As part of my iterative approach to most things, with every trip I take, I try to improve something. Over the years I’ve went from a cramped duffel bag to a
higher end backpack meant for travel. I’ve slowly moved to having dedicated
“travel” items, instead of just packing a bunch of crap that I need for the trip. As of our last trip, I’ve adding some new pieces of technology to my “travel stack”.
One of the items I’ve procured, was a little travel router. The GL.iNet GL-SFT1200 (Opal) Secure Travel WiFi Router – AC1200 Dual Band Gigabit Ethernet
Wireless Internet Router to be exact.
Don’t get me wrong, Wi-Fi tends to be at the ready at most places I stay, both
hotels as well as Airbnbs. Aside from being able to control the security around
my devices while away, having a travel router makes things, as my wife put it, convenient.
Convenience is definitely a major selling feature of having a travel router. I
configured it to match our home Wi-Fi SSID and password (we have an eero mesh network), which may not seem like a big deal, but with a family of three,
all with multiple devices, it was an amazing experience.
After hooking up the travel router to the place’s existing router, all of our devices connected. Sure there was some brief initial setup, but after that, it
was a zero config scenario for me and my family.
Don’t get me wrong, if I was traveling alone, I’m not sure how useful a travel
router would really be, but with a family, it’s great. I’d even say that it’s my favorite tech purchase of 2023… thus far at least.
Even though I’m not sure how useful it would be just for me, since part of my travel iterations includes having more dedicated, and more importantly, pre-packed items, there’s a solid chance a little travel router will always be in my bag.
