Computers Voyage Tips and guide

A computer can be useful for leisure travellers, and indispensable for business travellers and digital nomads. There are specific articles for Internet access and Internet telephony.

As of the 2020s, a smartphone has apps for most daily needs; see also Smartphone apps for travellers. Accessing maps and tickets on your smartphone is much easier than getting to a computer to see them. In some cases the smartphone apps are even better than the computer options.

A tablet computer is lighter and cheaper than a laptop, but is less versatile. These mainly run the same apps as a phone but they are generally easier to use because the screen is larger and it is often easy to add an external keyboard and mouse.

A netbook computer is another option lighter and cheaper but less versatile than a laptop. They are quite adequate for web browsing, blogging, office applications and connecting to remote servers, but usually not for demanding applications such as software development or intensive gaming. Most do not run Microsoft Windows; this is a problem for some users, but others see it as a major advantage.

A laptop computer is both portable and useful, but can be the most expensive option.

A desktop computer is prohibitively bulky and easily damaged in transport, but might be an option in a vacation home, or on extended stays, such as for an exchange student or working abroad. You may also be able to access one at libraries, university campuses, internet cafés and similar locations.

Buying a computer at the destination might be an alternative to transporting one from home, but there are issues. Keyboards may differ from what you'd want for your language: the key labels are one thing, but if some keys are missing, the workarounds may be clumsy. It may also be a hassle to get language settings and the like to be what you are used to, unless you use your own installation media. If you intend to bring it back home, check that there aren't issues with regional coding, that input voltage etc. are compatible – and warranties and returns.

Buying external equipment on site, such as a keyboard and a mouse, is also an option. They can be cheap enough to discard or donate before returning home. On the other hand, you might want to bring your own keyboard, as it is reasonably easy to carry, to get the keyboard layout and keycaps you are used to.

If you do buy a computer abroad, look into possible tax refunds for tourists on high-value purchases; these may be available in popular shopping destinations such as Thailand. However, check the details of the tax refund requirements: this may only be possible for a device you take out of the country with you, and in some cases it's only possible if you don't use the computer before leaving the country (which probably isn't an issue if you buy it in an intermediate destination).

Laptop computers can be rented in some locations. For a rented laptop, you should try to clone the hard drive using an application such as Clonezilla and restore the drive to its original state when returning it, since it may be difficult to remove all of your personal info without clearing all the drive. If you will access confidential info, check on caveats with a security professional – there are many ways in which some info may remain.

One option is to only liveboot the rented computer. Livebooting involves running an operating system from an external USB thumb drive or similar. This ensures no changes are made to the local hard disk (unless you enable its use), but the performance of the computer will be hampered by the larger memory footprint and possibly slower disk access.

Computers are readily available in many internet cafés and public libraries. You are unlikely to be allowed to install your own software, and you may be restricted to a web browser. There are Java applications intended for this situation: if allowed to be run, they can provide SSH or remote desktop access to a server you have access to.

Some hotels have a "business centre" with computers and printing facilities.

If you have access to university or college facilities, there are often computer labs with a better assortment of software. You may want to learn to use programs commonly available on Linux, Mac and Windows beforehand, the ones you are used to may not be installed – and also here installing your own software may not be allowed even if you aren't just a guest. If the computers have SSH, X11 and a fast connection (or another setup providing similar functionality), then you can use a remote desktop from your server, with its software available. Also Windows has remote desktop software, but the licences of most Windows software make its use awkward.

If you rent office space, then it should be possible to arrange access also to a full-fledged desktop computer with large screens and permission to install your own software. What you want may of course affect what you have to pay.

Printers and scanners are usually available at all these sites. While printing usually isn't free, scanning usually is. Printing may be available also at your hotel, commercial print shops and some office supply stores. You don't want to carry a lot of paper anyway, so your actual need of printing is probably very limited. Send PDFs by e-mail instead of prints by snail mail.

Libraries give access to a lot of interesting material. University libraries may give access also to academic journals and a lot of other stuff that normally is behind a paywall. University facilities may also be an option. While university computer labs usually are for local students only, many university libraries are available to the public.

If you will be plugged into a power outlet most of the time while working, you don't need to worry much about power consumption (although the generated heat may be an issue indoors in hot climates). If, on the other hand, you are going to work on battery, you might want to minimise power consumption. Laptop computers all have settings for power optimisation. Check that they are in use and optimised for your needs. To extend battery life, reduce the brightness of the screen.

