Surge protector for electronics in Ecuador?
 

Do we need to bring a portable surge protector for our electronic devices in Ecuador (and Colombia)? This was suggested in the Rough Guide to Ecuador. We'd hate to fry our iPad while charging it! Does anybody have any experience/suggestions/ brand recommendations? Thanks!

We were there for a couple of months. Didn't bother with sp and had no problems. The iPad charger does have a limited amount of protection.

We always travel with a small three-outlet power strip that lets us charge multiple devices at once and provides surge protection as long as you use it with a sp adaptor. My son's MacBook Pro was fried in Spain during a power surge, but I don't think you have that danger with an iPad.

"Sp adaptor". What is that? Thanks

sp = surge protector. some of the 3 outlet strips crosscheck mentions include this protection in the one package. otherwise you need a separate adaptor.

Just a hint: if you are going to a place where strong surges are expected and want to buy a power strip with SP, buy the best, not the cheapest. There is no standard for how much protection a "surge protector" provides so you should get the one with the highest SP rating (if not mentioned, don't buy).

Of course! go advice, nofly. thanks

crellston, I think even if the power strip has surge protection, the adaptor has to as well. There was a whole discussion about that on the Europe board which scared us. So we switched to adaptors with surge protection.

Here is the kind of strip we use:

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-3-Outle...urge+protector

And the kind of adaptor:

http://www.amazon.com/Yubi-Power-Uni...tector+adaptor

Interesting discussion. We have never used surge protection for traveling. We did have a iphone charger blow out in Thailand, but fortunately the phone was ok. Plugging in multiple devices to an electrical outlet doesnt present a problem?

You are probably right crosscheck. I read somewhere that iPhone chargers did have some measure of sp built in, whether it is enough to make any real difference I know not, but from yestravel's experience, if the phone wasn't damaged then it seems as though the charger did the job of protecting the phone ok.

I do remember when we were volunteering in Sierra Leone in our pre training we were advised never to plug anything in without surge protection and never to use more than one appliance Mind you, we rarely had any power anyway so it wasn't too much of an issue!!

I did use the Rough Guide to Ecuador and must have read the same piece as gottravel. I recall asking the question on TA and the consensus (mostly from expats there I think) was that nobody bothered with sp in Ecuador. Better safe than sorry I suppose.k