To ask for your most unhinged packing lists?

[badhabitsleadtolate]

Trying to cover all bases.

I’m not talking the “oh yeah I whack a teabag in my baggage”, i’m talking the type of stuff most people would never dream of taking.

I take my phone and often my laptop if travelling for work, wouldn't charge either of these via USB alone. I have straighteners and a hairdryer. That's your 4 plugs.

The hairdryer and straighteners make sense. Not something that I ever pack, but I get that one.

I don’t get the laptop or phone though. A charging block with USB C PD will fast charge my laptop without a single issue. I don't think I actually even have a charger for my laptop… I am sure I dumped it straight into the big plastic box full of chargers nobody wants in the IT office at work when I picked the laptop up.

I think our charging station is a ugreen one. It charges all of our devices including laptops at home and then the power cable just switches out for an EU or US/Japan one when we go abroad. It takes up so much less space than taking a load of adapters or a multiway plug.

I have a couple of multiple usb chargers which have interchangeable plug plates which can swap from uk to Europe
As all the things I take charge by USB. Phone, Kindle, iPod, fitness tracker and earbuds

Am I missing something? I've stayed in lots of places that do not offer USB sockets.

I find that the charging block pulls the adapter out of the US/Canada socket as they tend to be loose, sometimes with just two straight pins.

I took my Tassimo machine to an air BnB a few years ago

Yeah but I don't own a charging block, I do own lots of multiplug adaptors. Works for me.

Ours doesn’t sit on the wall. It sits on the desk/table.

It’s not this exact one but similar to this. https://uk.ugreen.com/products/nexode-100w-charging-station-6-in-1

We just swap the power cable for a US/Japan or EU one before we leave and that’s all we need for all our devices… and we take quite a lot of tech. We both take a phone, tablet, smart watch and camera each, plus battery packs, wireless headphones and other assorted bits and bobs.

I do also have a tiny two port brick that you plug straight into the wall with folding US/Japan prongs. That one just goes in my handbag specifically for our trips to Japan and gets used on trains and planes.

One of those lives in the charger in the car. Don't want it flung round the car and inaccessible if I'm upside down in a pond!

Clearly our set up at home isn’t as typical as I thought. We have three charging stations dotted around the house so we just change the plug over and take one of those with us when we travel. I’d assumed that was becoming the norm now.

I’m sure when I bought my phone it didn’t even come with anything to plug the charger into the wall, just a UBC C cable.

Washing up bowl. They disappeared with covid.

My packing list is six columns of tiny writing on A4 paper. I just got back and need to.update it. I will be adding Carbon monoxide alarms to it!

Careful when choosing CO alarms. Some state that they are suitable for travel but when you look at the actual instructions it says they must be screwed to the ceiling. Hotels and holiday lets tend not to like people doing that.

Have a solar collapsible lantern in the car lives on parcel shelf most of the time. Used it multiple times. Especially in village with no street lights and no pavements. Ditto high Vis jacket and reflective snap bands.

Small sewing kit.

Three first aid kits (large for car/holiday house) small for rucksack. Smallest for dry bag.
Half a pharmacy. (Single parent not wanting to walk to a pharmacy if ill on holiday.) (Ibuprofen, paracetamol, decongestants, diarrhoea tablets, prescription meds, antihistamines, hydrocortisone cream, sudocrem, plasters,, dressings, throat lozenges, cough syrup.

We got through several packs of ibuprofen on holiday this year.

I bought one home from holiday once. They sometimes have those shitty wire fence things that hardly dry anything and fall over without provocation.

Same here. UK and abroad

I always take pegs. So many uses!

They're plugged into electric sockets though one would assume yes?

So what happens if you need several things charged and you need more sockets because you find out the iron needs to be plugged in and then you need to dry your hair and so you haeve to keep moving over to the socket area, pulling things in and out all the time

The one that we take on holidays can charge 8 different devices at once and only occupies one socket. That’s the whole point of them. That way you don’t need a socket for each device or a whole load of adapters/extension leads. One socket covers us for our cameras, phones, tablets, watches, headphones etc. I’ve never yet been in a hotel where there wasn’t at least one more socket to plug the hairdryer, iron or whatever into.

We have them at home precisely so that we never need to faff around unplugging anything to use the vacuum cleaner or iron. One behind the sofa, one by our bed, one in the home office. All of them have cables plugged in and accessible at all times. Life’s too short to be hunting around for a charger and plugging and unplugging things.

This video shows the sort of thing I’m talking about.

edit: if the time stamp hasn’t saved properly it’s at 5m 55s

Im not saying theres never any other socket, but they're often not where they need to be, so extension needed. I did stay in one place in Mallorca where the only sockets were already occupied by the tv and some lamps, no other sockets whatsoever!

Im not sure my laptop or phone uses that sort of cable to be fair, not sure Ive tried it

Also the socket for that could be somewhere really inconvenient where you have to balance the station on something else and then balance your laptop/phone on something else. My OH only likes using the laptop if he has it plugged in, not sure why but he likes it plugged in.

Magnetic hooks on a cruise, the cabin walls are metal and it provides so much more storage for bags and coats.

I also take a first aid kit and spare outfit/swimwear + small beach towel each in hand luggage just incase since a family on our holiday in Greece had booked for a week and their cases turned up on day 6. Beach towel as our friends got to there hotel and the tour operators had ballsed up and they had to sleep in reception for the night until a room became available.

I also take a block of cheese as I’m vegetarian and don’t want to be eating rennet. It’s pissing me off now that restaurants abroad keep putting Parmesan in vegetarian meals.

Think the PP meant something more like this

This

I honestly did not know something like this existed! Thank you