Since the Trans-Americas Journey is, after all, a working road trip we travel with what amounts to a mobile office. By and large the gear we use on the road is pretty tough and reliable and we haven’t had to repair or replace anything too major. Until now.

The AC power adapter for Eric’s Dell laptop recently kicked the bucket and when we called the Dell warranty service line in the US and explained the situation (we’re in Mexico with a laptop that can’t be used because the adapter needs to be replaced) we were worried. An international shipment of this replacement part under warranty from the US would take weeks to arrive, could be subject to hefty import duties into Mexico and might even be stolen before it ever reached us.

To avoid all of those hassles Dell put us in touch with their Mexican service department where an English speaking agent confirmed that they had the adapter we needed. Then they sent a technician from Guadalajara (more than an hour away) to deliver it to us by hand.

The new AC power adapter arrived on Thursday morning (four business days after we nailed down an address for it)–no long wait, no import duties, no risk of losing it to a thief. Dell didn’t even make us change the location of our warranty coverage.

While we hope we won’t have any further reason to fix or replace the tech we travel with it’s good to know that the most service-minded global companies actually have easy ways to tap into the convenience and service of their in-country offices in order to get things fixed fast.

Anyone who plans to travel outside the US with any gadgets that might need parts or service would be well-advised to make sure the company they buy from has warranty and support facilities in the countries they plan to visit–even go so far as to aks how it would work if your PDA went kaput it in Portugal or your laptop lost the plot in Latvia. We’re just saying.

We purchased two Dell laptops and Dell supplied one laptop to our Trans-Americas Journey to use and review.