The screen, CPU and GPU are the most power-hungry computer components. Laptops have power-efficient versions of these, but if you want a large screen, a powerful CPU and fast graphics, some of this efficiency needs to be sacrificed. Don't buy a gaming computer and, if you can, check what level of 3D performance you need.

For screen size, you want enough that you can work efficiently. Try doing serious work for a few days with the setup you intend to use – don't just assume you can manage with a smaller screen than usual. On the other hand, don't buy a larger screen than you need. There are also differences in power consumption between technologies. For working in bright sunlight, some screens can handle that power-efficiently, while some don't handle it at all.

There are some tricks to manage with a smaller screen. You can use virtual desktops, which allow switching from one set of windows to another; that way you don't need screen space for windows you aren't using at the moment. Get rid of any toolbars you don't use; they can easily be turned back on as needed (learn how). If you cannot manage with the smallest possible font sizes, then a (new) pair of glasses might help.

If you need a large screen, then you might want to consider an ultraportable laptop (or suitable smartphone) for work where you don't need that screen. You may also want to be able to plug in a larger screen when one is available. Check that your laptop can support dual monitors, and carry adapters as needed.

For computer-themed tourism, see hacker tourism and mathematics tourism. For working via the net while travelling see digital nomad.

Risk factors for computers include theft, damage from shocks or liquids, malware, and trouble with authorities. Apple laptops are more likely to be a target for theft in some places.

• Laptop lock. Most laptops come with a slot to attach a cable that locks the machine to a piece of furniture. These are a fine idea for nearly any traveller and more-or-less essential for a digital nomad. They are by no means foolproof, but they will prevent an opportunist from making off with the machine when you are not paying attention.  

If you carry sensitive data and perhaps otherwise, it is worth paying attention to USB security. Disable the boot-from-USB feature so no-one can attack directly that way, and consider putting a password on your BIOS to make it more difficult for an attacker to alter the boot sequence. Also disable the "feature" that makes the machine automatically execute a program (which could be malware) on a newly inserted memory stick and don't allow the stick to define what applications to use for opening files (or never just double-click a file). Consider disabling the feature of taking USB keyboards into use on attaching them, as some malware makes USB sticks pose as keyboards, writing commands to the computer. Some USB controllers are reprogrammable through the USB interface with no authority checks, which means that any USB stick or other USB device that has been used with an untrusted computer might be compromised, unless you know it is immune. For charging, there are "USB condoms" that disable connectors other than those for power.

If you need to delete sensitive information from your device, you should make sure it is truly deleted, not only deleted from your view – which is difficult. Ideally all storage on the device is encrypted, so that there are no cleartext temporary copies or remnants of files anywhere, and all the deletion really has to do is to destroy the key data necessary for decryption. Unencrypted devices usually have lots of such leftovers, and many programs designed to wipe the device do not take care of all of them.

• DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke). This is a widely used free and open source disk cleaning program for x86-based (Intel or AMD) computers. It is generally booted from a USB stick and can securely erase any or all other drives on a system.  

Flash-based storage, such as most memory cards, flash drives and SSD disks, have a special problem: the internal microcontroller chooses when to delete a block of storage independently of any instructions to do so from the operating system of your device. You should consult a specialist.

If you store something valuable (work, travel diary, photos) on your computer, you should have a reliable backup scheme, and for important data many IT professionals prefer to have at least two backups with at least one in an off-site location so that the data will survive even if some catastrophe wipes out the computer and everything nearby, or somebody gets access to your online devices by a stolen password. The commonest choices for local backups are a USB stick or an external drive with a USB interface. Keep it somewhere other than the laptop bag so one disaster is not likely to destroy both data and backup.

Some data can be backed up by uploading it somewhere. If you are working for an employer, arrange to put your work on their servers. You could also register with any of the companies that offer backup services in their "cloud" to consumers. Otherwise computer code can go on Github or Sourceforge, photos on Photo.net or Flickr, and so on; the free versions of these sites will make all your uploads public, but several of them also offer services that keep the data private, for a fee. Wikimedia Commons takes all sorts of media, but only material that might be of educational use and has a license permitting reuse, and any uploads are public.

