The End Of Travel Wi-Fi Problems!

Aren't modern wireless Internet communications just the BEST!

If you think that, then you probably aren't travelling much. There are a ton of problems with using Wi-Fi on the road, and I'm actually happiest when I find a proper hardwired LAN port at the desk in any hotel room we're staying in. That way I can just plug my laptop into the wall jack with my retracting travel LAN cable, and I'm good to go, with what is usually a bulletproof Internet connection, and much better security.

Retractable Travel LAN Cable - Great When There's A Jack...

But that almost never happens these days, so I'm usually stuck with the hotel's Wi-Fi signal, which is often almost too weak to use. On a recent cruise, we had the misfortune to be a little too far from the ship's public Wi-Fi router down the hall from our room, and the steel door of the cabin almost entirely blocked what little signal there was. I had to set up a table near the door, which I propped open with a beach towel in order to get any Wi-Fi access at all.

One Version Of A Travel Wi-Fi "Signal Booster" Router

Then I stumbled on the answer to all my travel Internet problems, the portable Wi-Fi signal booster. These are readily available from many makers and can be had for as little as $12. I bought mine on eBay, but the menus on this one are all in Chinese, so I don't recommend this particular model to the average user. (It was NOT easy to figure out, but I actually recognize a few Chinese characters now).

Yours will be in English though, and while they're definitely not for everybody (some experience with computers would be helpful as they are by no means a plug-and-play device) I now consider it a must-have travel item.

NOTE: If you don't like tinkering around with your PC, don't know what an IP address is, have never heard of an SSID, or have never changed a setting in "Network Connections" on your computer, just pretend that the rest of this post reads; "Blah blah Computer Nerd blah blah" and skip it entirely to read the next one. You will probably just hate having a travel router :)

Still reading? OK then! In general -- and once only on arrival at any given location -- one sets up the travel router to repeat the Wi-Fi signal that you want to use. This can be done via a wireless connection, but it is much better to use a direct LAN cable connection between the travel router and a Laptop or Netbook PC. Then all your wireless devices can log-on to the now much closer and much stronger signal coming from your booster. In this case, the user-name and password are the same as that used for the regular hotel Wi-Fi, and your device will not know the difference. The problem with this "repeater" set-up is that the person staying in the next room will also be able to log on to your travel router, since it uses the same user-name and password and will have the strongest available signal.

Fortunately most of these travel routers are actually every bit as full featured as your router at home, so with an extra step you can set up your travel router as a "bridge" instead of as a "repeater".  A bridge takes the Wi-Fi signal you want to use and re-broadcasts it under a different name (any SSID of your choosing - my personal favorite is "FBI Surveillance Van 2") with a separate secure user-name and password (also of your choosing) with which to log on. The wonder of the bridge set-up is that you now have a private Wi-Fi hotspot with a strong signal that is available only to you. Without the password, others nearby cannot log onto it, and it places your wireless device behind your own router, which offers much better security.

The version I have even features a LAN port, so that for improved security I can turn off the wireless feature of my laptop completely, and connect to the travel router directly via a LAN cable. While it's true that the communications between your travel router and the hotel's Wi-Fi router remain wireless, it is much less likely for them to be compromised than if you were on the shared wireless connection with everybody else in the hotel.

These features work for the public Wi-Fi at airports, coffee shops, etc., making the travel router very useful not just as a signal booster, but also as an extra layer of security.

Enjoy your better Internet!

Fox & Vicky