing could be further from the truth.  Visit a cell-phone shop (there will be several in any larger city, just find the downtown shopping district), ask for a prepaid SIM card, hand over your 10 Euro (or 7 Euro, or whatever).  The card includes, of course, a credit balance.   And away you go.  No activation is needed since a phone number comes assigned to the card.  They don’t ask for I.D.  Your number will be good for an amount of time determined by your carrier, but usually this is nine to 18 months between charges with perhaps a slightly more frequent requirement for activity (easily accomplished back in the U.S. by sending a text, etc).

Unfortunately I discovered Lyca mobile (www.lycamobile.nl) after I’d already bought a T-Mobile SIM in the Netherlands.  They seem to be geared to the traveling public – good rates on international calls (9 euro cent to the U.S. currently!) and a website in English (my German and Dutch are nicht so gut / niet goed.)

So, if, especially, you’re only visiting one or two countries on your European trip, scoping out the prepaid SIM card options in your destination country is a wise option.

Getting your phone to work with a different carrier’s SIM

One problem with doing things this way is that your phone needs to be “unlocked”.  When you get your phone from your carrier, they almost always give you a phone that will only work on their network.  You can request your carrier to “unlock” the phone because you’re traveling overseas.  There is no requirement that they do this.  However, if you can use a workaround to unlock your phone, it’s not illegal in the U.S. (see this).  The likelihood that your carrier will do it probably has to do with how long you have been a customer.  I have T-Mobile and the customer service representative actually volunteered to unlock my phone (without my asking!)- but I’m no longer under contract.