hen I first started traveling, I never invested in a VPN subscription. It seemed just another monthly charge in a world that is becoming full of small monthly charges. Gone are the days of buying an application or service once, and getting free upgrades. Now, every developer wants a few dollars every month to keep the apps you use alive. Or worse; they give you a free app, then pester you for in-app purchases.
One or two monthly fees aren’t terrible, but you can be soon faced with a hoard of them that eat away at your bank balance: Netflix, your writing app, Microsoft and Adobe subscription, news subscription, Apple Music or Spotify subscription, etc..
So why was I getting hacked so much?
Probably because I was lazy, and because hotels and cafes are lazy. Hotels sometimes just have open wifi. Meaning they just hand out a single login and password for everyone, this is more common among cheaper hotels, and is very common at restaurants, cafes, some airports, etc. Anytime you don’t have an individual password just for yourself you’re on a shared or open connection. Even in hotels with passwords, it’s sometimes ridiculously simple – your room number twice, or your last name and room number.
Anyone else on that connection can pretty much see whatever you’re doing with a few easy pieces of software. If you log into your WordPress account – they now have your password, log into your bank (if you’re not using two-party authentication?) well, they have that too. Not only that – but being able to see the emails you send and receive, chats, your Facebook and social media information, etc. They can also capture it all and save it to look through later or sell. We don’t change our credit cards that often – every few years, so that data is good for a long time.
I know I was hacked in Germany because they proudly replaced all my websites with a big black pirate page that announced the hack. I back up all my sites regularly, so it wasn’t the end of the world. But it did take a weekend out of my life.
More frustrating was losing the use of my credit card. It was my primary travel card, and now I had to report misuse on it. They could only ship a new card to my address on file in the Philippines and then I had to have it FedExed to where I was staying in Europe. It could have been a nasty situation if I didn’t have enough cash on hand. It took over a week to resolve.
My ‘sad’ just-been-hacked face ;(
What’s a VPN?
Now I invest in a VPN, not always – but just when I’m traveling. If I’m home for 4 months I’ll cancel the subscription, why waste the money. But If I’m headed out on a 2-month trip you can bet I’ve subscribed.
Essentially it’s a simple install, then you click a button that lets you encrypt your connection. You can choose different VPN locations as well. So, for instance, if I wanted to see USA Netflix options I’d choose a San Francisco connection. The important part though is that it’s secure. VPN stands for ‘virtual private network’…
Put it this way, If I’m in my house and my best friend lives 4 houses down and I want to go visit her, I might walk out my front door, down the street and knock on her door. Anyone on that street, or looking out their window could see me going to her house. They could tell what I was wearing, and all the details of my journey, there’s not much I could do to prevent it. A VPN is like having a secret tunnel under my house to her house. I can come and go and no one on the street, no one looking out their windows can see a thing. Its private and secure access to every website and online service.
When I travel now, I just make sure I’m connected to the VPN and then I’m free to log into my sites, WordPress and bank accounts.
A few other things to be aware of…
This is not the same thing as anonymity. TOR is another option that makes things very untraceable, (we think), but can slow your connection down and you have to disable a lot of custom settings to make it work properly.
If you’re doing something illegal VPNs won’t prevent a warrant by a government from pulling your records of activity. – which is easily traced back to you since you’ve purchased a subscription. But then, that’s not what we care about here – it’s preventing identity theft, website wrecking, and compromised bank accounts while you’re on the road.
My MUCH happier face when surfing with a VPN when traveling.
Final thoughts
Your VPN will also work on your tablet and phone, so if you’re not traveling with your laptop it’s great.
I’ve tried a few and I can’t tell that anyone VPN is better than another. Currently, I use Express VPN which is $12.95 a month, or $9.99 a month if you subscribe for 6 months – because a few online vloggers I like use it. I just treat it as another expense that I have to pay – like travel insurance for my health. But this is travel insurance for my websites and bank accounts.
It’s never fun to subscribe to things, but knowing I won’t get hacked and have my trip ruined and I’m doing all I can to protect myself is worth it.
The VPN I use now: Express VPN
I’ve also used these VPNs in the past:
NordVPN. – https://nordvpn.com/
Strong VPN – https://strongvpn.com/
