5 ways to connect to the internet while on holiday abroad

As I mentioned in an earlier post I recently went on holiday abroad to the small Greek island of Kos. Since beside being a blogger I am also a stock investor I pretty much require to occasionally connect to the internet to check my emails and stocks. Even on a small foreign island there are several internet connection options, but some are more impractical or expensive than others. Here is a review of the possibilities you will be presented with when trying to connect to the internet from abroad.

Wifi connection in the hotel room

Some foreign hotels now offer the option of a wifi connection in your own room against some "per day" payment. This is the easiest option if you have a laptop or netbook: you can surf the internet in the privacy of your own room and on your own computer. additionally you do not have to move your computer, which can be significant advantage if you have a traditional 15 or 17 inch laptop instead of a netbook. The downside is that unless your hotel also has a conference center or is very modern that option is unlikely to be available.

Internet cafe in the hotel lobby

Most hotels that do not have wifi available do have a few computers in the lobby (or in a small room on the side) that you can rent. There are several disadvantages to this mode of internet connection: first it is usually expensive (in my case more than $5 an hour), then the computers don't look very well maintained, so the risk of viruses keyloggers is high, the browser software may be in a foreign language and finally privacy is not very good if the computers are in the hotel lobby.

Independent internet cafe

In a touristic place where internet connections in the hotels are not common you are likely to find independent internet cafes around the hotels. These have two major advantages over computers found in the hotel lobby: the price (less than $3 an hour in my case) and the state of the computer. Even abroad most internet cafe owners are somewhat knowledgeable and will keep their machines free of viruses and other nastiness. Privacy and foreign language software can still be problems though.

Bar with a free Wifi connection

These will require you to look around a bit, but some bars do offer access to a free Wifi connection to their customers. If you have a netbook or iPhone this is a great solution as this is essentially free (as long as you were going to purchase a drink anyway) and since you use your own equipment the risk of keyloggers is non-existent. The only problem is that it can get clumsy if you have a full size notebook rather than a netbook, as the tables are sometimes quite small.

Using your 3G connection abroad

Most foreign countries now have some 3G network that can support a mobile data connection and most operators will offer mobile data roaming when they customers are on holiday abroad. This is however a very bad solution because of one main factor: cost! In Kos for example the data roaming cost for me is $4 per MEGAbyte. This means that anything beside checking subject lines in you webmail or the overview of your stock portfolio can quickly become VERY expensive, so this connection method has to be kept for emergencies only!