Why You Should Use a VPN While Traveling

Watch your favorite shows abroad

So this one you might have heard of before: there’s a trick you can use to keep watching your favorite tv-shows and channels when you are abroad. Streaming services hate you for this, and will try to block you if you are logging in from another country. However, with a good VPN you can avoid these blockades and log into your favorite service. It might be a bit slower than you would usually expect from browsing without, because all the data will first go through the VPN server first. Yet, knowing that you can watch your favorite shows and have better security is relieving, Also, don’t forget to write down the user/passwords for your ISP and/or streaming service because you will still needs these to login to the service once connected.

Did you know: the Netflix library has different titles depending on the country you are watching from? This means certain US shows might not pop up in your account when you are watching from Europe for example, without using a VPN!

Access to online banking

Have you ever tried logging into your online banking account from the wifi in a hotel lobby? You might want to reconsider this as it can be a major security risk. Especially on public wi-fi networks, you can never be sure that no one is looking at you browsing on their network so better to be safe than sorry and turn on that VPN. You don’t want your banking details leaked in a foreign country now would you? I have had very good experiences with Surfshark VPN so far and it’s really easy to use with the browser-plugin. This is why it’s good to use a VPN while traveling.

Also, be aware that logging into your bank account from a foreign country can also trigger some warning/safety systems over at the bank that might cause them to temporarily block access. This is primarily to keep your account safe, but might take a while to get hold of your bank from another country or time-zone, all while you cannot access your money.

Avoid price discrimination

For your next destination you might want to check if the price for your plane tickets are cheaper when booking in another country. Say what? Price discrimination is a practice in the travel industry where airlines use different pricing policies for consumers in different countries to increase their sales. If you want to read more how this works and to make sure you get the best deal every time: here’s a great article.

I also recommend Student Universe as a source to finding discounted tickets, which I have used many times before when arranging my travels and moving abroad. It’s also good to compare different travel sites when planning your next trip in order to get the best possible deal.

Protecting your (online) privacy

Once you are familiar using a VPN, just like me, you might just leave it on at all times (I leave it on at home too). Simply because I forget about it. It not only keeps my privacy protected when abroad, but also from my ISP and some websites that snoop on my online behavior, even back home.