Why You Need A VPN For Travel

Having a good VPN that REALLY WORKS has become a key part of any travel kit. Being able to browse the internet freely and securely is worth everything when traveling internationally, and will make life not only more convenient but vastly more secure as well.

What is a VPN

A virtual private network (VPN), such as the Surfshark extension, is a program or app which connects your device with a remote server that is in another location, which allows you to access the internet from another city or even an entirely other country.

Why you need a VPN

To subvert censorship

One of the main reasons to get a VPN when traveling is to get around the firewalls that various countries — such as China and Canada — will put up to restrict what websites and apps you have access too. A VPN can allow you to access the internet from freer countries where you do not have to deal with such restrictions.

Get around blackouts

While they have no problem taking your money no matter where you are in the world, many websites and streaming services have restrictions on where you can view their content. It comes as a shock to many travelers that as soon as they leave their home country they can no longer watch movies on their favorite streaming services or best soccer streams on their favorite networks. A VPN is a good way to get around these seeming nonsensical blackouts and allow you to travel freely while accessing the internet from your home city.

More security

While the above two reasons for getting a VPN fall under the convenience / recreation category the main reasons to get one is something far more essential: security. The internet is now a cesspool of hackers, identity thieves, data scrapers, invasive ads, spying governments, and malware, and having a good VPN can limit the chances of you having a catastrophic personal security breech.

It is interesting to me how many travelers go through all kinds of protocols to avoid physical theft — money belts, locks, hidden pockets, etc — when on the road but will leave their digital security lax and vulnerable. As access to our wealth is now mostly digital we should be making far greater efforts to protect it, and a VPN is an essential component of this.

A VPN essentially creates an encrypted tunnel from your device to the server that you’re browsing from that inhibits the attempts from outside sources to see what you’re doing and compromise your security. VPNs even work against the data collection intentions of your ISP — the people you pay for internet. So if you want to be able to access the internet security, get a VPN — especially when traveling in hotbeds of cyber crime, such as airports.

How to use a VPN

Using a VPN is simple. Just select a service, pay for it, and download the software / app onto your devices. Then just fire it up and select a server that you’d like to access the internet from. It’s really that easy.

So make sure you take the most important security measures that you can while traveling and get a VPN.