You Need A Travel Router
A $100 device can make your next trip safer and simpler.
In the last few months, I’ve learned a lot about networking because my friend set up a NAS and I couldn’t resist doing the same. A network attached storage drive doesn’t seem like it would need an education in networking—just plug in the ethernet port and you’re done, right? Sure, if you’re the kind of person who can get something working and then just leave it alone.
I wanted to implement Tailscale on the NAS so that I could access my files from anywhere, and further, use the NAS as a subnet router so that I could access other network devices without having to install Tailscale on them. Don’t know what that means? Neither did I, and while I now have a foggy idea what I’m talking about, I’m far from an expert.
In the process of learning about all of that, I stumbled on a video by Dave’s Garage, which is a really cool YouTube channel created by the engineer who originally built Task Manager.
As a lover of any and all devices, I was intrigued. I’d never heard of a pocket router, and I wanted to know what kind of flimsy excuse I might be able to adopt in order to acquire whatever a pocket router actually is. So I watched it, and I was sold. We were going overseas soon and now I had a new toy to tinker with (and also AdGuard, Tailscale integration, and general network security on unsecured networks).
Why would any normal person want a travel router?
If you don’t want to watch Dave (you should, he’s great), let me summarize quickly why you might want this travel router.
In addition to being able to be a regular router that plugs into an ethernet jack, this little guy can also become a repeater of an existing WiFi network, or it can be connected to your phone and use your mobile data as the connection source for other devices. The diversity alone makes it really flexible and capable when you’re traveling and you don’t know what kind of connection you’re going to encounter from one place to the next.
On top of that, carrying a travel router means that you only have to teach every device one new connection, so no matter where you go, as long as you get the router set up and broadcasting, all of your devices automatically connect to that and stay connected.
Finally, it comes back to security. (It always comes back to security.) Public WiFi networks are often unsecured, which means that your traffic can be logged and intercepted. If you’re traveling, the last thing you want to do is log into your bank’s website or your American Airlines account on an unsecured WiFi network and allow everyone with ill-intent and access to that network to intercept your traffic. By bringing your own router to the party, you shore up that particular security weakness.
My experience with the travel router
The router I picked up was the GL.iNet Beryl AX. (Link to the manufacturer’s website, but it’s also available on Amazon.) It’s a newer version of the router that Dave talks about in the video above. I was most interested in seeing if I could get my router to become a repeater for the WiFi on the plane across the Atlantic, since that would allow me to buy a single access pass for the flight and then pass all of my devices through instead of having to buy passes for every single device (and everyone in my party).
I had read that people had issues with captive portals with this router. You know when you log onto an unsecured network for a stadium or an airport or a hotel and you have to click the box that says you agree to the terms of service? That’s called a captive portal.
Internet providers who charge people for access, like some hotels and all airplanes, have a vested interest in making sure that you don’t connect more devices to the network than you paid for. They use the captive portals not only to get your assent to whatever terms of service they’re setting out, but also to register which devices are accessing the network with your credentials. That way you can’t just get a username and password that’s meant for two devices and connect as many as you have with you with those credentials. They do this by tracking MAC addresses, which are unique hardware identifiers that each one of your devices has.
What you want to do is make sure you buy access and connect to the captive portal using the router, so all traffic you send through the router to the network will look like it’s coming from the one single device with one single MAC address. But if the router has trouble with the captive portal, the whole ship is sunk.
When we got in the air for the transatlantic trip, I was nervous that my router purchase would be in vain. I felt cautiously optimistic when I logged into the admin, got into the captive portal, and saw the UI stylings of a pre-iOS 7 redesign mobile webpage. Most of the time, when you run into captive portal issues, it’s going to be because of new, advanced security measures, so if the page looks like it came out of 2010, chances are good that we’re going to be okay. And we were! I paid, got connected, and never had an issue the whole flight.
For all of the planes, trains and hotels we spent time in on the trip, I only ever had issues getting or keeping a connection once. Every other time, I was able to use the device as a repeater or plug it into the wall to get a connection.
Why I am head over heels for the Beryl AX
The router paid for itself in device connection fees before we even landed on the continent, which is great, but it was surely not worth the valuable storage space in my carry-on for that alone. This is where the really fun features of the router come in. (File that under sentences I never expected to type.)
This router runs an operating system that has some extremely handy tools built right in. The best feature hands-down is an AdGuard Home app preconfigured and loaded on there that blocks ads and trackers for all of the internet traffic that goes across it. It does that using lists of known ad and tracking sites, and when a website tries to call content from one of those sites, the router gives the website bad directions to try and get to the content and it never loads. (AdGuard Home acts as the DNS server.) There’s no additional configuration on the devices connected to the network. It’s as simple as it gets.
I don’t mind non-intrusive ads in an abstract sense. The internet runs on ads, and I like the internet, actually. What I don’t like is how much information about my browsing and my device gets phoned home to those ad servers, and what the aggregation of that data means for my privacy. I want to write a longer piece about this in the future, but when your phone, computer, or television shows you an ad, it’s probably sending some data back to the ad server that contains information about your location, your device, your network connection, and anything else it can get out of you. It doesn’t have your name attached to it, but it can have just about everything else in there.
I want to make sure you’re seeing this next part, so I’m going to make it big and bold:
By collecting the data sent back by those ads over any significant amount of time, ad networks can track your habits, your movements, and your interpersonal interactions on a granular level. All of that data is for sale.
And the US government buys it.
If you want to do some reading on your own about this, there’s a great book out called Means of Control by Byron Tau. (Link to Bookshop.org) If you need a little more to go on before you pull the trigger, read this excerpt on Wired. If you want to read the book and can’t afford it, I am happy to lend my copy to anyone who’s interested.
Having learned about how targeted and granular the data is very recently—and who the prospective buyers are—I’ve been hyper-focused on making sure my ad blockers are as buttoned-up as they possibly can be. So the native AdGuard implementation on the router level was a very welcome feature.
Additionally, the service I use to connect to my home network while I’m not physically there is called Tailscale, and this router has that pre-installed, which makes configuration a breeze. I appreciated that because I am still fighting my Tailscale setup on the NAS to this day and I spent most of the flight over there completely borking the whole Tailscale network and then trying to fix it. So any time I can get a simple setup, I’m a happy camper.
It’s called a travel router, but that doesn’t mean you need to go out-of-state to get use out of it.
Public WiFi networks exist all around us, and even password-protected networks that we don’t own carry some risks. I used my router again this morning when I went to go work from a coffee shop. The network was protected, but using the travel router let me use AdGuard, and as soon as I had it up and running, all of my devices auto-connected.
You don’t even need to plug the Beryl AX into the wall. It draws 3W and can go for a long time powered just by a battery bank. That kind of portability makes it easy to justify throwing it in your bag in the morning because it’s not going to be a pain to set up if you end up using it.
Suffice it to say, I’m thrilled with this purchase. I went from never having heard of a travel router to being a strong proponent of it within about a month. I was able to make sure my family stayed connected and secure on our trip, and that gave us all peace of mind.
Let me know if you’ve ever used a travel router before or if you’re interested in trying one now.
Tailscale looks to be the business. I’ve just installed it on my iPhone and IPad Mini 6. So far, seamless.