Travelling is part and parcel of life. Some people work in sectors that require them to travel outside their country. Some are fond of traveling and jump on the first opportunity to travel abroad. Whatever is the case, it cannot be denied that traveling is an important part of everyone’s life, be it for professional or recreational purposes.
However, traveling should not come in the way of your internet usage. This is an issue many people face.
Why you need a VPN Overseas
Before we explain the advantages of using a VPN, we need to discuss what warrants the need of using them. Here are some issues people routinely face while traveling overseas:
Unsecured Public Networks
When you travel overseas, you cannot control which networks you connect to. You have to make do with what you have. The concern here is not the speed of the connection but the security. When you travel overseas, you either connect to your hotel network or a public Wi-Fi network. Neither of these is secure, not at all. Such networks use little or no security measures. This makes it simple for malicious users to spy on your activity and maybe steal your personal information.
Geo-Restriction
Geo-restriction is selective availability of content and services. This means that the services that you may be using at your home might not be available at the place you are traveling to. For example, people traveling from USA to Chile would not have access to services like Netflix and Pandora. Similarly, other services are also selectively available.
Censorship
Not all countries are liberal when it comes to the internet usage of its citizens. Countries like China employ severe censorship laws and place huge blocks and filters on internet usage within the country. It is quite difficult for someone coming from overseas to use such a restricted internet. Those coming to such countries from liberal countries find it all too cumbersome.
How VPN helps
VPN connects you to the internet through an encrypted tunnel. This means that everything that you do on the internet is hidden from everyone else. All your activity, including your identity, is hidden.
While this is all good for privacy, our readers might be wondering how this can help with some of the issues mentioned above. It is useful when connecting to unsecured networks, but it doesn’t really help overcome censorship and access geo-restricted content.
VPNs offer other services, like IP spoofing, which can enable you to tackle the other obstacles. When you use a VPN, the IP address visible to anyone is that of the VPN server you are connected to.
Wherever that server is located, it would appear that you are using the internet from there. So, even if you are traveling to Russia, you can connect to a UK server to pretend you are in the UK. This can help you access BBC iPlayer and other British-only services. VPNs like Torguard are particularly useful for bypassing censorship and accessing geo-restricted content. This is because it offers stealth servers which help you stay under the radar.
Best VPNs for Traveling Overseas?
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|---|---|---|
| Multi-platform Compatible | ||
| 256-AES Encryption | ||
| PRICE | $5 for 1 month with code "best10VPN" | $6.95 a month |
| Website Rating | 9.9 | 8.8 |
| 24/7 Live Chat | ||
| Residential / Dedicated IP for permanent streaming access | ||
| Has Mobile App + PC / Mac Support | ||
| Stealth VPN / Advanced Obfuscation techniques | ||
| Visit VPN Provider | Visit TorGuard | Visit PIA |
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed how a VPN is a must for people traveling overseas. Whether it is from a safety point of view or accessibility point of view, using a VPN is quite important. This is true even for those who do not travel much. As for frequent travelers, we have highlighted a few reasons why they need to use a VPN.
