You might not have “travel router” on your vacation packing list, but after reading this article, you just might. This is why we always pack a router with us when we go to a hotel.
What is a travel router?
A travel router is a small network router designed with an emphasis on portability and field use. While you could theoretically use a travel router as an Internet router in your home, it’s not meant for that.
Instead, travel routers are meant to link together a smaller number of devices clustered together fairly close together. Think, your laptop and phone, your kids’ tablets, and maybe even a streaming stick in a hotel room—not all that stuff plus a bunch of computers, smart devices, and such scattered throughout your home.
They typically have a very small form factor, the size of a portable battery pack or even smaller. Speaking of which, many of them are portable batteries, so you can use them to charge your phone while traveling in addition to their router function.
Further, unlike your router at home, the travel router’s interface elements and even physical switches make it easy to quickly switch between functions such as router mode, hotspot mode, repeater mode, etc. .
This last part is crucial. You want a travel router that can easily connect to the hotel internet in a variety of ways and reliably. In some hotels, you can plug the travel router directly into a courtesy Ethernet connection in your room, which is easy.
In other hotels, there is no physical internet connection and you have to connect the travel router to the hotel Wi-Fi and use it in hotspot mode, where it catches the Wi-Fi connection and then all your local devices connect to travel router instead of the hotel’s Wi-Fi system.
Why use a travel router in a hotel?
You might be thinking, “Well, this is all very fascinating, but I don’t know why I would go to the trouble?” And that’s definitely a fair question to keep in mind if you’ve never thought about packing a router (no matter how small it may be) along with your toilet and phone charger.
Historically, one of the best reasons to pack a travel router was that many hotels didn’t have Wi-Fi (they only had an Ethernet port in the room for business travelers to plug in their laptops).
Later, when hotels started getting Wi-Fi, they had frustrating policies such as only one or two devices per guest/room being allowed on the network. Even today, some hotel Wi-Fi systems still have such rules.
When using a travel router, you can only “log in” to the travel router in the hotel system, so as far as they are concerned, there is only one device in the room. All traffic of other devices goes through the travel router.
Speaking of device traffic, you can also use the travel router to increase your privacy. Most travel routers support basic VPN protocols like PPTP or L2TP, and more advanced ones support OpenVPN and WireGuard.
This makes it simple to tunnel directly from your room to a third-party VPN or directly to your corporate or home VPN server. It also makes it easy to securely transfer files between your devices, as the file transfer is happening over the micro network you’ve set up and the files never pass through the hotel’s infrastructure in any way.
It also makes it much easier to use your devices in the way you’re used to. For example, you can set your travel router’s Wi-Fi credentials to match your home network’s Wi-Fi credentials. Not only does this make it simple to sign in when you get to your hotel (since your phone and laptop already know the way “home”), but you can even throw your favorite Chromecast or streaming stick in your bag and use it in your hotel room. Forget the “smart” TV interface nonsense that hotels have, enjoy your streaming services the way you want without lag.
Which travel router should you get?
Above all, when you’re shopping for a travel router (whether you choose one of our suggestions or create your own to do some research), you need this feature: the captive portal link.
You know how when you first connect to a hotel’s Wi-Fi, there’s usually a pop-up page where you accept the terms and conditions and/or log in with your name and room number? This is the portal. You need a router that “captures” the exchange and mimics your original access device (like your iPhone).
All of our picks below support easy capture portal exchanges, which makes it easy to set up when you first get to your hotel room. Without this feature, you’re left with manually cloning the MAC address of your original access device, which usually works, but can be hit or miss.
One of the most popular options on the market is the TP-Link N300 Nano Router. It’s a steal at around $30, but it’s starting to show its age.
It only supports 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) in the 2.4 GHz band. But for just ten dollars more, you can jump from the Nano N300 router to the TP-Link AC750 Nano Router.
TP-Link TL-WR902AC AC750
It’s small, cheap, and our all-around pick for the best travel router. For most people, it’s the easiest solution.
The upgraded model features dual-band Wi-Fi, 802.11AC (Wi-Fi 5) and a really convenient switch on the side that makes it simple to change modes without entering the router.
While we love the TP-Link Nano line, especially the newer models, and think they’re the best fit for just about everyone, there are a few other options to consider.
If you want more advanced VPN solutions, you’ll need to go beyond TP-Link’s offerings and consider something like the GL.iNet GLMT300N—it’s roughly equivalent to the TP-Link N300 Nano Router, but uses the popular OpenWRT router firmware and supports both OpenVPN and WireGuard.
And if you want a solid upgrade over the TP-Link AC750 Nano Router, consider the GL.iNet GL-A1300.
GL-iNet GL-A1300
For power users who want pass-through connectivity for Ethernet devices and advanced VPN services like WireGuard, this travel router delivers.
It also uses OpenWRT firmware and robust VPN support like its smaller sibling, but includes two additional Ethernet ports, support for many other Wi-Fi devices, and more.
But whichever of our picks you go with, you’ll be the master of your Wi-Fi destiny when you’re on the road. Forget about spotty hotel Wi-Fi or frustrating Wi-Fi rules. Plug in your router and go. And hey, if you’re in an upgrade mood, here are some other travel gear upgrades worth checking out.
