This is a story of travel tech problem solving. I held back from telling you about this last week because I wanted to see if it worked. And guess what, it does.
My boyfriend and I were going to be staying in European hotels for 2.5 weeks including Lithuania, France and Holland. Since both of us do our work via the internet, there was no way we wanted to fight over the DSL. And the way some hotels are, we didn’t want to pay double for two different connections, either. So, I went looking for a device that would allow us to share one internet source, within the confines of one room. We preferred WiFi so we could spread out, but we also would’ve been fine with long cables and extension cords.
Here’s what I bought:
NETGEAR Wireless Travel Router
It’s is an amazing, light weight, easy to set up device that did exactly what we wanted. It takes the internet source, and turns it into a WiFi hot spot. He can sit at the desk, I can lounge on the bed—both of us on our own individual laptops—happy as clams. (FYI he has a PC and I have a Mac) What’s the best part? It was ONLY fifty bucks at Frys. Now, there’s no fighting over who gets to use the cable line, and we save money going to internet cafes, except of course, when you want to get out of the room and explore your surroundings. Anyway, this is a real find and a must have for anyone traveling in pairs or in a group. Check it out— I won’t leave home without it! (and they can quote me on that!)
I’ve also heard that an AirPort Express Base Station with AirTunes works as well, but it costs twice as much.
Jen,
I’m currently traveling with an Airport Express, and I agree, having a wireless access point is the only way to travel. It’s very liberating to be able to work in more than one location in a room, even if the room is very small.
I went with the Airport Express because the NetGear didn’t explicitly state that it was compatible with Mac OSX. And while I figured it would work, I: 1) didn’t have time to deal with a return if it didn’t; and 2) didn’t want to be out of the country only to find out that I was unable to change some crucial configuration setting on my new toy using my Mac. The ability to connect my speakers up to the AE has turned out to be a nice bonus feature.
If you’re considering portable speakers for your trip, I recommend Creative’s TravelSound 500. Nice sound & loud enough for a hotel room, all in a reasonably portable package powered off of your laptop’s USB port, so no extra power adapter. They’ve worked well for both listening to music and watching movies. MUCH better sound than my iBook’s built-in speakers.
Michael, thank you for your helpful comment. We appreciate your travel tech tips!