Travel promises to immerse you in new and exhilarating experiences, but there are always a few unexpected challenges. For instance, it’s not uncommon to encounter issues accessing your bank account while abroad, especially when trying to do so from a far-flung part of the world. Buzz killer, anyone?
It could happen. UK banks scrutinise internet transactions from overseas. To protect their customers, banks may flag a login from a different country as a potential fraud or even an attempt to circumvent financial regulations. A VPN can help to reduce this inconvenience for you.
However, banking barriers are only one reason to pack a VPN in your suitcase. Travel VPNs offer other compelling advantages.
What Does a VPN Do?
VPN is short for a Virtual Private Network. It’s a private, secure space (tunnel) for the internet connection between you and the internet. Everything you send gets encrypted before it travels from your device to the network access point. Then, the VPN sends the encrypted data along via secure VPN servers until it reaches its destination, where it gets decrypted.
Encrypted data can be seen as a gobbledygook stream, making it useless to snoopers and hackers. What you send will arrive at the destination unchanged, and vice versa.
Without a VPN, your mobile data provider or ISP can monitor your website visits and search history and even see your messages and emails. A VPN can help to protect login details for online accounts, including the passwords of banking and credit card companies.
Why Do You Need a VPN While Travelling?
There are tens of excellent purposes for a VPN. Let’s highlight why UK travellers should always use a VPN abroad.
Uninterrupted Access to Your Money
Imagine accessing your bank or credit card account from an underground hotel in Coober Pedy, Australia. Your account may get flagged or blocked as some banks restrict access to accounts from foreign IP addresses to prevent fraud.
It could take several stressful days and expensive phone calls to regain access while you wait for money in the dry, dusty Australian Outback.
If you use a VPN for Australia you can get many local advantages, as well as the opportunity to return home virtually whenever you need. Set your location to a UK server before you access your bank account, and there shouldn’t be red flags. You can take care of your finances without interruptions as you enjoy “a coldie with your brekkie”.
Prevent Unsecured Accidental Connections
Data can be expensive overseas. You’ll want to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi at your hotel, cafes, and restaurants. If your phone is set to auto-connect to available networks, it may identify and attempt to connect to dozens of real and fake Wi-Fi hotspots while you’re out and about.
You may soon fall into that old hacker trap. Hackers lounge around tourist areas, setting up fake hotspots to execute Man-In-The-Middle attacks. Your device becomes an open book to them as soon as you connect.
If you shudder at the thought of some random lout examining your bank statements and stealing your social media account logins, we have a solution.
Mitigate the risk by using a VPN with a killswitch. The VPN will protect you from hackers by encrypting the data you exchange on an unsafe Wi-Fi connection. If you use a killswitch, the VPN will not allow any data exchanges without first securing the connection with encryption.
Still, just to be safe, switch off your phone’s auto-connect function to control your digital connections.
Privacy is a Basic Need
Most people naturally desire privacy and security. It’s nobody’s business what you do on the internet. And yet, Big Tech is always following us around with its insatiable drive to find out what we think, eat, drink, buy, do, and where we are. They continuously collect this information from our internet activities to keep shoving advertisements in front of us whenever we go online.
It’s hard to browse the internet without being traced, but a VPN can help. A premium VPN with a tracker blocker will instantly change your IP address and block most trackers that follow you around the internet.
Get a Taste of Home While You Travel
Can you kick your Channel 4 or ITV habit overnight? Do you depend on the BBC1 News Channel? New experiences are good, but sometimes you need a reassuring dose of Home.
Let’s say you are still enjoying the Australian sun.Your Australian IP address would allow you to access local streaming services like Netflix Australia, Stan, or ABC iView—content that might not be available in the UK. However, your Australian IP address may simultaneously prevent you from watching your British favourites.
A VPN bypasses geo-restrictions to give you access to your “home” Netflix, Hulu, Film4, and other familiar online services and streaming platforms.
Avoiding Price Discrimination
Travel-related websites often adjust their prices based on your IP location. Changing your IP address could help you avoid price discrimination and get better travel deals.
Get a VPN before you start travel planning to get fantastic travel deals. An Australian IP address can help you access local deals, get accurate information about the areas you’re interested in visiting, and even snare local air tickets and services at the same rates the locals get.
Discover the price differences by setting your connection to a few different countries and repeating the same keyword search. Then, compare prices and see which IP location offers a better deal.
Put Everything Through Its Paces Before You Go
Before you leave your familiar environment, put all your travel gadgets, wardrobes, suitcases, and digital protection through their paces. Overpacking and underpacking could be annoying but are not too complex or costly to solve. It’s more important to secure your digital privacy and safety before leaving your familiar environment and boarding your plane.
