Summary
- JourneyGo latches onto the strongest carrier nearby so you stay online in remote areas.
- It has a 16-hour battery, built-in powerbank, and support for up to 10 devices.
- Prepaid plans from $20 let you buy hours or weeks of data; unlimited starts at $130.
In the United States, many workers still don’t clock in to a brick and mortar office space. In fact, nearly 35% of employees now do some or all of their work at home. I am in that group, and as someone who travels the country for work, I’m often reminded that some places are not as developed as others, especially from a cellular connectivity perspective. Small towns across the country are trying to remedy this problem, and it’s working, but it’s going to take time.
So, how do we stay connected in the meantime? Sure, our phones have Wi-Fi hot spots built into them, but those are entirely dependent on the cellular service our provider has in a certain area. For instance, when I go to cover a football game this Friday night, I’ll be driving around 30 minutes deeper into the West Texas plains. In this particular area, T-Mobile has wonderful service, but my AT&T plan doesn’t even have 5G in this area, and if it does, it’s spotty at best. Enter, my new favorite travel companion, the Travlfi JourneyGo hotspot.
How is this better than a phone
Your phone’s mobile hot spot isn’t this friendly
The issue with phone-based internet hot spots is that they actually pull from the cellular service in the area. If you’ve ever been to an area where you don’t have a great signal and found that your iPhone’s hot spot was about as useless as a one-dollar coin, you’ve experienced the downside to this before. The reason for this is that your phone will only pull data from towers that the cellular provider allows it to, like AT&T or T-Mobile.
Do not use the Travlfi JourneyGo while driving. In this photograph, my partner was streaming on her own device in the passenger seat, and we were parked in our driveway for the photo.
That’s where this handy hot spot comes in. The JourneyGo can connect to several different cell towers in the area. In fact, once you power it up, it will take a moment to check all the surrounding signals that it can reach, decipher which one is the strongest, and then latch on. The entire startup process takes around 20 seconds, and it hasn’t failed me once.
Just hold the power button down, and the light strip on top of the hot spot will illuminate back and forth while it searches for signal. Once the entire strip lights up, all that you have to do is enter your own password, which can be found on the back of the device, and you’re free to browse at your leisure.
The pricing system is user-friendly
You might think this kind of usability is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be
The current price to snag a JourneyGo hot spot is $160 for the hardware, and that’s admittedly a bit steep considering an additional monthly fee is required to actually let the hot spot access towers. However, much like paying a month-to-month rent, Travlfi doesn’t break customers’ backs with repeated billing if they don’t wish to. Customers can opt for pre-paid data plans that allow them to easily access the internet no matter where they are, and only pay per monthly usage.
The JourneyGo is like having the power of five cell phones, all connected to different providers, on one device, and it’s incredibly handy for certain situations.
For instance, if I have a trip coming up that I know is going to take me to a remote area for work, I can pay just $30 before I leave for the trip to have 50 hours of internet browsing at high speeds. Even if I was on the internet for my full work week, that would cover my entire 40-hour shift, and then some extra if I wanted to do something like stream a movie or two afterward. The JourneyGo is like having the power of five cell phones, all connected to different providers, on one device, and it’s incredibly handy for certain situations.
Pick the best plan for you
Not everyone needs to spend money on the unlimited plan
I’m just going to rip the bandaid off — the top-tier plan that Travlfi offers starts at $130. That’s a steep chunk of change for someone who may not even need this in the first place. After all, if you’ve never been to the area you’re traveling to before, how do you know that you won’t have service? Sure, it’s better to be safe than sorry, but you might be more sorry if you wasted $130, depending on your situation.
The Unlimited plan might be best fit for international travelers and business people, but thankfully, Travlfi’s other plans are a bit more catered to the masses. The full breakdown of each plan is:
|
2GB Plan — $20 |
|
|
10GB Plan — $30 |
|
|
50GB Plan — $70 |
|
|
Unlimited Plan — $130 |
|
Who I would recommend the JourneyGo for
Not everyone needs every piece of tech, but this helps plenty of professionals
It’s not my job to sit here and convince you to buy a product. If you’ve read any of my reviews before, you’ll know that I simply tell what worked for me and how I used it, and try and think of who else this gadget might help. In this case, the JourneyGo can help more than one type of person, and that’s the mark of many a good product. After using the JourneyGo, it rarely ever leaves my go-bag for work, as I’m never quite certain if I’ll have internet access in some places or not.
Therefore, I could see this being especially useful for someone, say, in the oil and gas industry, who has to travel to remote areas more times than not to get to job sites. I could also see this being advantageous for those who want to live a bit more freely, and hold down a full-time remote position. I could also see this being handy for the family who needs to stay entertained on a long road trip.
There are plenty of uses for the JourneyGo, and its ability to connect to multiple service providers makes it a top choice in the space. You can’t find that kind of versatility just anywhere, so I’m happy to pay a bit more for the peace of mind knowing that I can be connected and readily available wherever I go.
