Regardless of where you have planned your next trip, your laptop will come with you. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a business trip, a weekend city tour or a long vacation overseas.
You might need your laptop around as you need to prepare to fix things that go wrong on a website or servers the website is running on. But for that, you might need to prepare it.
In this article, we have gathered a few ideas on how to better prepare your laptop for an overseas trip.
Purchase a Universal Adapter
The chances are that when you’re travelling abroad, the power sockets may not be the same one, like those from home. So, make sure you get a decent universal adapter from a trustworthy brand. An added advantage will be if it has some sort of surge protection as well. This might be a great investment as some countries in Asia have electricity that can constantly fluctuate. And without a surge protector, you are very likely to compromise your laptop,
Buying one won’t cause you a hole in the budget as you can find a lot of inexpensive and reliable universal adapters, and surge protectors on sites like Amazon.
Use a VPN
VPNs or Virtual Private Networks have been around for a while now, and while they might have previously been seen by travellers as nice things to have, today they’re the most effective internet security tool and decisively on the “must pack” list.
What is a VPN? Typically, when you connect to the internet, you first connect to your ISP (internet service provider) which connects you to the webpage.
All of your online activity goes through your ISP servers and anyone using the same ISP which could be thousands of people if you’re connected to a restaurant, café or airport. A VPN encrypts your traffic before it reaches your ISP, meaning that only your VPN server can see it. You’re able browse the internet anonymously, by using a secure network.
Make sure everything is password protected
In case you don’t already have a password set on your laptop, then now might be a good time to set one. It’s not that unusual for valuables like smartphones, laptops and tablets to get stolen in airports.
And even if they aren’t stolen, the airline companies may sometimes lose your baggage as well.
To avoid all the nuisance of having your data stolen, encrypt everything on your device, starting from setting a steady password on your account. Avoid making something too easy to guess either like your birthday or 1234. The more challenging and difficult your password will be, the harder it is for cybercriminals to steal your staff.
Remove all Highly Sensitive Data from Your Laptop
What would you do if someone were to sneak your laptop and access your sensitive data such as bank account passwords? Certainly, it would be smarter if you didn’t have that information stored on your device in the first place, at least until you go on a trip.
Gaining access to the data on someone’s machine isn’t that difficult anymore. Hackers could simply take out the hard drive of your laptop and gain access to valuable data stored in it. That said, as long as you plan on travelling with your laptop, make sure you remove such valuable information and keep it backed up somewhere safe.