I do quite a lot of travel with work these days - this year I've spent over three months away from home. This week I'll describe what's in my travel bag.
I have a bag of essential tech that comes with me on trips. This contains:
- International socket adaptors
- UK 13 A extension lead
- Chromecast
- Travel router
Travel Adaptors
I carry a few adaptors, to make sure I can charge all the devices I carry with me.
I've got a few cheaper adaptors, which are non earthed (not ideal). These mostly go on the extension lead I carry, so that I can plug in phone chargers etc, so the lack of earth isn't a big worry, as all these appliances are double-insulated anyway. Because all my chargers still have UK plugs, and take in 110-240 V at 50 or 60 Hz, this works well, and saves me a lot of adaptors.
I also have a
Go Worldwide Adaptor. This converts virtually any plug to virtually any other plug, maintains the earth connection, and is rated for 1.575 kW (3.25 for the assorted-schuko part), and tends to stay with me so I can plug anything into anything on site. It was fiendishly expensive (£25 in Sainsburys), but after a few trips I've found it's well worth the money, and I will probably buy another. Given the build quality, fuse and TUV accreditation, I feel comfortable this adaptor won't kill me.
Chromecast
Local TV can be pretty awful (I don't even watch TV much back in the UK), if it's even understandable, so I end up watching a lot of Netflix & YouTube. Hotel rooms usually have a decent-sized TV, often with an accessible HDMI port. Enter the Chromecast, giving a convenient way of getting my favourite content onto the hotel screen. Of course this could be swapped for an Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, etc depending on your inclinations.
I usually end up powering this off the TV's USB port, to save a travel adaptor. Although this isn't recommended, I've yet to find a TV that can't provide enough power.
The downside to using a Chromecast, as I discovered in California, is if you put it straight onto the hotel wifi (assuming there's no captive portal, in which case you're stuck anyway) then everyone in the hotel will get a notification every time you play something, and will be able to access the device. This is frustrating, as anyone who dismisses the notification will stop your film. Worse, they could play their film on your TV - I'd hate to wake up to The Shining playing on my hotel TV for instance. Enter the final item on the list.
Travel Router
Since that trip to California, I've bought a travel router. This is a small router that connects to the hotel wifi and gives you your own network segregated from the other guests in the hotel. Mine is a TP-link AC750, which works pretty well on the whole. It has a good range of configuration options available, including DynDNS if you're travelling with a server for some reason. The web interface isn't amazing, but I've used much worse.
I've found the most reliable way to connect to the hotel wifi is by using the router first, making sure to never connect your other devices. Although it does MAC spoofing, I've found this can cause more trouble, and has lead to difficult-to-resolve problems in the past. The captive portal page will be accessible to any device on the network, and will only see one device, regardless of how many you're using, which is helpful in hotels that try to limit the number of devices per room.
The specific router has one massive annoyance - the micro USB power socket. This sits behind a very thick bezel, so many cables don't make a proper connection. This weekend I got fed up, so took the board inside out of the plastic case. When I get a moment I'll enlarge the hole.
A quick Google hasn't found any known vulnerabilities or exploits for this device, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not bullet proof - most of these routers are pretty easy to get into. But compared to putting a Windows laptop straight onto the hotel network I don't think there's much more risk.
