The Day My Phone Died Mid-Excursion

The day my phone died, I was standing on a dock in Norway, watching the sun hit the water just right. My daughter in Denver would have loved this picture. I reached for my phone, and the screen stayed black. Not out of battery black. Completely gone black. I had spent the morning taking photos and checking the map, and I never once thought about how much power I was using. By the time I needed the phone most, it had nothing left.

That was the end of my shore excursion photos and the beginning of a new habit. I am Loretta Haines, I am 79 years old, and I have learned that the small things are the ones that decide whether a trip feels easy or feels like work. A portable charger is a small thing. It is also the difference between a dead phone at the wrong moment and a day that goes the way you planned.

The charger I bought after that trip is the INIU 10000mAh. I have had it for about a year now. It has been to Denver with me, on a river cruise with my sister June, and on more car trips than I can count. It lives in the front pocket of my Travelon messenger bag, and I reach for it the way I used to reach for a spare tissue. It is smaller than my glasses case, which surprised me the first time I held it. It is just there when I need it.

Before I bought it, I did not carry a charger at all. I relied on wall outlets and hope. Wall outlets work fine in a hotel room. They do nothing for you on a train platform, or in the middle of a walking tour, or at the back of a cruise ship's top deck where the view is best. That is the whole argument for a portable charger, and it is the whole argument for this one in particular.

I will not pretend I researched this the way I research a new vacuum cleaner. I asked a younger woman at the tour desk which charger she used, she held up the INIU, and that was that. Sometimes the best travel advice is the simplest: ask someone who just came back.

A charger does not feel important until the moment your phone goes dark. After that moment, it feels like the most important thing in your bag.

The morning it earns its place is the morning you leave the hotel with a full phone and a full charger, and you do not come back until dinner. I have done that in Quebec City, in Vienna, in Charleston. The routine takes two minutes: plug the phone in overnight, plug the INIU into the wall for a bit, and put both in my bag before I walk out the door.

Here is what I like about this particular one. It is small, which matters when your hands are stiff and your bag is already full. It charges my phone quickly, which matters when you are between trains. And it has a simple display that shows how much power is left, so there are no surprises. The cable tucks into the side, so I never have to dig for it at the bottom of my bag. I am not a person who enjoys fiddling with gadgets. This one does not ask me to fiddle.

The only honest complaint I have is that it needs to be charged itself. I have learned to do that the night before a big day, the same way I lay out my clothes. If I forget, the charger is just dead weight. That is true of every portable charger I have ever seen, so I do not hold it against this one. I just keep the habit.

My sister June borrowed it on the river cruise when her phone was down to four percent and we still had an afternoon of walking ahead. She handed it back at dinner and said she was ordering one for herself. She is not a woman who hands out compliments, so I took note. That is the highest compliment I can give a travel item: my sister, who packs light and complains freely, wanted her own.

I also take it on longer car drives. My phone is my map, my music, and my way to call my daughter if something goes wrong. Knowing the INIU is in my bag is the same kind of peace of mind as knowing I have a spare tire in the trunk. I rarely need it. I am always glad it is there.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you that you do not need the biggest charger, the fastest charger, or the one with the most features. You need one that is small enough to carry every single day, simple enough to use without reading instructions, and reliable enough that you stop thinking about it. The INIU is that one for me. Buy it before your next trip, charge it the night before, and put it in the same pocket every time. Then forget about it until the moment you need it. That moment will come, and you will be glad it is there. I have bought a lot of travel gadgets over the years, and most of them have ended up in a drawer. This one has not.