HOW accessible is FREE WIFI while travelling?

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:
Campgrounds - usable 'free' WiFi - 10% might be have it

McD's & Starbucks - 95%+ have 'free' WiFi

If you stay on interstates for the trip - you will have cell phone service for 90-95% of the trip. And the ability to use a smart phone as a hot spot for 80% or so of the trip.

There are some empty spots in the coverage maps out west, and you will find coverage which is only voice and text - no data service.

If you go off the interstates, coverage gets spotty.

Advertized free WiFi 95% usable free WiFi 10%. You can find in nearly all shopping centers. Its so flustuting see free WiFi and you get there and it is either don't work at all or its so slow its unusable. I have even ask before I make a reservation if their WiFi actually works.

mikeleblanc413 wrote:
After research I purchased the StraightTalk Hotspot that works from the Verizon Towers. Throughout our trip from East Texas, through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Zion and Bryce in Utah, and the backroads of Colorado the unit always connected promptly and functioned as it should. Our use was Facebook, email and surfing for local information. The best part was that we barely used 1 gig. We are now back home and shortly our 30 days will run out. For our next trip we'll load another card; although probably not the 2 gig card I bought but a 1 gig. VERY PLEASED!

i have what you have and agree

After research I purchased the StraightTalk Hotspot that works from the Verizon Towers. Throughout our trip from East Texas, through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Zion and Bryce in Utah, and the backroads of Colorado the unit always connected promptly and functioned as it should. Our use was Facebook, email and surfing for local information. The best part was that we barely used 1 gig. We are now back home and shortly our 30 days will run out. For our next trip we'll load another card; although probably not the 2 gig card I bought but a 1 gig. VERY PLEASED!

Hi,

In Canada, Walmart appears to have free wifi at most stores.

Dtank wrote:

darsben wrote:


Lets say you pull into a Walmart or FlyingJ for the night then what do you do for WIFI.

Easy!

You do without - just like real camping used to be...:S

.

Real camping does not take place at Walmart of FlyingJ

Thanks to everyone who responded! I've bitten the bullet and ordered the Straight Talk Hotspot that runs off Verizon towers. I'll be listing a new post asking about monitoring time on this hotspot.

darsben wrote:


Lets say you pull into a Walmart or FlyingJ for the night then what do you do for WIFI.

Easy!

You do without - just like real camping used to be...:S

.

About 3 months ago I signed up with Cricket Wireless. They had a promotion with unlimited talk and text and 20 GB of LTE data for $55.00 per month. IF you use up the 20 GB of data you you get slowed down to 128 kbs which is twice as fast as ST and should be enough for email and slow surfing. For those of us that got the 20 GB, it is grandfathered forward.

Now that the promotion is over you can still get 10 gb for $55.00. Still a great deal and more then enough for most people.

Other plans are 5 gb for $45 and 2.5 gb for $35. You can even add lines for discounts.

Not supposed to tether, but they don't seem to care. I've been told by CS that it's my data and I can do what I want with it! I don't much worry anymore about hooking up the the parks WiFi.

Brian

mikeleblanc413 wrote:
We have a 2 week trip from East Texas to Vegas, then to Utah and back home. Used Millenicom before and am not sold on making the investment in StraightTalk for this trip. So, my question is: How accessible is FREE WIFI on our mostly interstate route we'll be taking. THANKS!

fairly accessible but not while you're moving. you can find free wifi in many places...some state highway rest areas, wal mart's, home depot, lowes to name a few. that's in addition to many campgrounds and rv parks. but the real question is how good is the free wifi? usually good enough to check e-mail and some light browsing but that's it. if you're looking to stream, data, music or video you'll need a cellular hotspot.

To the OP's question, how accessible?, the answer depends upon where you want to go. As mentioned you cannot get wifi while driving as you would connect and leave the signal within seconds so what we are talking about is access when parked.
This becomes the real issue. If you are parked in a State Park enjoying the leaves and rivers, accessibility going to mean hopping in your car and driving some distance to find an internet connection. If you are parked at Wal-Mart it likely means you only need to walk/drive to the nearby McDonald's or similar outlet. Today at the local shopping mall I had very good high speed free WiFi so I updated all the apps on my phone in about 5 minutes. A local WiFi signal where the RV is parked is strong but speed tests show it less than 300K up/down so I can still update things but I have to leave it sit for an hour or so.
I use a MiFi type device at home in the RV, but I can also turn my phone into a hot-spot and connect my computer to the internet where ever the Verizon signal is available. I use all of these options from time to time but then I am full time so I really have no other option. The data plan is shared by the MiFi and the phones so where or how I use it makes no difference and finding a free WiFi from time to time keeps my overall data usage down.