Sometimes you may be in a situation where you’re staying in a hotel, but you can’t afford to spend $20 every day to order pizza, and your room may not have a kitchenette where you’ve got a microwave, etc. But even if you don’t have access to cooking equipment, you can still make your own food in your room.
You can use your coffee maker to boil the water necessary to make pre-made noodle cups, rice cups, or any kind of instant meal that just needs hot water to cook. There’s actually a lot more you can do with hot water than you might think! You can always bring along a hotplate, as well, if you want to be able to cook up some more options for you or your family.
Butter Softener
Do you know those little packets of butter that they offer in hotel buffets? While delicious, they’re notoriously difficult to spread, especially when they’re straight out of the cooler. And if you’ve ever tried to spread cold butter on toast, you know it doesn’t go over very well. If you’d like to be able to eat your toast with nice, melted butter, like the rest of us, set the butter packets on the top sides of the toaster right after you start toasting your bread.
The heat will help soften it so that by the time you’re ready to sit down and eat it should be soft enough to spread. This hack works for waffles, too, if you happen to luck out and get those as an option at your hotel’s buffet.
Sippy Speaker
If you’re the type who needs music to lift their spirits (and just be the soundtrack of their lives,) you’ve probably got some great speakers at home. But when you’re on the road, you don’t need to be lugging around a bunch of extra audio equipment – no matter how much you love your tunes.
Luckily, there’s a way to blast your favorite songs in your hotel room that is loud enough for you to hear from across the hall, but not so loud that your neighbors call the front desk on you. Just stick your phone in a ceramic mug after you hit “play,” and listen to the magic happen.
Key Power
These days, almost every hotel uses electronic key cards. Gone are the days of using actual, metal keys that you stick in and turn to open the door. The key cards are very convenient and easy to carry around in your wallet. But you’ve got to be careful about storing them around your phone or other electronics because they can actually drain the power and deactivate the key.
You can avoid any loss of power by keeping your hotel key in a separate pocket of your pants or purse. And always ask the hotel for an extra, just to be on the safe side.
Ask the Front Desk
Hotels will go above and beyond to keep their guests happy. After all, they’re in the hospitality business and their main objective is to keep you happy and comfortable. But this doesn’t just mean a clean room and friendly customer service. If you get to your hotel and realize you’ve forgotten something necessary – you can almost guarantee that the front desk will help.
And even more than just necessities, sometimes they’ll have things you may not expect them to have – like different types of electronics, etc. So, before you panic and run out to buy a new one, check with the front desk staff to see if they’ve got any on hand!