Heading off on holiday? A VPN could be the most useful travel hack that you didn’t consider.
It goes without saying that a VPN is the best tool for online privacy but did you know they’re also beneficial when you’re travelling?
By now if you’re serious about protecting your online privacy, you should have at least considered signing up to one of the better VPN services out there.
But there are also some pretty neat benefits to using a VPN on holiday. So if you’re planning on travelling this year, here are five leading benefits of using a VPN away from home.
1) Stream TV from home
As fun as taking a holiday is there’s always moments of downtime.
After all, who can be drinking cocktails, rushing around the sights and all those other holiday clichés for the entire day?
A VPN will allow you to unblock all those TV services you subscribe to back home and watch them from the comfort of your hotel room.
Most TV services are automatically blocked when you’re out of the country and others like Netflix will serve you up localised content that might not have your favourite shows.
Flick on a VPN that works with many TV services such as ExpressVPN and enjoy all your favourite shows and movies away from home or keep the kids happy when they’re “bored”.
2) Snag cheaper hotel rooms and ‘stuff’
The jury is out on this one but if you believe the press, by simply changing your geographical location you can pick-up plenty of travel bargains.
Everything from hotel rooms to flights and car rental.
Your mileage may vary with this one but if you’re a last minute shopper and like to pick-up hotel rooms and make travel plans once you’re already on holiday, then a VPN could be your best friend to help you get those cheap deals.
After all, who doesn’t like paying less?
3) Unblock Social Media
Part of the fun of setting off on holiday is filling up your social media walls with beaming photos of you enjoying exotic locations while your family and friends toil away at work.
However, while we automatically assume we’ll be able to access social media when travelling that’s not always the case.
In China for example, almost all western social media is blocked and they’re not alone. Accessing social media in Iran, Russia and certain other countries can be problematic.
It’s not just the expected countries either. Many African, Middle Eastern and South American countries have also restricted access to social media at different times.
By using a VPN, you can unblock social media wherever you are leaving you free to tweet, like or pin your photos and travel tales as much as you want.
4) Stay secure online
Taking a holiday means you’ll lose access to your home Wi-Fi connection and it most likely leaves you without a mobile internet or data connection too.
This will leave you relying on public Wi-Fi, cafes, hotels, public transport and the like.
Public Wi-Fi isn’t secure. Threats are lurking at every turn, from others on the network snooping on your usage to the Wi-Fi network itself logging details on your actions.
Using a VPN allows you to stay secure so no one but yourself knows what you’re getting up to while connected.
5) Access your bank and payments trouble free
An often overlooked part of heading off on holiday is what happens when you need to make those regular payments or log into your bank.
Now if you’re lucky you won’t have any issues but in these days of checks and spending patterns, the likelihood that you’ll find your bank account login frozen or your debit card blocked is high.
As soon as you try to make a payment many financial systems will see a request from outside the UK which falls outside your regular login or spending pattern. Assuming your details have been compromised your bank will block access.
It happened to me when making a regular bill payment, you know, one of those dull things you still need to tend to while on holiday.
So for all future instances I quickly log into my favourite VPN, connect to a UK server and carry out transactions as usual.
No more blocked login, no more frozen debit card and one less headache when out of the country.
Summary
Going on holiday can be stressful enough. Have you got your passport? Did you leave the backdoor open? Have we forgotten the kids?
Thankfully packing a VPN can relieve some of your stress and they’re convenient to install on your phone, tablet or laptop before you travel.
So next time you’re about to head off on holiday, consider taking our recommended VPN, ExpressVPN with you.
If you’ve got plenty of time then check out NordVPN, IPVanish or one of these 21 leading VPN services too, you’re free to choose.
Illustrations © Keng62fa | Dreamstime.com
