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United Kingdom Facts and Travel Information
Electricity and Your Electrical Items
British current is 240 volts, AC cycle; about
twice the voltage used in North America (115-120 volts, AC cycle).
Translation: our electrical stuff won’t work. Or will blow up.
But that is assuming you can get it plugged in in the first place. Likely
that won’t happen.
You will need an adapter to make your plugs fit and a converter to convert
the energy to the correct voltage. You can buy “universal” adapters and
you can buy special adapters made for the UK, you can buy converters, and
you can buy combinations of the two as well. What you won’t be told, or at
least I wasn’t by any of the 5 salesmen I talked to in North America, is
that the adapter and/or converter you buy in North America may not fit
anyway. The hotel I last used in London, a very nice place in the heart of
the city, had different plug-ins for different purposes and none of the
adapters I bought in North America had any relationship to any of them. I
ended up buying another one (a combination adapter to fit the plugs and
converter to make the voltage right), and that one that worked, in London
on my first day there.
My suggestion: bring whatever electrical bits you need, and buy a
converter/adapter combination once you get there and can see what you
actually need.
Some good news... your laptop computer has the converter built in already.
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