Travel tip: Apple TV and Firesticks are must have vacation items

Vacations are not always fun, let’s face it, the hustle of a single day can leave you exhausted at night so here is a travel tip, bring along your Apple TV.

In most, if not all, cases, traveling within the United States means you have to watch whatever satellite or cable company that the hotel provides. Ending a long day at Disney and returning to your hotel only to find more Disney commercials isn’t exactly fun. As the kids go to sleep and you relax with a drink and want to catch up on something, not having access to your digital library can suck.

Most hotels now have the option of plugging your ROKU, Firestick, or Apple TV directly into the television and then switching the source to your device. You can log in using the internet and you are then all set to go with the same television apps you have at home.

While some hotels have ways to block the use of an external device, most are now allowing it and it is believed that many are hoping this trend will continue to grow so they can stop providing a cable alternative. I spoke with a hotel manager in Miami Gardens, Florida and they said that cutting the chord for the hotel would give guests the opportunity to bring along their own personal devices to use.

At a home I recently visited, a ROKU is offered but you have to sign in with your own account. That’s great but what if I forget to sign out? The next guests would presumably have access to my accounts. I took my personal Apple TV device with me, plugged it in, and was ready to go in less than five minutes.

Vacations shouldn’t be sitting in front of the television doing what you can be doing at home but when you are ready to unwind, having something familiar, and personal, is not a bad thing. It sure beats clicking through a bunch of channels you don’t want to watch, hoping to find something that might pique your interest when all you really want to do is watch repeats of Friends.