If you have sensitive data, consider whether you should encrypt it before copying it to a USB device or to a backup server. Make sure you can recover your encrypted data – keys stored on your laptop will be lost in many scenarios, and if you forget the password for your keys you may likewise be out of luck.

Most serious backup tools take a complete backup regularly, perhaps monthly, and a backup on changed files daily or so. That way you don't waste resources on too frequent complete backups, but still have access to the latest versions of most files. If your daily backups get large, try to find culprits such as caches and temporary files. If you need your backups because of a file that got corrupt or deleted by mistake at some point, your last backup may not be the one you need, so don't get rid of the old backups too soon. This is especially important if you get malware that keeps a low profile – infecting files and installing backdoors in the background – for some time before you find it or it requests ransom.

Some people don't like Big Brother watching them, or have acquaintances whom Big Brother is after, some have employer or customer secrets to guard. Whatever the reasons you need to watch out, that's difficult in the digital age. For serious needs, you need detailed guidance from a good professional, but the EFF page on Surveillance Self-Defense covers the basics, and we list some issues to be aware of below.

The first protection is the standard advice: keep your devices updated, install software from trusted sources only and don't click on links you don't trust. The latter two are challenging while travelling: you may need that public transport app and you have no idea what the standard URL:s look like over here. Preferably do as much research and downloading as you can in advance, where you have familiar tools, working internet connections and knowledgeable acquaintances easily available.

Your OS provider and your mobile phone's app shop should have at least some guardrails to avoid trojan horses, given that you follow best practices. However, if you need software not available through them, or which gives you red flags, you cannot do much but check twice that what you are going to download is what everybody uses. For places like China, the governmental Big Brother is probably watching you through those apps, for much of the world, the Big Brother of Meta & co gather even more info. You can always hope that your private info won't leak into "wrong" hands, but there are many ways it could leak.

Borders of some countries, including some transfer airports, are a special risk: the border authorities may want to check your devices for porn or propaganda, at the same time checking that you don't have suspicious thoughts. In some places, such as the U.S.A., you may be asked to give away any social media identities and the passwords to your devices, to check that you aren't likely going to murder the President.

The standard advice is that you shouldn't lie to border authorities – you risk being denied entry now and in the future – but you have to weight that towards your privacy and your confidentiality duties. If you don't get caught, a white lie may not be too bad. Avoid having to lie grossly or to have that small lie lead into a swamp of lies. Have new devices ("burner devices") with not much on them: you bought new ones to avoid carrying the big and expensive ones you use at home, or finally upgraded before your voyage. Your new devices should not be completely empty; you can include some info you don't need to hide: the phone numbers of your spouse and some colleague or friend, some travel bookings, the throw-away account you created for your travel, etc. If you are not a well-known person and you are travelling as tourist, border officials will probably not put too much effort in finding your secrets, and most should respect business secrets and your not allowing third-party access to your employer's computers.

Especially if you are travelling for work, you may need a lot more on your devices, but that can be downloaded trough an end-to-end encrypted connection (such as SSH or VPN), to which you authenticate using a key or password hidden away during the border control (possibly in plain sight, using documents you carry anyway). Of course, you may need to pass the border on your way out, but there are usually fewer controls then. If not, or if you are handling sensitive data in several problematic countries, you may try to empty your devices before passing the border. To do that completely is difficult, so talk to an expert. The main point is that "deleting" mostly just hide content from the view of most of your programs – it is still there, visible with specialised software. SSD memories, used everywhere nowadays, have the additional quirk that not even the operating system has control of what actually gets overwritten, as that is handled by the integrated controller. One way to handle the problem is not to save anything on the device itself, but to work directly towards the cloud (possibly your own or your employer's server) and boot from read-only memory, such as a USB stick (then you must allow booting from USB, but it is possible to allow boot just from that stick).

To protect against your device getting lost or stolen, possibly ending up controlled by criminals who sell your data – passwords to internet sites, cached by your browser; info and documents enabling impersonation attacks; real secrets – most devices allow keeping all content encrypted, so that your password is needed to make sense of it (encrypting just individual files may leave older versions, perhaps ephemeral ones, vulnerable). Just make sure you don't lose your password yourself.

• Border crossing
• Electrical systems
• Regional coding