🎼 🎶. It's Electric!

 So the question always comes up: "do we need to bring a power converter?"  So here's the deal on electricity in Italy...   Electricity in Italy, as in the rest of Europe, comes out of the wall socket at 220 volts alternating at  50 cycles per second.  Here in the US, electricity comes out of the wall socket at 110 volts, alternating at 60 cycles per second. So not only are the voltages and frequencies different,  but the sockets themselves are different...

If you're bringing devices from home, or need to use hair dryers, curling irons and other electrical appliances in Italy, you'll will need to know how to convert these to use the new voltage, and how to connect that device or appliance to the sockets in the wall...

Plug Adapters:   Plug adapters are the interfaces between the American flat-pronged plug and Italy's two (or three) round-prong socket. These allow you to plug your electrical device into the Italian wall socket, but they do not convert the electricity to the American 110 volts. If your appliance is designed to run only on 110-120 volts, you are likely to see smoke, if not fire, from this miss-mating. You will need a step-down power converter or transformer to safely step the voltage down from 220 to 110.

Typical Italian wall socket...

US - Euro plug adaptor
You can get along fine with just a plug adaptor for many of today's small electrical devices designed to run on dual voltages. Devices like this include many laptops, tablets, cell phones, many recently produced battery chargers, and many small, electrical gadgets, especially those designed for world travel. You can check the back of the device or the "power brick" for the electrical input specifications.

A lot of hair dryers, electric shavers, cell phones, tablets etc are designed to use 110 or 220 volts, and sometimes switch automatically... sometimes theres a small switch...  so for these, all you need is the plug adaptor...  If you don't see a switch or a label indicating dual power, we suggest you call the manufacturer to confirm.

Power Converters:  American hair dryers, curling irons and straighteners can be the bane of modern day international travel. These devices cannot often be used in dual voltage situations without voltage conversion. Because they heat, they are extremely high current devices, meaning that, combined with the high voltage, they use a whole lot of power. You'll need to lug a large, heavy,  power converter or power transformer to convert Italy's higher voltage to the lower American voltage--or you'll risk having the curling iron really "fry" your hair and ultimately burn out.   If you buy a power converter, make sure its power rating meets or exceeds the power rating of the device you will use with it. This information is usually found on the body of the device near the power cord.

US - Euro plug adaptor - this is the one you want

At the Villa, we will have placed a European voltage hairdryer  in each of your bathrooms...   So you don't need to bring a hair dryer for the Villa...   And any hotels you're staying in before or after likely has hairdryers...  But, if you do prefer to bring your own hairdryer, curling iron, curlers, straightener or any heating device,  and it's not dual voltage, we would suggest you go online and by an inexpensive dual voltage model... it will be a lot cheaper, a lot lighter,  and work a lot better then a big power converter.  (these expensive power converters are very heavy to lug around, and often burn out when used with heating devices). Bottom Line:  if you feel you need to bring things like hairdryers, straighteners  or curling irons, we suggest you consider buying inexpensive dual voltage models rather then power converters...

So for the most part, your power considerations probably comes down to your cell phones, tablets, cameras, etc...   but be forewarned, if you need to charge these types of things, you will need, at the very least, a  simple plug adaptor or two... pictured above (usually in the neighborhood of $1.95- $3.50).  Rick Steves.com usually has these adaptors for sale for a $3, but of course you have pay shipping.   Amazon Prime members may want to search there to avoid shipping costs... And then usually your large AAA travel offices will have these adaptors as well.  

We hope you're enjoying The Blog...  There's a whole lot more to come!   Embrace The Blog... It's here for your pleasure & convenience... We put a lot of work into this, with the theory that every small bit of information helps you to have a better experience on our Tours!  

As always if you have questions about these power conversions, or anything at all, shoot us an email or give us a call... Our email address is AdventuresToTuscany@gmail.com and our phone # is 610-657-7894... these can always be found on the right sidebar if you want to reach out!  

We hope you're getting excited about your trip! It's only about 9 months from now and it'll be here before you know it!  If you haven't secured flights, hotels & rental cars by now, we suggest you start looking. The experts are saying that they expect price increases because of record-breaking demand, pilot and staff shortages & the price of fuel..   and rental cars are still in short supply because of the pandemic & computer chip shortages...  We've booked our personal flights, hotels and rental cars for this trip over a month ago! If you need help with this, reach out to us... We're not travel agents, but we of course make these types of arrangements / reservations many times every year, so we're happy to give advice and make suggestions...