I often have trouble finding enough outlets when I travel. Hotel rooms will frustratingly only provide a single wall outlet near a desk, with one of the two outlets already occupied by the desk lamp. It is starting to become easier to find power outlets in airports, but you can still often find only a single outlet available for your use. One solution is to use a power strip, but those are typically too large to take with you with you travel. The Outlets To Go Power Strip from Monster seeks to provide a solution for travelers, and after seeing Tampa attorney Katie Floyd call it her favorite travel accessory, I purchased one from Amazon before I headed to Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW last month. I have since used it on several business trips. It has worked well for me and I can recommend it.
The device features two outlets on each side that are spaced far enough apart that you should not have a problem with even larger power adapters. If you are plugging in three of four devices at once it can be a little awkward to have things plugged in on both sides, but it works, and designing the power strip this way keeps it as small as possible.
The cord is about a foot long when stretched out, which is sometimes not quite enough to stretch from a wall outlet to the top of a desk that is next to the wall. On the other hand, it is nice to have a little space between where it plugs in to the wall and where you plug in your devices.
More importantly, the cord is short for a reason. The marquee feature of this device is that when you are not using it, the cord can wrap around the device to make it portable for travel. When you wrap the cord for travel, the device is just over six inches long and just over two inches thick. This size is not ultra thin, but it is small enough to fit into a briefcase or easily fit in your suitcase.
Katie Floyd recommends putting it in a shoe during travel, which makes some sense, but I prefer to keep in the same bag or briefcase where I store my iPad during travel for easy access.
For example, I was recently in the Orlando airport with over an hour before my next flight. I wanted to charge my iPad and iPhone, and fortunately the Southwest waiting area had seats with outlets, but there was only a single outlet per chair. I simply plugged in the Outlets to Go strip and I could easily then plug in the chargers for both my iPad and iPhone, and both devices were fully charged before I got on my flight.
Katie Floyd pointed out in her post that the Outlets To Go also works well when you are with others: "I plugged my laptop into one outlet of my power strip and quickly made three new friends and business contacts who had depleted batteries. Even when I arrive late and find the power outlets taken, I find if I bring a power strip, people are willing to let me unplug their devices and plug in my strip to add additional ports." I haven't yet had the opportunity to use my Outlets To Go as an icebreaker to make friends, but I have no doubt that it will happen to me at some point. (I still carry a USB to 30-pin cord with me, even though all of my Apple devices now use Lightning, because I freqently encounter folks asking me for help charging their iPhones and iPads and sometimes they are using older devices.)
At ABA TECHSHOW, I gave a presentation with Judge Hebert Dixon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He saw me using my Outlets To Go and mentioned that he has a similar model called the Outlets To Go Power Strip with USB. That version costs the same and has three outlets plus a single USB port. The advantage of that one is that you can simply plug a USB to Lightning cord directly into the Outlets To Go without having to also use a power adapter. The USB port on that version only provides 1 Amp of power so it would be very slow to charge an iPad, although it should work OK with an iPhone. I often bring two Apple 12W USB Power Adapters with me anyway when I travel, which charges an iPhone a little faster than using a 1 Amp USB port and provides the maximum charge for an iPad, but if you are thinking of buying Outlets To Go, consider which model will work best for your needs.
On the Monster website, the version of Outlets To Go that I have with four outlets sells for $19.95, but you can get the Outlets To Go for under $10 at Amazon, which is where I bought mine. That is a great price for a very useful travel accessory that will help you to keep your iPhone and iPad (and any other devices) charged while you are on the go.
Click here to get Outlets To Go Power Strip from Amazon ($9.49).
