We're traveling from Canada to South Africa and I'm not sure what power adapter I should pick up (or where - I read that buying it at the airport in SA might be cheaper, etc).

Any recommendations?

We'll need it for the camera battery charger, possibly the laptop, hubby-to-be's personal shaver... So I'm thinking something grounded is required...

Also, we have the attachment for our battery charger where we can plug it into the car - would I need a special power adapter for this or would it be standard across the board?

I'm sooo not a techy-type person... *blush*

Thanks in advance!

Most of South Africa uses plugs that have 3 fat round prongs, which is an adapter that is usually NOT part of any adapter set you might see at travel stores or in an online catalogue. But there are other places where they use the same plugs as in Gret Britain, and you'd need an adapter with three thin straight blades.

I highly recommend to take adapters with you. The ones you buy in Africa are normally only for converting from a European plug.

Furthermore, I recommend you buy both types, grounded AND non-grounded adapters. While technically, especially for your laptop, you want a grounded adapter, I have smoked/burnt grounded adapters on more than a few occasions in Africa, rendering them 'kaput' - and only the non-grounded adapter would work.

Your car adapter will work in a cigarette lighter of any car, but my own experience has been that it takes for ever to charge batteries, and would be best reserved for emergencies only, and for days you do a lot of driving.

Do you have 'Fry's Electronic' stores in your neck of the woods? They sell all adapters individually. Otherwise call some consumer electronics stores.

Thank you very much for the information. I didn't think it would be this hard to find the proper adapter. I will have to make some calls to local electronics stores. Unfortunately, we don't have 'Fry's' around here - to my knowledge at least.

Thanks again!

In worst case scenario, bring the adapter for Western Europe, the one with two straight round prongs. It's not ideal, but you could use that one to bridge from the North American plug to an adapter you would find in South Africa.