242. Keeping your devices charged while traveling

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0:00 Beginning


2:32 Wireless Power Sharing with the Samsung S21

On a Samsung S21 Ultra – and probably others – you can swipe down from the top to reveal the quick settings. One of them is Wireless Power sharing. Turn that on. Now you can set another phone on it back-to-back and charge the other phone. As long as the other phone does support wireless charging.

So, if a friend’s phone is running low on battery and they ask, “Can I charge my phone on the back of your phone?” Now you know how.

8:21 Hello and introduction

The fact that we were traveling the past month gave us the inspiration for our topic today. This will be part travelog and part lesson about keeping devices charged while you travel.

14:45 Extending your battery’s charge

When charging your devices is difficult, you may want to take some precautions to not drain your battery so fast. Airplane mode means to turn off all communications of your phone. When you’re traveling outside of your home cellular areas, your phone will continue to search for a cell tower and use a lot of battery in the process.

Your screen brightness also uses battery, and photo uploads and location services. But, it’s a cost/benefit decision. I want photo uploads and locations services. Thus, the need for battery charging tools.

18:12 Traveling in an RV, how to get more outlets and USB ports

The first 2 stops of our trip were at full service RV parks where we could plug the RV into electricity. So what else did we need? Most RVs don’t have many electrical outlets. We also need more USB ports for charging all our devices. These power strips are what we used.

Isn’t this fun?! Here’s a little video. We’re on a ferry here. A small ferry where we are in the front so it looks like we’re driving on water.

We need a lot of USB ports, thus the 5-port charger. It plugs in to a “cigarette lighter” and we leave it in all the time when we’re in the RV – this power is available when the engine is on or not. It may drain the battery when we’re parked with no electricity, so we unplug it then. Many people may be ok with just two ports and the one pictured above still plugs in to the “cigarette lighter” without losing it if you have some other device that needs to plug in.

23:30 Find links to products in our Amazon store https://www.amazon.com/shop/geeksontour

If you go to GeeksOnTour.com and click on the More… menu, you will see our Amazon store. If you buy from here, we do get a small commission, but the main purpose is for you to see exactly what products we’re talking about.

25:04 Charging batteries when you have no electricity


29:10 Our #1 recommendation

Where we stayed at Ocracoke campground, we had no electrical hookups. Yes, our RV does have an inverter and a generator, but for keeping our devices charged, we like a battery bank device. This is our #1 recommendation for any time you need to charge your devices away from home. This particular one can charge a phone several times over on one charge. As long as you keep the power bank charged, you’re good to go. We really like the Anker brand. You also need an assortment of cables to fit every device.

Chris keeps this battery in her belt bag all the time as she travels. Any time her phone gets low on battery, she can plug it in from the battery around her waist and still keep the phone in her hand. This also comes in handy on the plane if you don’t have a seatback USB charger. Chris likes to read her Kindle books on the plane, but she wants the phone fully charged when she lands.


31:29 Being prepared for airports and airplanes and trains

Most of the time both planes and Trains have chargers you can use, but we find that our Anker power bank charged our phones much faster.

37:04 Converting electric outlets in foreign countries

The UK has different electrical outlets than here in the US so you need an adapter. The one we got has options for different countries. You can plug the adapter into the wall, then you plug your power strip into the other side.

40:19 Charging devices while walking around and on buses

46:05 The 3d leg of our trip – review our top 2 recommendations for charging devices

48:31 Battery fan – so cool!

Question: with all these batteries, did you have any problems going thru airport security.
Answer: No, but they need to be in a carry on, you can’t check lithium batteries.

Lots of other devices can provide charging capabilities. The flat panel in the photo is a solar charger. As long as it is in the sun, you can plug in a charging cable and charge your device. Other solar charges include a battery storage so you can charge it up in the sun, then use it later to charge other devices.

Our favorite new device is the battery fan. It will keep blowing all night long on one charge. When it is charged, it includes a port to plug in a device’s charging cable as well. It is also compact and foldable. This is something we keep in the RV.


52:13 our MyMap from the trip https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edi…

If you want to learn how to make these maps, see Episode 176


54:04 Review Questions

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