HELP! travelling around the UK

fishing-girl

next year my husband is taking early retirement, so we plan to take a year out and travel around the Uk/Ireland.doing lots of fishing etc. we are going to buy a laptop for keeping in touch with family email, web browsing, photos etc . but what is the best way of connecting to the internet ( ive heard of hot spots, dont know what they are).is it better through a mobile phone or are there other ways? we will mostly be camping/B&B so no base for broadband connection.
any help would be much appreciated

rogerramjet

hotspots are accessable wireless networks which you connect to with your wireless enabled laptop.

Most Mc Donaalds have then as do PC World, Train stations etc. Usually you purchase a card which gives you a set amount of minutes and then login with the password it has.

There are other hotspots which you may find, however, these are usually unsecure wireless networks which their owners probably wouldn't even know you were using.

ioscorpio

What about using the local libraries, as they provide free internet access, then no need to buy a laptop

Chillout

If you connect through your mobile phone, you will most likely be using GPRS which can be fairly expensive as it charges you on the amount of data that you download/receive. However if its a contract phone, it may already include a free allowance on GPRS, in which case it is a great idea to take a laptop.

smcicr

for me this question tends to depend on how much data you will be sending / receiving. i'd definitely say GPRS rahter than wi-fi - purely for availability at the moment. also it's possible to add data bundles to existing mobile tariffs so you can connect up via the mobile phone and a laptop.

consider the business tariffs too as often (vodafone for example) anyone can get these tariffs and they can be better suited to that sort of thing - more data oriented. so you could take out a mobile contract with minimal free minutes but large data allowances for your connection usage and keep an existing phone for normal calls.

it may even be worth looking at a specific data card that can be inserted into the laptop (available from most if not all of the main mobile providers) and comes with a data only tariff but this too will depend on the amount of data you will be using - the downside is that while the data charges may work out cheaper, you will have to buy the GPRS card and that can be costly.

Browntoa

http://www.btopenzone.co.uk/

BT Openzone is a convenient, easy-to-use broadband internet access service.
Using wireless technology (Wi-Fi), you can access the internet - with no download limits -
at any of the thousands of access points (hotspots) in an increasing number of places such as cafés, hotels and airports in the UK and abroad.

BT Openzone subscribers* can roam domestically (within the UK and Ireland) and internationally using the Wi-Fi networks of BT Openzone partner operators.

You pay
£6/£10/£40 (inc VAT) to set up your account and subsequently top it up. 1-hour (£6) top-up gives you 60 minutes’ access within a 24 hour period. 24-hour (£10) top-up gives you unlimited minutes within a 24-hour period. 30-day (£40) top-up gives you 4,000 minutes within a 30-day period
Access
mix and match top-up options according to your requirements. Each time you add more credit, access starts from first log-in; you’re then able to log in and out as many times as you like during this period. For example, set up your account with 1 hour’s access, allowing you to log in and out over the next 24 hours. 24 hours from your first log in, your credit will expire and you’ll have the option of adding a further 1-hour, 24-hour or 30-day top-up.
Payment method
either debit card, credit card or American Express purchase and top-up or buy and top up using your BT click&buy account.

Partner list

• Anglia Rail
• BAA
• BMW
• British Airways
• bmi
• BFI London Imax
• Bluewater
• Cisco
• Corus Hotel Group
• Crown Court Services
• Days Inn
• District Court Association
• Dixons
• Earls Court/Olympia
• Excel
• etc venues
• Hastings Hotels
• Hilton Hotels
• HP
• Initial Style Conference Centres
• Intel
• Lloyds of London
• McDonald's
• Motorola
• Network Rail
• Nortel Networks
• PC World
• Ramada Jarvis Hotels
• RoadChef
• Rocco Forte Hotels
• Scottish Enterprise
• Thistle Hotels
• Welcome Break