OT--USA to European electrical adapter

My wife is going on a school trip, with granddaughter, to London England.
I know our electrical items will not work in that country.
What do we need to purchase?

Is this what your talking about? This is said to be good in 150 countries and is around $12.00 at Office Depot.

I assume she will need an adapter to enable her hair driver, etc. to work in that country.

You need to be mindful of 2 things in London:

1. The correct adapters (in UK there may be 2 to take, one with ground, one without)
2. The correct voltage required for the electornics

Most laptop power supplies will work on both 110(US) and 220 (UK) voltages, and thus you just need the adapter. However, if you are taking an appliance that is not dual voltage, then you will need a transformer in
addition to the correct adapter.

Problem with a hair dryer adapter about which a daughter would likely have no clue, is they may be like 1000 or more watts while a small electronics device may only require 100 watts and sure wont handle a hair dryer !!!!

John T

Do a web search for UK power adaptor, and you will see the kind with three prongs, and the prongs are pretty beefy. Check the power supplies for their laptops, ipads, and cell phones. They should be dual voltage, so you can plug them in with the adaptor. If they take a laptop, have them sign up for Skype, you can use it to call home for about 2 cents per minute. Depending on your cell phone provider, you can get an international roaming plan for voice and data that will be a big discount over regular rates, and you can drop it when they get back. Don't think they won't need a phone, it really comes in handy, particularly the GPS and mapping.
Some airlines now offer movies you can watch on your cell phone or ipad, make sure they have the app loaded beforehand if their airline offers it.

That adapter may let you plug in your American equipment into UK power outlets (though I can't see the pins), but remember the voltage here in the UK is 240/250 - don't think your hairdryer (or much else) will like 240v ! (unless of course it is dual voltage with a switchable input setting!) Jim

2X on the phone!

Using your US phone overseas, even making local calls, can eat you alive!

Even calling an overseas number from here will cost dearly. I once called a sales person I was supposed to meet with, he was from Sweden if I recall. He was circling the block trying to find me. I called to flag him down, got the phone bill, over $20 for a 10 second conversation a hundred yards away. Tried to contest it, nope, pay it or else...

You can get an adapter for all over the world for about 9 bucks at Walmart. Look at the "fine print" on the hair dryer, and it should say if its good for 240. Virtually all electronics will work on both, as did my shaver.

The adapters might handle high amperage loads like a hair drier. It may be simpler to buy a $20 hair drier in Europe than to pack one. Check it their hotels provide hair a drier.

Most every modern electrical gadget including phones, iPads and laptops are dual voltage and the voltage
range is marked right on the machine, all so marked will work fine in the UK so all she should need is a
couple of universal adaptors. Any large hotel will have loaner adaptors if she runs short, when it comes
to calling home there are several free options these days if WiFi is available,Google voice is real good
and she can call out or you can call her from the States but there are plenty of others, every street
corner in the UK has a shop selling cell phone minutes and data minutes for any contraption made.

Could not charge batteries in Germany as they operated on 50 cycles not our 60 cycles. Need transformer to convert.

(quoted from post at 17:34:11 11/28/17) Could not charge batteries in Germany as they operated on 50 cycles not our 60 cycles. Need transformer to convert.

Click to expand...

As is almost all the rest of the world. But computer and phone batteries charge just fine, again, read on the charger.

I second buying a hair dryer in London. You can leave it there and save luggage space.

We worked a job in The Netherlands, my wife packed like we were going to a desert island. Now if you ask her what she needs to pack, she says "my passport and medicine, they have everything else". Shopping for necessities is fun.

I was curious about the U.K.'s power outlets since I
suspected they were different from the rest of
Europe. The link provides much good information.

For phone use, you should check with your carrier.
T-Mobile offers me regular phone service within
Europe as well as calling and texting to the USA
with no surcharge. When I was with Verizon I
believe it cost around a dollar a minute. Maybe not
that much, but it was a lot.
Power adaptors for U.K.

First off, take stock of what your wife and daughter intend to bring. Most chargers today will handle 220 volt, 50 hertz European power no problem; you just need a plug adapter. Any devices that will only take 120 volt power should probably be left at home. If their hotel doesn't provide hair dryers and irons, they can always buy them locally.

If they absolutely need something that requires 120 volts, they'll need a small transformer. I have a 200 watt transformer; it weighs about a pound. One big enough to power a blow dryer would be way too heavy to pack.

As others have said, the UK uses a different plug than the rest of Europe. If there's any chance they'll be going over to the continent they should bring a two-prong European adapter in addition to the three-prong UK adapter.

I recommend bringing a light-duty North American extension cord that has multiple outlets. Or at least a cube tap. That way, they can plug multiple US chargers into a single UK outlet using a single UK-to-US plug adapter.

CELL PHONES:
I highly recommend they bring a cell phone. They'll need an UNLOCKED GSM phone. Any quad-band "world phone" will work. If they already have a GSM phone and it's out of contract the carrier will unlock it on request. ("Locked" phones only work with the carrier's SIMs.) Or you can buy a cheap unlocked phone. You'll also need an "international SIM", which you can buy with prepaid minutes. These SIMs have TWO phone numbers, one in the US and the other in UK, so you can make calls to and from both the US and UK. I've purchased SIMs from <a href="http://www.telestial.com/">Telestial</a> and have been happy with them, but there are dozens of other companies in this business. One overseas call from a hotel will cost more than the SIM.