If you’re on the road, Wi-Fi hotspots in airports, cafes, hotels, and other liminal spaces are a huge boon. You can chat with family and friends, watch a movie, or stave off boredom with a quick social media doomscroll. Unfortunately, those hotspots are also a boon to crooks. They monitor open Wi-Fi networks, looking for people accessing unencrypted websites or apps, and then scoop up your data for their own purposes. A VPN can help you avoid that kind of unwanted attention while you travel.
You’re probably familiar with what a VPN does, but if not, here’s a quick explanation: A VPN creates an encrypted, private tunnel for your internet traffic, hiding your data from Wi-Fi network monitors. So turn it on and keep it on, especially in places with public Wi-Fi or networks you don’t trust, like those spaces we just mentioned. For more information, read my colleague Justyn Newman’s take on what VPNs can and can’t do. He and I have both tested VPNs for years, and below, I’ll explain how a VPN can protect your data, who needs to invest in one, and which services I recommend for frequent travelers.
Why You Should You a VPN for Travel
If you want to know how useful a VPN is on the road, just ask some travelers. Recently, someone in the r/TravelHacks community on Reddit asked whether it was a good idea to use a VPN while traveling abroad. Commenters replied with all the ways they use a VPN on the road, which range from watching their favorite Netflix shows from their hotel rooms to accessing their online banking portal in their home country. It’s a great discussion, and it inspired me to recommend a couple of VPN services that are particularly well-suited for frequent travelers or digital nomads. I’ve included an example of the commentary below.
A Reddit user’s take on using a VPN while traveling (Credit: Reddit/PCMag)
The commenter in the above image makes a good point: Do you trust your VPN provider with your traffic? You’re routing all of your traffic through a VPN company’s server, so the provider could record or view all of your traffic, including your internet searches and other online activities.
To get an idea of what the VPN company is doing with your information, read its privacy policy and terms of service before signing on. On PCMag, our reviews include an analysis of each company’s privacy documents, so if you want to skip the slog through a provider’s fine print, read our breakdown instead. We’ll tell you whether the VPN provider keeps logs of your internet activities, how it stores those logs and other data (like your device types, amount of bandwidth used, or even information on your web traffic), and whether it sells your information.
We recommend VPNs with no-logs policies that promise to delete customer data when users delete their account, or better yet, each time they log out. The top VPN companies’ privacy policies explain, in basic terms, how much data they share with third parties and how customers can request data deletion. For more, you can read all about how we test VPNs.
In a similar vein, I recommend thinking twice about doing your banking or sending other sensitive information via a VPN connection, since you may not know if the company is watching. The privacy policy should tell you whether they are or not, but even so, some things are sensitive enough to warrant extra consideration.
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Digital nomads are the exception here. They have to pay bills, taxes, and keep government documents up to date. If you are living and working as a digital nomad, you will probably need to invest in a VPN to access the local versions of your bank’s website or your home country’s administrative websites, so make sure you trust your VPN provider. Definitely read their privacy policy, but also make sure the company is well-reviewed by reviewers (like PCMag!), and has been independently audited (VPN providers usually tout this on their website) to confirm they do what they say they do.
The Best VPNs for Travelers
I say that digital nomads should invest in a VPN, but I think everyone should pay for their privacy tools. That’s because if software on the internet is free, your data is often the product for sale. Some free VPNs claim to offer unlimited bandwidth, but they impose monthly data caps or only offer very slow servers. When buying a VPN subscription, look for affordable services that don’t embed ads in the app and don’t ask you to agree to share your bandwidth.
That’s not to say all free VPNs are bad: below, we highlight some great options where the free tier is at least serviceable, but you get much more for your money if you upgrade to a paid subscription. We do recommend VPNs that offer free, non-ad-supported services, and we encourage everyone to take advantage of free trials. At the very least, make sure the VPN you choose has a money-back guarantee.
Recommended by Our Editors
The Best VPNs We’ve Tested
What’s more, people traveling abroad should look for VPN services with servers in the country they’ll be connecting to. For example, if I live in Isla Mujeres and I am traveling to Munich, I’d want to make sure my VPN provider has plenty of servers in Germany and lots of servers that are close to my home in Mexico, too.
(Credit: Proton/PCMag)
One app I recommend for travelers is Editors’ Choice winner Proton VPN. If you’re working while you’re on the road or temporarily living abroad, Proton’s Unlimited ($12.99 monthly) plan lets you access its calendar, email, and storage features, in addition to the VPN. If you only need a VPN to quickly check your email or get your TikTok fix over public Wi-Fi, Proton’s free tier has all of the capabilities you should expect from a VPN, including an ad blocker, kill switch, and split tunneling. In testing the app, we were impressed by Proton VPN’s Stealth feature, which provides extra security to people in countries like Iran and Russia. We also like that Proton uses full disk encryption to store what little customer data it retains, so law enforcement or government officials can’t access it.
(Credit: Hide.me/PCMag)
Another recommendation for frequent travelers is Hide.me. Its free version includes unlimited data, which is a good way to try the service before committing to a monthly subscription. That said, a subscription is affordable too, at $9.95 per month, with discounts for longer subscription terms. Hide.me has servers in 91 locations worldwide, making it optimal for creating fast connections while traveling for work or vacationing abroad. We like the app’s auto-connect feature, which helps you maintain a VPN connection while using public Wi-Fi in high-traffic areas like airports or hotels, where your connection may drop or get interrupted often.
Of course, these aren’t the only VPNs we recommend, so check out our top picks for more of our favorites.
About Kim Key
Senior Security Analyst
