Lighting can make or break how comfortable your stay is. Unfortunately, room lighting is hit-or-miss – sometimes it’s good, other times it is poor.
GemsOfTravel has experienced too bright, too dim, light shinning in our eyes, and no way to adjust the lighting brightness based on mood. Trust us, we’ve stayed at places with such unbearable lighting. If we hadn’t had our own light bulb, there is no way we could have got through staying more than a couple of nights.
Make a dark room bright. We are going to show you how to take control of your room’s lighting, and get the lighting just how you want it!
Lighting Options
Lighting that is portable is needed when you are on the go. For nomads, you are limited what you can carry around with you – can’t take it all.
Hiking Headlamp
This might sound funny, but using a hiking headlamp to light your room is so so so convenient and portable. Call it a travel hack, if you will. We use ours all the time!
You can take it into any room, point it in whichever direction, and they have brightness dimming and red light night vision lighting, too! And, if you do any hiking, camping, or caving then you’ll already have a headlamp.
If you are going to buy a headlamp, then just go for the top model. Biolite’s top model headlamp (HeadLamp 800, previously the 750) is really good.
The Biolite headlamp is pricey (they do offer lower-priced models), but their top model is arguably very worth it.
Why? Because (1) A fully charged battery lasts a many hours, and (2) after several years of using it the battery is as good as new. (3) As for the light settings, there are many, and the top lighting setting is very bright.
⚡ Checkout this review by TrailSpace (it’s super informative & thorough).
Light Bulb + Socket
Buy a light bulb 💡 + wall plug-in light socket. Done. You now have extra lighting!
The big plus is that you can move the light into another room, or on the other side of the room as you wish.
Warning
Buy this when you get to Southeast Asia. The electricity voltages & frequency (and plugs) is different than your home country.
⚠️ If you use your bulb / socket from your home country it will break the bulb and maybe cause a fire? Be careful!
We bought this one at Mr. DIY, a general store meets hardware store chain, in Thailand. And, it’s been perfect – no exaggeration!
This bulb lights up the whole room with a natural looking light, and it is very bright.
Our bulb’s rating is:
⚡The LED bulb has a plastic cover, instead of glass like a incandescent would have, which makes it ideal for traveling with. That’s to say, glass break and plastic does not, so this LED bulb with plast cover is better.
– 13W (wattage), 100 lm/W (brightness / watt)
– “DAYLIGHT 6500K” means “daylight color” we believe.
So, the higher the wattage the brighter the bulb should be.
As for the socket, we really like the adjustable one we have. Point it in different directions to adjust the light. You can find one at the mom & pop hardware stores.
When you buy a light bulb – if you did not already know this – you can choose many frequencies for brightness and light color. Buy an LED bulb, because it is travel safe for taking onto an airplane – glass condescend bulbs will break! You can figure out a light frequency that you prefer, which determines the color and brightness.
In conclusion, it’s small and light (meaning, not heavy – no pun intended lol) so, throw it in your bag when it’s time to pack-up and take with you to the next place.
Excited about light bulbs, yet?!