Everyone traveling is at risk when using hotel Wi-Fi. Hotel Wi-Fi is open to anyone staying at the hotel. This allows them to see your phone, computers, and tablets on the network and try to hack them. Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself while traveling.
I have traveled for years, and I understand details about how networks and Wi-Fi work. It used to bother me to connect to a hotel Wi-Fi because everyone could see my system on the network. Eventually, I learned about VPNs and small, portable travel routers. I have used one ever since.
Please protect yourself and your family when you travel.
Travel routers are focused on being small, with features focused on travel security needs. They are not high-performance for gaming. They create a barrier to protect your systems from hotel Wi-Fi and hackers.
You Need a Travel Router
Travel routers are named because they function just like a normal router in your house but are designed for travel. Your house router protects everyone from hackers on the internet. The travel router provides the kind of protection, but it is small, low power, and focused on the needs of travelers. As a tradeoff, they don’t offer the best bells and whistles for gaming or streaming.
Travel routers focus on keeping your phone, tablet, and computers safe when connecting to someone else’s network. Using one can also simplify getting everyone connected as you travel.
Why do I need this?
When you connect to a public Wi-Fi network you are joining everyone else. It is like walking into a room with everyone else so they can hear your speakerphone conversation. All the hackers, snoops, surveillance, and scammers can see your device is now on the network. They can monitor what you are doing. Your phone has been set up to protect itself while on a public network. Your computer could be open and what about your tablet?
The name public network means any network where you don’t control who gets to use it. At your house, you don’t let everyone who walks past your house connect. Public Wi-Fi is by definition open to the public.
Just to be clear, any network you don’t control includes those with a login. When you hit agree to public Wi-Fi terms and conditions you are agreeing to let everyone see your devices. Any open network can be dangerous. You find these at airports, bus terminals, hotels, airplanes, coffee shops, grocery stores, and many other places.
This blog is focused on travel, when you take multiple devices, like vacations with the family. If you are around town, you are probably using your phone. Your computer at a coffee shop has risks that a travel router can help with if you are concerned. The best solution when you are at the coffee shop is to use a virtual private network (VPN). Using a VPN encrypts all your network traffic so the snoops can’t see the details.
Everyone wants to connect immediately. Where is the hotel Wi-Fi password?
With a travel router, you connect one device to the hotel Wi-Fi. You turn on the travel router and use the router app, or log into the router management page. The router connects to the Wi-Fi, and you say okay on the acceptance screen. Now your router is on the open network and all snoopers see is your travel router. Your family already has the travel router device configured to connect. As soon as the travel router powers up and broadcasts its Wi-Fi signal your family’s devices will connect to it and not the hotel Wi-Fi.
Now to make it even better use a VPN with your travel router. Travel routers all come with simple setup options to use a VPN.
Your strong password
All the work to set up the router and protect yourself will be wasted if you don’t have a strong Wi-Fi password on the travel router. Long and complicated should not hinder you. You will enter the long password once on your computer, tablet, or phone. You can also create a QR code a phone can scan to get access. I will show an example of this later.
An easy Wi-Fi password can be cracked. If the bad guys can guess your travel router’s Wi-Fi password, they will probably be hacking your devices next.
Tell me more benefits.
The number one benefit of the latest technology is better encryption with WPA3, from Wi-Fi 6 standard. The best benefit from any travel router is the ability to connect to a VPN service so anyone snooping on the local network can’t see any details of your internet activities.
Wi-Fi 6 Encryption
The latest versions of routers include support for Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 6 is the latest standard and includes several security improvements. The most important is WPA3 encryption on Wi-Fi. There are many articles and videos about hacking WPA2 (the old standard). WPA3 does not have these concerns.
WPA3 is such a security improvement you should look into using it at home. Using WPA3 while traveling will give your Wi-Fi the strongest encryption from your computer to the VPN server. No one on the public Wi-Fi will be able to hack your network, or even know what you are doing.
VPN
Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a technology where your device (phone, computer, router) connects to a server, and the server relays your request to a website. To the website, your request just came from the VPN server. As a user, you can select different locations to use for the VPN server.
On the local network, all the traffic is encrypted to the VPN server. No one on the public Wi-Fi can see the traffic details from your travel router. Again, one connection for the travel router and everyone is protected.
All the snoopers on the local network will only see your router connected to the VPN server. They won’t know any other information about you. This works in your local coffee shop also.
In addition, the site you want to access (your bank) may have location restrictions that will block you from logging into your account. With a VPN you can set your server location as the United States and your bank access will work. The people watching your connection will only see you connecting to the VPN server.
Travel routers provide several VPN companies for easy setup inside the device. You simply need a VPN account.
