Staying private while travelling

Travel is where the advice gets useful, because you are on networks you did not choose and rules that are not your own.

Hotel Wi-Fi

Usually one flat network shared by every room, run on hardware nobody has updated in years, with a password printed at reception. Assume everything on it is visible to whoever else is on it. This is the clearest case for a VPN there is — it costs nothing to switch on and removes the whole category.

Airports

Same as hotels, plus a higher density of fake access points, because an airport is full of people who will connect to anything called Free_Airport_WiFi. Check the exact network name on a sign rather than picking the strongest signal.

Your phone's mobile data

Generally the safest option abroad, and often overlooked. If you only need to check something quickly, turn Wi-Fi off and use data. Roaming costs have collapsed and a few megabytes is not worth the risk calculus.

Borders and local law

Two separate things worth knowing:

A handful of countries restrict or ban VPN use. Check before you travel rather than after you arrive. We would rather you knew than found out.

Some borders can ask to inspect devices. A VPN does nothing about this — it protects traffic, not a device in someone's hand. If this is a genuine concern for you, travel with less on the device.

Practical list

• Turn the VPN on before you join the network, not after
• Check your VPN app has a kill switch, and that it is on — a two-second dropout on a train should

block traffic, not fall back to the open network

• Turn off automatic connection to open networks, so your phone stops joining things by itself
• Do banking on mobile data, not hotel Wi-Fi, when it matters
• Watch for the classic travel scams: the "your booking needs reconfirming" email, the taxi QR code,

the accommodation deposit by bank transfer