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.
DIY Air Conditioning System
Almost all modern hotels in America will have AC, but sometimes you run into emergency situations where the system goes down in the middle of the summertime and you’ve got hours to kill before they get it fixed. Or perhaps you’re somewhere outside of the country where the hotels don’t have central cooling. In either of these cases, try this hack to cool things down and keep the room comfortable.
Grab one of the full-size towels from the bathroom and run it under cold water. Squeeze it out so it’s damp but not soaking wet and place it in front of an open window for a cooler breeze of air.
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.
Coffee Maker Ramen
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.
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.