8 Best Travel Power Strips for Europe, Reviewed

The cheapest option here is also one of the best executed. One Beat gives you three AC outlets and four USB ports, two of them USB-C rated at 15W each, in a body roughly the size of a deck of cards with a three-foot cord. We think it covers a single traveler completely: phone, watch, earbuds and laptop, all charging at once from one European socket.

The two USB-C ports are why it is not just the cheap option. Each is rated 5V/3A, so a modern phone charges at a normal speed rather than crawling, and the combined USB output is rated at 4.5A, enough headroom for all four ports to be useful overnight. The AC side is rated to 2500W, so a laptop and a camera charger are nowhere near the ceiling.

What it deliberately leaves out is surge protection. Here that is a feature rather than a cut corner: several cruise lines prohibit strips with surge protectors in cabins, and this one is sold as compliant. The catch is coverage. There is a European plug on the end but no UK or US tip in the box, so a multi-country trip means adding an adapter of your own.

Two phones, two watches, a laptop, a camera, a CPAP and a kid’s tablet, all wanting to charge from the one socket behind the nightstand: that is the arithmetic this strip was designed around. Six AC outlets and four USB ports means ten devices at once, more than anything else on this list, and the whole thing is under five inches long.

We reach for it on family trips and longer stays, where the number of things needing a socket is the real problem. The three-foot cord wraps around the base and clips flat, so it arrives as a solid brick rather than a tangle, and at 4.36 by 2.41 by 1.93 inches and just under a pound it takes less room than a pair of shoes.

The USB side is two USB-A at 2.4A and two USB-C at 3A, plenty for phones and watches but not enough to charge a laptop over USB-C, so that laptop power supply goes into one of the six outlets instead. The international kit is the fiddly part: EU, UK, E/F and US adapters are four separate clip-on pieces, none of them attached to the strip.

Instead of a cord that coils loose, this one retracts. Pull it out to the length you need, hold the base, and it winds back inside when you are finished. That single mechanism is the argument for the AnnTane, and for a certain kind of packer it is decisive: the strip goes into a backpack as a 4.29-inch square with nothing dangling off it.

Behind the cord you get four widely spaced AC outlets and three USB ports, a reasonable load for one or two people. The 10.6-ounce body feels solid, though a retractable cord is the one part here with moving pieces inside, so pull it out smoothly rather than yanking it to the end and letting it snap back.

We recommend it to the traveler who is tired of untangling a cord in a hotel room, and the cost is reach. At 3.28 feet it is shorter than the five feet on our top pick, and if the only socket is across the room you will be moving the furniture to meet it.

At 8.67 ounces and 3.93 by 2.75 by 1.14 inches, this is the smallest and lightest strip in this group, and the one that disappears into a backpack pocket you forgot you had. Three AC outlets and three USB ports, two USB-A at 2.4A and one USB-C, plus EU, UK and US plug tips in the box.

For one-bag travel we think that is the right trade: you give up outlet count, and in return the adapter you would otherwise need for London is already in the bag. Its USB-C port is rated 3.4A, the highest figure stated by any pick here, and the body is small enough to leave on a nightstand without rearranging anything.

The limits show up on a longer trip. Three outlets fill quickly when two people are traveling, and the plug tips are separate clip-on pieces like most of the others here, so they need a home in your bag rather than the bottom of it. Charge two phones and a watch and you are full, with the laptop waiting its turn.

Two USB-C ports on one travel strip is less common than it should be, and it is the reason this one is here. If you and someone else both carry USB-C phones, or one of you has a phone and the other an iPad, the meta-ant lets both charge from C without a hunt for an A-to-C cable at eleven at night.

The rest of the package is familiar: three AC outlets, a three-foot cord, clip-on plug tips covering EU, UK and US sockets, and a 3.94-inch square body that weighs about 7 ounces. It is a sensible size for a suitcase and a sensible shape for a nightstand, and the white finish does not show scuffs the way darker plastics do.

Where we hesitate is power. The listing rates the four USB ports at a combined 15.5W, a small budget to split between two phones, so it is fine overnight and slow if you are trying to top up before dinner. We still recommend it for the dual USB-C layout and the UK tip, as long as you charge through the night rather than in a hurry.

Look at the plug on the end and you see the difference: two round pins with a hole between them for the earth pin, the shape French and German sockets are built around, instead of the slim two-pin Europlug you get on simpler adapters. That detail is what got this one onto the list, because a plug that does not seat fully is a plug that falls out at two in the morning.

Behind it sits a small strip: three AC outlets, three USB ports with one USB-C, and a three-foot cord in a 4.5 by 3.6 by 1.2-inch body. It suits a light load of two phones, a watch, a tablet and a laptop charger, and that is exactly how we would use it. The body is a cube rather than a slab, which keeps it steady on a nightstand.

There is no surge protection, and the maker leans on that: strips without it are the ones that clear cruise-cabin rules, and this is sold as a cruise pick. Test every outlet in the first hotel you reach, because a strip that lives in a suitcase for years mostly needs its sockets to grip, and finding the dead one in week two is an expensive way to learn it.

So it earns a place for a France-and-Germany itinerary where the sockets are recessed, and for a cabin where anything with a surge protector stays in the suitcase. It will not cover a UK leg, since there is no Type G tip, and three outlets is a modest ceiling for two people.

This is the only strip in the group with surge protection, and that single fact decides where it belongs. At home, or in an apartment you have rented for a fortnight, it is a plus; on a cruise ship it can be the reason a strip is refused at the gangway, since several lines ban surge-protected devices in cabins.

For a long stay, though, the layout is the most flexible here. Six outlets sit on different faces of a body five inches long, so a laptop brick does not block the socket beside it, and the five-foot cord plus two mounting holes on the back mean you can set it up once and leave it in place.

Three USB ports, one of them USB-C, handle phones and watches, and the box includes EU, UK, E/F and US or Australia tips. Charging reliability is the part to be careful with, because a strip that quietly stops delivering power is worse than no strip at all: you find out at midnight with a dead phone. Plug something into every outlet early in the trip and see that each one works.

We recommend it for a rental, a long work stay, or a desk away from home, where the surge protection and the six spaced outlets earn their keep. Pack it for a cruise and you may not get it past the cabin rules, so choose accordingly.