5 Gadgets That Will Instantly Upgrade Your Hotel Room

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When traveling, few things are more important than your accommodation. Even after using one of the best websites for booking travel accommodations, you won’t truly know how your hotel room is set up until you check in. As your base of operations, it’s where you’ll rest, clean, get work done, and more.

Unless you’re living in the lap of luxury, your hotel may not accommodate every requirement. Whether you need to keep your smart devices juiced up or enjoy your favorite entertainment, you’ll have to bring a travel-sized version of your lifestyle along with you during your stay.

These five gadgets will help any room feel like a home from home. From gadgets that keep you comfortable and entertained during downtime to those that keep you moving when it’s time to meet the day, these accessories will upgrade your next hotel, hostel, or bed and breakfast stay.

Traveling these days means managing battery life on multiple devices. If you’re working on the go, you likely have your laptop, phone, and maybe a tablet, along with wireless earbuds, a smartwatch, and possibly some useful USB gadgets. The last thing you want is to be lugging around a suitcase full of charging bricks, so you need one charger for everything.

Thanks to USB-C, it’s unlikely you have any important gadgets that don’t charge on the same type of connector, but all your USB-C gadgets probably have different charging speeds. Your laptop could draw between 45 watts (W) if it’s a somewhat older thin-and-light and 140W or more if it’s a beefy Windows gaming laptop. Your phone and tablet likely charge more slowly, and your earbuds and watch likely sip under 10W. Thanks to USB-C’s Power Delivery standard, modern chargers only deliver the power a device asks for, which means a high-wattage USB-C charging brick can smartly distribute its power across multiple devices.

To charge an average laptop, phone, and earbuds or watch at the same time, a 150W charger is sufficient for most people (but double-check your device’s top charging speeds). Our current favorite is the Anker GaN Prime A2340a 150W brick with three USB-C ports and one USB-A. The Anker charges a phone, laptop, and earbuds at their top speeds, and it can accommodate a smartwatch with a multi-device wireless charger attached.

Another charging gadget worth mentioning is a three-in-one wireless charger. If you’ve got the common combination of a phone, smart watch, and wireless earbuds, you won’t want to waste all the ports on your high-speed charging brick, which is why it makes sense to charge all of them on the same port using something like the Anker MagSafe MagGo UFO.

There are several devices like the UFO on the market, but we enjoy the way this one folds over itself into the shape of its namesake. In “flying saucer mode,” it’s easily stored in backpack pockets, and it takes up minimal space on a nightstand.

The one downside is that the watch charger only works with Apple Watches. The MagSafe magnets hold the phone in place, ensuring that it stays aligned with the charging plate and doesn’t slide off while I’m sleeping. As for the watch, our solution is to plug that charger into my phone’s USB-C port while the phone is connected to the UFO. Samsung does make the Wireless Charger Trio for its devices, but we have not tested it.

Collecting your device’s little gadgets before a trip can be frustrating. Rather than spread cables around a room or in a drawer, pick up a travel bag like the Zagg Desktop Essentials International Travel Kit. The kit includes a fold-up keyboard and mouse, a pocket-sized phone and tablet stand, a USB-C wireless charging puck, USB-C cable, 20W wall adapter, 15W car charger, USB-C to HDMI adapter, and a four-in-one international power adapter with US, UK, EU, and Australian plugs. It all comes in a reasonably well-made zipper case with plenty of pockets for everything.

This kit will certainly get the job done in a pinch, but we made a few tweaks to its contents. Most importantly, we replaced the meager 20W charging brick with the 150W Anker charger discussed above and swapped out the cheap charging cable with a USB4 cable for faster charging and data transfer.

The keyboard is the main highlight. It is smaller than a medium-sized Moleskine notebook when closed. Unfolded, it has a split-layout ergonomic keyboard with membrane switches. Given its size, the keys have a lot more travel than we expected, and they’re not very mushy, either.

One of the best things you can do for your teeth is use a sonic toothbrushand the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart is a great choice if you’re on the move. It has a charging travel case, although we found you’ll go at least two weeks without charging the brush.

The DiamondClean Smart has multiple cleaning modes and vibration levels, making it comfortable for people with teeth of varying sensitivities. It comes with a charger that doubles as a glass for mouthwashing, though that’s meant to remain in your bathroom at home. The travel case has slots for two extra brush heads. The case also has a retractable USB cable, though it uses a USB Type-A connector. We’d prefer USB-C, but given how hard it is to drain the toothbrush’s battery, that’s a minor gripe.

The case fits into an average toiletry bag, though it does take up a significant amount of space. There is also a smartphone app, but we have no idea if it’s any good because we need a toothbrush app like we need a toothache.

It’s happened to every traveler. You’re back in your hotel room for the evening and ready to unwind, but when you turn on the TV, your only option is to watch basic cable or overpay for pay-per-view. Maybe you resign yourself to watching Netflix on your laptop or phone, or connect one of those devices with an HDMI cable. It’s far from ideal, especially if you want to use your device while watching TV.

The solution is simple: a Chromecast dongle or any other streaming stick. They take up almost no room in a suitcase or backpack, and if you’re already logged into your streaming services, all you need to do is connect them to the hotel Wi-Fi or your personal hotspot. Although the Chromecast with Google TV remains our top choice due to its integration with the Google ecosystem and its ability to install and run Android apps from the Play Store, Google killed the Chromecast and replaced it with the much less portable Google TV Streamer.

Thankfully, you have strong alternatives. There are benefits to traveling with your Amazon Fire TV Stick, which has a robust streaming app library, Alexa integration, and is dirt cheap. Even cheaper and easier to use is the Roku Streaming Stick HDwhich makes it perhaps the best of the bunch for those who simply want to plug it into the hotel TV and start streaming.

Each product recommendation in this article was based on extensive, hands-on testing during stays at hotels and other lodgings. They were evaluated based on their ease of use, portability, and reliability.