Travel tip: power up when you need it

This is not a gadget blog, but I do love a good piece of technology that solves a problem. If you travel and are in and out of airports like I am, do yourself a favor and pick up this little guy. It's the Monster Outlets To-Go power strip. It allows you to pack four outlets into one very small footprint and I love the simple, compact design.

Situations it has come in handy:

1. You are at the airport and somebody is using the only outlet in the whole terminal. You walk up to them and ask if you can uplug them for a second to plug in the power strip. You then run their laptop, your laptop and two of your friends with the same power supply.
   
2. Even when event planners think about supplying power for laptops, the outlets are still few and far between. At the conferences I attend nearly every person has a laptop fired up (some blogging and some checking email). All you need is to find a power outlet and you can be a hero to three other people giving them the needed juice.
   
3. At a number of presentations that I do, the venue runs a single power cord to the front of the room for the projector. I always have my laptop plugged in during presentations "just in case". The point is, no matter what happens, all you need is one power source and you're good to go.
   
4. You're in a hotel room with, for some unknown reason, one power outlet around the desk area (like the one I am in right now). This puppy lets me charge my laptop, camcorder, camera and phone.
   

I'll share some of my other favorite business travel tips from time to time. If you like little extras like this please let me know and if you'd rather I stick to marketing content let me know that too. I'm here for you.

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Comments

[Toad]

I like this feature Matt.
One suggestion: put the price in the post. I was surprised that it was only $14.99. THATS RIGHT! JUST FOURTEEN NINETY-NINE GETS YOU ONE OF THESE HANDY POWER STRIPS! BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!
(Okay, sorry, my keyboard seems to have been taken over by the ghost of Eddie Antar.)
But it seems like a useful device and you seem to be a road warrior these days.

[Huppie]

Matt, loving the new information that is helpful to those of us that spend our lives in airports, hotels and making presentations in sometimes inhospitable environments!!

[Matt Dickman]

Toad and Huppie -- Thank you both for your comments. Every now and then I come across something like this that proves to be invaluable. It also works well (as I found last night) in Starbucks (who have the same outlet shortages as in airports).

[doyen]

Great investment for $15. Of course, we Mac users need the white model. Now, if they could just build it to hold power for those flights that last longer than your laptop battery...

[John Wall]

The price is a little much on this, mine was $19, and you can get an extension cord for $7 or less. But it does also have a light on the plug so you can tell if the outlet is dead or not switched on, and it also has a circuit breaker. It's also got the form factor that makes it worth it.