Benefits of Travel Router

Technical Support for Routers
1

I am planning to get a travel router because I will be traveling quite a bit for work. This is the router that I am looking into.

Once I get this router, what are the benefits behind using a travel router as well as this specific model?

  • I know it is used for security and acts as a firewall.
  • I know that I will connect all of my devices to this router and each time I go to a new hotel, I only need to connect the router to their wifi or through ethernet.

That much I do know (Security and Convenience).

  • Will I need to get an additional VPN service like NordVPN, SurfShark, CyberGhost, etc…?
  • What else do people use a travel router as well as this specific model?
2

You don’t need to have an additional VPN service, but it does r:

  1. Give you additional privacy
  2. Allow you to appear to be in a different geographical location for geoblocked services.

For my needs, here’s a post I did somewhere else that may give you some ideas :slight_smile:

1. Home
*I don’t want to VPN my entire network or my family would not be happy. I have a gl.inet travel router between my television/notebook and my main router running a US VPN (that can be turned on and off via a physical switch) so I can get US Netflix
*I have used them as small, cheap, power efficient WiFi extenders to deadspots in the house

2. Travel
*I normally travel with around 3 devices ( phone, tablet, notebook), it’s a pain in the *&se to have to connect all three devices to the free hotel WiFi (as well as a security risk). All three of my devices are attached to the WiFi LAN produced by my travel router. When I reach a hotel I just connect my travel router once to the hotel WiFi and my devices attach to the travel router WiFi without doing anything. Move hotels, just reattach the travel router.
*Because my devices are now on a different subnet, I have some level of protection from the open public WiFi
*For extra protection I can run a VPN on my travel router and all my devices attached are VPNed
*I take a Chromecast with me when I travel. Because there’s no ability to get to a captive portal with a Chromecast which some hotels have, I just attach my Chromecast to my travel router WiFi
*If the hotel restricts the number of devices you can attach to their public WiFi, using the travel router only presents ONE device attached and all the rest of my devices just attach to the travel router.
*I’m overseas and want to use Iview/SBS/Netflix to watch a geoblocked website to get my local content. Turn on my VPN and away I go.
*Extends out point 2. I have my family with me each with at least 2 devices, again I don’t have to do anything to their devices as they just attach to the travel router automatically and once we move hotels again, just attach the travel router and don’t have to do any tech support
*I have a shared USB/Microsd card with movies, music on that everyone can access via the travel router
*Travelling with friends I give them access to the microsd so they can dump their photos onto the shared SD card both for backup and to share pictures

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

2 Likes
3

Your post is great.

For extra protection I can run a VPN on my travel router

Is that the extra service I mentioned like NordVPN or is that a feature built into the router? I am a bit confused because it has a OpenVPN feature on the router. Appreciate if you can clarify.

Allow you to appear to be in a different geographical location for geoblocked services.

I did not understand the point too clearly and maybe you can clarify. Are you saying that I need to use NordVPN for this or the router has a feature that allows me to appear to be in a different geographical location?

Would you get the router listed in my original post or is this one good enough: GL.iNet GL-AR750S

Also, the last point about traveling with friends and storage sharing is great to know.

Thanks

4

There are two “easy” ways to have an VPN to protect yourself:

1.Many people have a VPN server at home and then use their Gl.Inet router as a VPN client to get back to home giving you privacy by encrypting your traffic and also to be able to access devices in their home network while they’re out on the road.
2. Many people use a commercial VPN service like NordVPN to give give them selves privacy by encrypting their traffic. So you are basically connecting to a VPN server hosted by NordVPN. It’s worth mentioning that NordVPN does not supply Wireguard VPN protocol and only OpenVPN protocol. The Wireguard protocol is a much more efficient and lean VPN protocol that results in much better speeds across your VPN connection. If I sign up for a VPN provider I would only choose one that supports Wireguard. The ones Wireguard provider that Gl.Inet supports “out of the box” are: Azire, Mullvad, Torguard, OVPN, We, Strong and Spider. That being said they will support any Wireguard provider that can supply a Wireguard configuration file. Some only support Wireguard via an app.

So number 1 is a little bit more complicated because you need to setup a bit more infrastructure in your own home network.

Once again you need to use a commercial provider to get geographical VPN. So a VPN provider will have servers in many countries. For me in Australia, if I want to get US Netflix, which has more shows than the local one I connect to a VPN server owned by my VPN provider in the US. Similarly if I want to purchase something that’s cheaper in say India like a streaming service subscription , I can connect to a VPN server owned by my VPN provider in Delhi and appear to be “living” in that country.

This is an advantage over using the home based VPN mentioned above

The most popular ones are probably the AR750S and the MT1300. The MT1300 has faster WiFi and gives faster VPN processing however it’s larger and heavier and requires a bit more power (5V/2A vs 5V/3A) if you’re running it off say a powerbank or you notebook. To me, if you’re going to travel and use this in a hotel for a couple of days stay and you’re under no luggage restrictions then the MT1300 is a good fit, however if you’re travelling light and want to use it in Cafe’s or libraries that you come across then the AR750s is probably a better fit.

