Why VPN are Essential for Travelers
As a long-term traveler, one of the most useful tools I have at my disposal is called a VPN. A VPN has saved me more headaches that I can count, has given me access to the media I crave, and helped saved me a ton of money on the road.
In this article I want to explain to you wonderful readers why a VPN is important, and how you can use it to make your life easier on the road.
What exactly is a VPN?
Before we get to this internet tool makes your life easier that let me explain exactly what a VPN is. The phrase VPN stands for virtual private network. This technology creates a private server that bypasses restricted public networks. This also serves as a safeguard and lets you surf the internet totally anonymous.
This is one way that travelers can keep their online activities private and secure. VPN connections are useful for people who are constantly concerned with their Internet privacy,travel hacking to get the best price, or bypass country media restrictions.
Here are a few ways that you, as a traveler, will find a VPN useful on the road.
Cheap Flights – Many flight search engines, such as Orbitz, and Kayak, use site cookies to memorize the flight prices that they gave you recently. This means that even if you do another flight search and the flight is cheaper they will still quote you a higher price. Using a VPN like Hotspotshield (available on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS) gives you more accurate flight prices and can save you loads of money over time.
Social Media – When you are traveling you want to stay in contact with your friends and family. However, certain countries like China block many social media channels like Facebook.
Frustrating right? Well, not with a VPN. It lets you get around these government restrictions and use the all your social media channels.
Streaming Your Media or listening to your music – As much as you love going out and exploring when you are traveling sometimes you will need a night in to sit, relax, and watch a movie. However, and this is a downside of having a jobs to travel the world, many companies like Netflix, Spotify, Hulu and Pandora don’t work outside the U.S.A. Vpn’s also work great for streaming shows while abroad.
You can set up your Virtual Private Network to make it look like you are exploring on of the best places to visit in the United States allowing you to watch access these sites.
Sidestep Censorship – If you are in a country where you know the media is heavily censored having a VPN lets you bypass by looking up any articles you want. As a traveler, this is important because if you are unsure if a place you want to go to is safe you can get around media propaganda and find out the truth. This is important when finding answers to questions like is Mexico City safe?
Personal Security – Having a VPN creates your own server, which is automatically encrypted. This is extra security when you are doing your online banking, using public WIFI or any other service you want to be secured. Indeed, anytime you access a public hotspot or Wi-Fi connection, you put yourself at risk of other people watching your every move and using your personal information for malicious purposes.
With affordable internet security services like Hotspot Shield, you can protect yourself and your family from such malicious activities and enjoy the highest protection when it comes to Wi-Fi security and accessing U.S. content from abroad. To learn more about the benefits of Hotspot Shield, or to download a free trial, check out the official Hotspot Shield website today.
Isn’t a VPN an awesome tool to have in your travel arsenal? I use a VPN daily when searching for cheap black friday travel deals, or researching places to find out if they are safe to go. The best thing of all is that Virtual Private networks work anywhere, and are easy to set up.