In short: Traveling multiplies your exposure. In a single day you might use airport, lounge, hotel and café networks — none of which you control — while tired, rushed and logging into everything from banking to boarding passes. The fixes are simple and mostly one-time settings, but they matter more on the road than anywhere else.
Why travel is the risky case
At home you use one network you trust. Traveling, you hop between many you don't, often reconnecting automatically to generic names like "Hotel-Guest" that an attacker can trivially imitate. You are also more likely to accept a captive-portal prompt without reading it, and to use a device that has been out of your sight.
Before you leave
Update your devices and apps, so you travel on patched software. Turn on a VPN with auto-connect for untrusted networks. Switch off auto-join for open Wi-Fi. Confirm two-factor is enabled on your email, bank and any account tied to travel — and carry a backup method, since SMS codes are unreliable abroad. Where your phone supports it, an eSIM data plan lets you skip sketchy Wi-Fi entirely for sensitive tasks.
On the road
Keep the VPN connected whenever you are on Wi-Fi you don't own — this is the situation it is built for, encrypting your traffic so the hotel network, and anyone else on it, sees only an opaque tunnel. Be sceptical of any Wi-Fi login page that wants more than a room number, and of "update required" pop-ups. For payments and banking, prefer mobile data or the VPN over open Wi-Fi. If a network blocks the services you rely on, connecting through a server in another region restores normal access.
Region-locked and blocked services
Beyond safety, travelers hit walls: a banking app that refuses foreign IPs, streaming that geo-blocks, or a censored local network. Connecting to a server back home makes services behave as if you never left, and routes you around a restrictive network. Choosing a nearby, fast server keeps the connection quick — see our server locations for what's available.
After you're back
Forget the networks you joined so your phone stops advertising them. Review recent logins on important accounts. If you used a shared or hotel computer for anything, change those passwords. A few minutes of cleanup closes the door behind you.