My husband and I take several road trips every year to visit his family.  Because I am a freelance writer and I usually take my work with me, I usually have to be able to find Wifi on the road.

Here are several approaches we’ve used to get me the Internet connection I need:

1. Free wifi at rest stops.  Not all rest stops are this high tech yet, but more and more are offering free wifi.  The downfall is that these connections are usually painfully slow and rather intermittent.  I only get online using these when I’m really desperate.
2. Free wifi at hotels/motels.  We’ve only done this a few times, since we usually make the drive in one day and stay with hubby’s family.  However, once we stayed in a hotel, and a couple of other times we’ve driven halfway and stayed somewhere overnight, finishing the drive in the morning.  Any time we stay somewhere, we always make sure the hotel or motel offers free wifi.
3. Free wifi at coffee shops and bookstores.  Free wifi can be difficult to find — usually only the small, independent businesses offer this.  Wifi window stickers usually indicate whether a coffee shop or a bookstore offers free wifi.  We’ve found a few favorite places that we tend to frequent, though.
4. One-time or subscription wifi at coffee shops and bookstores.  I really hate paying for something that you can get for free by looking a little harder, but sometimes free wifi is unavailable or just too inconvenient to find.  When we get really desperate, we’ll go anywhere that has wifi stickers.  I usually prefer places that offer one-time usage, rather than making you buy a subscription.

Now that wifi is offered in so many places, traveling and working at the same time is really no problem.  I actually really enjoy the freedom that having a laptop and my own business affords me.

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