My cliq won't charge! The actual charger is fine because it will charge my friend's phone, but not mine. Help, anyone? (:

Solar chargers are great for commuters who always need their devices to be charged up to 100%. While there has been a rising trend to have charging ports on trains and buses there are still places where you will find yourself without any way to charge your dying digital device.

Luckily the technology behind solar panel charging has come down in size and price in recent years. And since most of the time that you are on the go the sun is up you are able to charge your solar panel charger all day long.

My friends and I love to spend the day at the beach, but the problem with the beach is there are no power outlets to charge cell phones and ereaders. Which is fine when you are spending the day with friends because then we won't be on the phone all day, but the battery still drains.

Especially because we switch out who has to sit with the towels bags and cell phones, which usually involves them taking pictures and posting them on Facebook or them playing games. So we each have our turn to drain our cell phone's battery.

It has happened a few times that our phones have died and we had to beg someone else on the beach to lend us a phone so we could call a cab to come pick us up.

One of my friends recently picked up a solar charger and brought it to the beach on our next trip. While everyone else's phones died he was able to charge his phone up to call the cab. This inspired the rest of us that solar chargers were not as dorky as we had thought.

Now when we go to the beach there is always one person who has to sit with the bags and cell phones, as well as our little solar charger farm that we set up.

Its a funny sight all those little panels laying the sand, but we haven't been stuck with a dead battery since we got them!