Coffee Anywhere

Good coffee, wherever you wake up

The hotel database tells you what is in the room. This is what to do about it — what travels well, what works with a kettle and nothing else, and what airport security will actually let through.

Portable brewing

Brewers light enough to travel with, and how to use them in a room you did not design.

How to Make Pour-Over Coffee in a Hotel Room

The lightest real brewing method there is, and the one hotel-specific problem nobody warns you about.

3 min read

The Best Coffee When Your Hotel Only Has a Kettle

A kettle is better news than a pod machine. Four options, from carrying nothing to carrying almost nothing.

2 min read

How to Use an AeroPress in a Hotel Room

The best coffee you can make in a hotel room, and the specific adjustments that matter when you are not in your own kitchen.

3 min read

Hot water

Kettles, voltage, and every way to get hot water in a hotel without buying it.

Travel Kettles and Voltage — What Actually Matters

A plug adapter changes the shape of the pins and nothing else. Here is what that means for the kettle in your bag.

3 min read

How to Get Hot Water in a Hotel

Six reliable sources, ranked by how little you have to carry and how few people you have to talk to.

3 min read

Coffee & gear

Pods, capsules, grounds, instant and the equipment worth carrying.

How to Travel With a Coffee Grinder

Whether to bother, which kind survives a trip, and the one part that reliably attracts attention at security.

3 min read

Do Reusable K-Cups Work in Hotel Keurigs?

Usually, but there is one specific machine type where they do not — and it is disproportionately common in hotel rooms.

2 min read

Nespresso Original vs Vertuo — What Travellers Need to Know

Two systems, one brand name, and capsules that physically will not fit each other. Here is how to tell which machine your hotel has.

3 min read

Coffee Gear for International Travel

What earns its space in a bag crossing borders, and what to leave at home.

3 min read

Can You Bring Your Own K-Cups to a Hotel?

Yes, and it is the single highest-return thing you can pack for a North American trip.

2 min read

Hotel hacks

Making the room work: what to do about bad machines, missing kettles and stale pods.

Why Some Hotels No Longer Put Coffee Makers in Rooms

It is rarely about cost. Understanding the reasons tells you which hotels to expect it from.

2 min read

What to Do When Your Hotel Has No Coffee Maker

An increasingly common problem, and a genuinely small one if you find out before you arrive.

3 min read

How to Make Genuinely Good Coffee in a Hotel Room

The room is working against you. Here is what actually fixes it, in rough order of how much difference it makes.

4 min read

Coffee in Japanese Hotels — What to Expect

Different equipment, different conventions, and one of the few countries where arriving with nothing is a perfectly good plan.

2 min read

Hotel Coffee in Europe vs the United States

Two different default assumptions about what a guest room owes you, and what each means for packing.

2 min read

Can You Bring Coffee Through Airport Security?

Beans, grounds, pods and gear — what goes in the cabin, what gets swabbed, and the one thing that reliably causes trouble.

3 min read

Are Hotel Coffee Makers Clean?

An honest answer, and a two-minute routine that deals with most of the problem.

2 min read

Start with your actual hotel

All of this is easier when you know what is waiting in the room. Look the hotel up first — the machine, the format and the kettle all change what is worth packing.

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