Hope this helps.

1 Like
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3rd option rent a VPS like digital Ocean and setup a vpn

6

True dat. That doesn’t give any geoblocking bypass does it?

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If the VPS is in the country you want to “access”, then yes it does. And more efficiently than a commercial VPN who are always playing whack-a-mole with the various services blocking their exit servers.

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and why not? if I rent VPS in america and I’m in Europe, would I not get a American IP via vpn?

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Sorry, should have been more specific. Doesn’t give multi country … :slight_smile:

10

again and why not? rent in multiple countries

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Fair call :slight_smile: I use about 4 different countries, and can’t be… maintaining multiple servers. I have a Wireguard home server for my remote access to my internal network and just use a VPN provider to supply my geo places . Different horses, different courses :slight_smile:

12

I would add a couple of things:

  1. For a family traveling, the number of devices can grow exponentially, and it is a real convenience to set up one device.
  2. Specifically for phones when the travel router is active they will connect via wifi and not use cellular data.
  3. You can introduce other features, like sqm and adblocking.
  4. I’m of two minds about VPN. Often I just use it on a device rather than the router, but as has been pointed out, sometimes you can do with the router what you can’t do directly with the device.
  5. I’d put in a vote for a Mango. Sure it is limited in throughput and single band, but it is nothing to pack and takes almost nothing to power.
  6. I’m using VPN Unlimited as a VPN, which has both wireguard and Openvpn, and sites in US, Europe and Australia, sufficient for my needs. I think I picked up a lifetime for something like $75.
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And the most important one, some of your devices might not have the ability to pass the captive portal

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14

Really appreciate all of the info gentlemen and that answered all the questions that I have with VPN. Looks like I have lots of research to do on this, including how to setup a VPN on my home router. I am looking up tutorials on this on Youtube as I am typing this message. I don’t know what WireGuard is but I will look into it. Thanks

If you see any other benefits or maximize from the router that I am planning to buy, please feel free to point out.

One question that is still unanswered is: GL-AR750S vs GL-MT1300

Most likely, I will get the GL-MT1300. It is only $10 more and has all of the features of the GL-AR750S. It also has bluetooth.

Scroll down (on both) for Comparison:

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Here’s how I use my travel router:

  • I have two other GL.iNet routers, one at my home and one at my office, and I maintain a s2s (Goodcloud) network across all three routers so I can connect to all my devices when traveling (essential especially for my work network).
  • I use GL.iNet when flying to connect to in-flight WiFi. That way I: (a) pay for only a single device connection for expensive onboard WiFi :slight_smile: (well, this assumes unlimited data, like on UA); (b) can connect across my devices (typically two laptops and a phone), and (c) still can connect to my home & work networks while in-flight.
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16

Never thought of that. I use my android phone tethered for that but that only gives me two devices. But this is definitely a case where the Mango is a better bet than either Beryl or Slate.

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I use Slate and it works well for me.

Slate on UA.

18

I’d like to add: besides for the basic included applications, this router has a full linux distribution with a ton of packages available to add from the advanced tab.

You can easily add things like ad blocking for all connected devices, bittorrent, media server, etc. It’s basically a little headless computer, and you can add extra storage memory or other devices through micro sd or usb.

also, the wifi range is pretty good. It will most likely capture a signal from much further away than your phone or your laptop or your video game, etc.

If you have xfinity (or other cable internet) at home, you can sign up for xfinitywifi or cablewifi (it’s free with your internet plan) and you can rebroadcast that signal easily and safely to all your devices when you travel, so you can have good wifi (or ethernet hardwire) almost anywhere that is in or near houses or commercial buildings.

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19

If I successfully setup a VPN on my home router in America, will I be able to use NetFlix when I am oversea? How does this work when I stay in a hotel oversea? Can you walk me through the overview, not details? For example, I would use the hotel’s WIFI; VPN into my home router where VPN is setup?

Is the VPN setup on the home router or do I have to setup a server for it? Also, how is the performance? Will it slow down?

20

It should work. I use my home VPN to stream Prime Video, Pandora Music, and other things that are regionally locked when I am out of the country. When you are in a hotel, you connect to the hotel’s wifi, then have the VPN client software connect your home VPN server, using its IP address. I use a DDNS service that gives me a name to use instead of an IP address for my home, so if my home IP address changes, I don’t have to do anything, as the DDNS handles it. You can run the VPN server on your home router if it supports it, or use port-forwarding to a separate system, such as a GL iNet router, to be your home VPN server. A VPN connection will always slow things down, but the biggest issue is most of the time the Hotel WIFI in many places is really slow. Most of the time, I can stream video using my home system VPN to my GL iNet travel router.