If you work remotely and travel light, hotel Wi-Fi is one of your biggest headaches. How-To Geek’s Umair Khurshid says he solved it with three networking tools: a pocket travel router, one power bank, and a mesh VPN — and nothing else.
RV camper van in the Namibian desert (Credits: How-To Geek)
1. GL.iNet Slate AX Travel Router for Hotel Wi-Fi
Hotel networks are unpredictable: captive portals, device limits, dead zones away from reception. Khurshid’s fix is the GL.iNet Slate AX (GL-AXT1800), a pocket-sized Wi-Fi 6 router. He connects it to the hotel’s Wi-Fi once, then all his devices join his own private network — no reconnecting every gadget at every stop, and the same home SSID travels with him.
The Slate AX also supports VPN clients, firewall rules and other networking features that give him control over how his devices reach the internet — a practical layer of protection on networks he does not trust.
2. Baseus Adaman Metal 22.5W Power Bank
The router needs power, and outlets are not always handy. He uses the Baseus Adaman Metal 22.5W power bank with a 20,000mAh capacity (about 74Wh — under the standard 100Wh carry-on limit). It powers the Slate AX over USB-C while still leaving juice for his phone, so he carries one affordable power bank instead of a pile of chargers.
3. Tailscale / Headscale for Remote Home Access
The third tool needs no extra hardware. The Slate AX is compatible with Tailscale, and Khurshid pairs it with his self-hosted Headscale network — an open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server — to reach his home lab and infrastructure from anywhere without relying on a hosted coordination server.
The takeaway: a travel router for local control, one power bank to feed everything, and a mesh VPN for home access. That is the whole kit — no spare networking equipment, no portable home lab.
Also Read: Your Android Phone’s Hotspot Has 5 Powerful Features You Probably Don’t Know About | One Router Setting That Actually Hides Your DNS Lookups
Source: How-To Geek — read the full story there.
