The oldest series on this blog is Useful Travel Items but I’ve decided it needs a bit of an overhaul so among other things, it’s now called you should pack this and the first thing to pack in the new format is my charging kit.
Packing electronics has always been a thorny issue. Have you got enough adaptors? Have you got enough plugs? Have you got all the wires? For several years I took one adaptor attached to one multiway extension lead, the kind with 4-6 sockets in it, depending on what I could find the day before I left. Now virtually everything charges via USB, I’ve streamlined my packing and created a charging kit. It lives in my electronics drawer and I know I can pick it up, chuck it in my packing and it’ll have everything I need.
Item 1, the star of the show: a 3-USB plug (Småhagel) from Ikea. I have a UK version and a Europe version and I just pop in whichever I need for that trip. No adaptors required! That European plug is a game-changer. I watch my parents scour the house for adaptors every time they go away – which they then fling loose into the suitcase! – and I know when it’s my turn, I’m not even going to take one.
Next, I had some spare Minnie Mouse fabric I was never going to do much else with so I made a small round-bottomed drawstring bag. The ribbon came from a pile of fat quarters and I bought a multipack of coloured cord toggles which holds it closed. Whichever plug I need goes in there.
Third, I have three main cables. Lightning for my phone, micro-USB for my camera and charger block, USB-C for my tablet and GoPro. These live in there and are never taken out. Sometimes I’ll add an extra of one, or the weird one for my GPS tracker but those three form the nucleus of my kit. I don’t “borrow” then when I’m at home. They’re sacred to this kit and so I know they’re always there when I want them.
Finally, because wires get tangled and don’t fit nicely in the bag, I used some more Minnie Mouse fabric, cut into little rectangles and with a square of velcro on each end, to make little tidies for the wires. I coil the wires and wrap my tidies around them to stop them uncoiling. Now everything fits nicely and nothing tries to escape.
Hey presto, one tiny and neat charging kit, ready to be picked up and packed.