A (Shameless) Way to Charge Your Devices While Traveling

I don’t always travel in premium cabins and stay in super nice hotels; in fact, I often fly in coach and stay in hostels or the equivalent. And oftentimes, that means that charging your devices can be a strategic game. For example, it’s still rare for all coach seats to be equipped with electrical outlets, which can be problematic on long international flights.

In addition, while most of the devices I bring with me are equipped to handle 230 volts (i.e. my cell phone and laptop chargers), my toothbrush charger is not. This generally doesn’t matter on shorter trips as my toothbrush lasts about 2 weeks on a single charge, but comes up when I’m traveling for longer periods of time.

So what should you do if you’re out of juice on an international flight and you don’t have a power outlet at your seat? Or if you need to charge a device that’s only rated to handle 120 volts? Answer: go to the bathroom.

Airplane bathrooms are equipped with electrical outlets. I’m not entirely sure why, but they’re a potentially unknown power source if you’re flying in coach. Granted, it’s a somewhat selfish thing to do if the flight is full and there’s a long line for the bathroom. In my defense, the above picture was taken on a Malaysia Airlines flight that was maybe 20% full, and I could have sat in the bathroom for the entire flight and no one would have cared.

If you’re staying at a hotel, the bathroom is also the most likely location to find an electrical outlet that provides 120 volts, as many hotel bathrooms are equipped with switches to go between 230 volts and 120 volts (this is for electric razors). I also now generally travel with one of those mini portable chargers that you can get for less than $15.