These days, everyone travels with two or more internet-connected devices (e.g., your laptop and your phone), but many hotels still require you to pay exorbitant daily charges for each connection. Luckily, you can rectify this injustice by using your laptop as a turnkey wireless access point.


I've been traveling a lot recently, and I quickly got sick of paying an extra $15 per day to get my iPad or phone online. Luckily, as long as your room comes with an ethernet port, you should be able to use your laptop's wireless card to beam, rather than receive, an internet signal. This trick works like a charm, is incredibly simple to set up, and even saved me a few hundred dollars over the course of a few trips. To get you started, we've previously covered how to use your laptop as a wireless hotspot on Windows and OS X.

To get up and running, plug your laptop into the hotel-provided ethernet port and follow whatever steps your hotel requires to get online. Then follow the above-linked instructions to set up internet sharing, and don't forget to create a WPA key. In no time, you'll have a private Wi-Fi hotspot for all of your phones, tablets, and family members' laptops, all for the price of one connection.


Photo by Sercasey