Hotel device restrictions
At some hotels I have stayed in there have been cases where they allow two devices with the room stay. Connecting more devices means additional cost. Using a travel router eliminates that problem. The hotel will see one connection (the router) and all your devices will have access.
What is not good
The login process
The first time you connect to a new network you have to enter information. If it is a hotel they may have you log into a portal with your room number. This process has greatly improved from when I started using travel routers. The use of an application on your phone simplifies the process. The process is fast enough that I can get the Wi-Fi running before the family complains very much.
Power requirements are going up.
The first travel router I used needed to be plugged into the wall. Finding an open plug in a hotel is a problem. In another country with a plug adapter, it was frustrating. The newer routers have a USB power input. They can run off almost any USB fast charger.
The problem has become all those cool features need more computing power, which means more wall power. The routers all come with a charging device that will work. With USB 3 Type-C (like your cell phone plug) there are higher power options available.
More Travel Tips
Here are a few more items to consider.
I travel with kits of what I need. I have chargers, cables, and routers all in bags to grab and stuff in the backpack.
Create a QR code for the Wi-Fi login so anyone can scan the code to get on the network. Include the text of the password, just in case.
Put your router, power supply, and cables in a carrying case. You could need to log into the router on your trip. Have a card, or a small piece of paper with the router’s name, login, and password. This will prevent the need to do a factory reset while you are traveling, just to get into the router. Place this with the QR code in the case or bag with the router.
Keep a small ethernet cable with the router. If you get lucky and there is an ethernet port available, you probably won’t need to configure or login to the public Wi-Fi.
I have a battery charging pack that can charge any device at least twice. I purchased one that includes wireless charging built-in. When a charging cable stopped working during our last trip the built-in wireless charging allowed the phone to be charged without hunting down a new cable.
I use the wireless charger option on the plane as well. Set the phone on the charging pack to charge while I listen to music or watch a downloaded movie.
When we travel and will be driving a car, I now take my car charging mount. It attaches to the AC vent, mounts the phone, and with a cable allows wireless charging. This means we can use any phone to show maps. Simply start the directions and put the phone on the charger mount.
Helpful QR Codes
You can use QR codes to help you with the WiFi network SSID and password. Print a QRCode of the traveling router and your home guest network. Below is an example of generating a guest WiFI QR code. Below is the Python code I used.
Here is an example of a QR code setup for a Wi-Fi login.
The python3 script below was run on Windows in the Visual Studio Code editor. You will need to use different commands to install the module dependencies and the font used for the wording. I don’t use it as a command line utility so there is no argument processing. You simply update the variables defined at the top section. The variables used are:
WiFI SSID: BDMurphyGuestWiFi
WiFI Password: bdM#WiFi$Password%
Output file name: ‘bdmguestwifiQrCode.png’
A guest entering the house can scan the WiFi QR Code and get access to the guest network.
The Python code is:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# The module to create the QR code can be found: https://pypi.org/project/wifi-qrcode-generator/
# Install with: pip install wifi_qrcode_generator.generator
import wifi_qrcode_generator.generator
# You need PILLOW module for image processing
# https://pypi.org/project/pillow/
# Install with: pip install pillow
#import image processing modules
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont
#Set your variables. They are all in one spot to make it easier
myssid = 'BDMurphyGuestWiFi'
mypasswd = 'bdM#WiFi$Password%'
imagefile = 'bdmguestwifiQrCode.png'
#Generate the QRCode of the WiFi login
qr_code = wifi_qrcode_generator.generator.wifi_qrcode(
ssid=myssid, hidden=False, authentication_type='WPA', password=mypasswd
)
#qr_code.print_ascii()
qr_code.make_image().save("Tmpimg.png")
#Now we need to adjust the QRCode image
# Open the image
img = Image.open("Tmpimg.png")
# Define the desired extra space below the QR Code (e.g., 100 pixels)
extra_space_height = 50
# Create a new image with white background
new_height = img.height + extra_space_height
new_img = Image.new('RGB', (img.width, new_height), color='white')
# Paste the original image at the top
new_img.paste(img, (0, 0))
# Create a drawing object
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(new_img)
# Load a custom font (replace 'FreeMono.ttf' with the path to your font file)
# Using basic courier font for the text under the QRCode
myFont = ImageFont.truetype('\windows\fonts\cour.ttf', 35)
# Add text with the defined font style
# Put the text at 90 pixels from the bottom of the image. Color is black.
draw.text((30, (new_img.height - 90)), myssid, font=myFont, fill=(0,0,0))
# Save the modified image
new_img.save(imagefile)
# Optionally, display the modified image
new_img.show()
Give it a try.
