Safe travels
Written by Melonie Cole, Mindshift Founder
Whether you’re on the regular train commute to Wellington from the Wairarapa or the bus to the office in Queen Street from the north shore, if you decide to check your work email or take a work call, you need to keep work information safe.
I recently travelled overseas for a business conference, and combined this with two wonderful weeks travelling with my teenage son.
Looking back at my own travels when I was in my 20’s, before the birth of the internet and mobile phones, it’s hard to believe I navigated Europe with a map the size of a small country and used public, coin-operated phones to call home, and just turned up to back-packers hoping they had a bed for the night!
Now everything, from booking online to payment, navigating new places, looking for the cheapest places to eat and discovering the best attractions is done online. There’s no going back to “old school” – being digitally connected 24/7 is an essential part of the travel package.
When we’re away from home, our surroundings are unfamiliar, we might be unaware of threats and risks, and we’re functioning in different ways to our home routines.
Doing things, perhaps for the first time, makes us more vulnerable as we’re focussed more on getting the work done than where we’re actually working from.
Especially when you land after a long-haul flight, fatigue and brain-fuzz can make us more susceptible to clicking on links and ads or leaving devices unattended or unlocked.
On our travels, we were often needing power for our phones and laptops. It was easy enough to find USB ports in hotel rooms, airports and even trains in the US.
These aren’t always safe though as malware can be transferred or data stolen directly from your device when plugged in.
We used a USB data blocker which is like a digital shield that protects personal information when devices are plugged into public charging stations or connected to unfamiliar USB ports.
We also used our own power cables with a power adapter when charging from hotel rooms.
Putting some effort into organising your technology and connections before you go is definitely worth it. Here are my top tips.
1) Register on the Safe Travel website
You’ll get advice if anything happens in your destination country (this was the case for us as we were in California during Hurricane Hilary).
2) Call your bank and tell them you’re travelling
They’ll put a note on your account so your card won’t be blocked when you make a booking for something (especially a big ticket item) in a foreign country (this happened to me when I booked a helicopter trip for the Grand Canyon but great the bank had processes in place to flag the unusual transaction).
3) Put together a “tech kit”
Fill it with chargers, power adapters, USB power blocker, screen protector, and a hard protective case for laptop.
4) Decide how you’ll stay connected at your destination
If you buy a roaming pack, make sure it’s enabled from the minute you touch down. Spark’s roaming pack has an auto-enrol which makes it easy.
You could buy a local SIM but remember you may need a different phone number.
Or use your mobile data to hotspot.
We used public Wi-Fi at times, but didn’t do online bookings/payments or anything involving customer information when working.
Keep your wits about you, keep your devices close to you, and have happy and safe travels.
Kia kaha.
