7 Ways to Make Sure You’re Never Offline During Your Trip

Getting to enjoy yourself in a new city or country for a few precious days doesn’t mean you’ll want to check out completely. Remaining reachable is essential, both for staying safe and bragging rights! Here’s a list of the best ways you can stay connected without hassle.

1 – Activate an eSIM

Most of our other tips will be situational, so let’s start with your best universal bet. An eSIM is like a physical SIM card, except it works thanks to a chip embedded in your phone. You get a reliable eSIM provider, choose the most affordable plan for your trip, and enjoy excellent coverage once you land.

Say you’re heading to the States, fetching the best eSIM for the USA would basically solve all the connectivity and convenience issues you might encounter during your visit:

You don’t have to depend on Wi-Fi.
They use local carriers, so coverage is excellent.
You get to keep your number and don’t have to swap out the physical SIM card.
It’s cheaper than roaming.

2 – Use Roaming

While eSIMs are superior in most ways, some people still prefer roaming. It’s built into your contract, meaning you’re billed automatically and don’t have to set up any extra apps.

Roaming can also make sense for short niche trips. Let’s say you’re from France and go for a ski weekend in Switzerland. Two days of roaming might cost you less than an eSIM plan in that case. But that works only if you pay for a day pass – the cost per MB skyrockets otherwise.

3 – Connect to Wi-Fi (Safely)

You’ll find Wi-Fi everywhere – the airport, your hotel room, and your new favorite bistro. Wi-Fi is abundant and free, so it’s most travelers’ top choice. But, popularity also makes it dangerous.

Public Wi-Fi lacks most of the protections you get with mobile networks. It’s also easy to fake and trick people into connecting. The risks are real, ranging from snooping on your online activities to stealing account logins and infecting your laptop with malware.

Should you still use Wi-Fi? Yes – the convenience is too good to pass up. You’ll just want to turn a VPN on before connecting for protection. The best VPNs will secure it with an encrypted tunnel. This lets you browse safely even if someone’s monitoring the connection. They won’t see what you’re doing, can’t steal your files or logins, and can’t get you to visit sketchy sites.

4 – Turn Your Phone into a Hotspot

Most tablets and laptops can’t use SIMs of any kind. However, they can still go online via tethering. A tether turns the phone’s mobile data into a portable Wi-Fi network. Your other devices can then piggyback off that connection and go online normally.

5 – Boost Your Connection with a Mobile Hotspot

Tethering works in a pinch but can be limited. It drains the phone’s battery and can cause it to heat up and slow down. A mobile hotspot might be a better idea, especially if you’re a digital nomad and need online access for more than just your laptop.

6 – Restrict Automatic Updates and Downloads

However you choose to connect, there are limits. You can’t hog free Wi-Fi forever, and even the most generous eSIM plans run out eventually. Since every megabyte counts, you’ll want to make sure you don’t waste them on non-essentials.

That means updating all your apps and downloading large files like videos you’ll want to watch before you take off. On the other hand, you’ll want to keep browsing light to have plenty of time and bandwidth for all your needs.

7 – Prepare Contingencies

Making sure you’re always connected is also about preparation. Wi-Fi and eSIMs will do you no good if your phone is dead. Pack a universal adapter and a powerbank to make sure you always have enough juice for a top-up.

Also, you can prepare like a pro and still become cut off due to special circumstances. The power might go out, or a storm could knock down local phone lines. Keeping offline copies of maps and important travel documents isn’t the same as being connected. But you won’t feel as digitally stranded and can still find your way.

Author
Recent Posts

Carla Schroder

Carla Schroder is a self-taught Linux and Windows sysadmin who laid hands on her first computer around her 37th birthday. Her first PC was a Macintosh LC II. Next came an IBM clone--a 386SX running MS-DOS 5 and Windows 3.1 with a 14-inch color display--which was adequate for many pleasant hours of Doom play. Then around 1997 she discovered Red Hat 5.0 and had a whole new world to explore.

Somewhere along the way she found herself doing freelance consulting for small businesses and home users, supporting both Linux and Windows users and integrating Linux and Windows on the LAN, primarily Linux servers and Windows clients. She is the author of the Linux Cookbook, Linux Networking Cookbook, and the Linux Cookbook 2nd Edition for O'Reilly, and has written hundreds of Linux howtos for various publications, .

Latest posts by Carla Schroder (see all)