How do I stay internet safe when travelling?

rwbradley wrote:
Unfortunately there are a lot of opinions on this topic and not a lot of expert advice. As a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), I can say, the best advice posted so far is buy a MIFI hotspot and do not use public WIFI for anything sensitive like banking.
Unfortunately where opinion seems to get in the way of reality is regarding advice on WHEN public WIFI can be safe. Public WIFI can NEVER be trusted to do sensitive things like banking. The problem with public WIFI is that you can never be sure that the Starbucks WIFI that your phone sees is truly put up by Starbucks even when you are parked outside Starbucks. I can easily create a WIFI network called Starbucks and then I can watch every packet of data pass thru my "fake" Starbucks network on its way to the bank. HTTPS will not even protect you as it is easy to generate a fake Certificate and most users do not realize that a certificate does two things, one is to encrypt the data and the other is to prove the owner. Most users would never know that they are getting a fake certificate from a fake Starbucks network and that their data is being decrypted, thus being able to steal their password and then re-encrypting it and forwarding it on to the proper destination (your bank).
Yes it is unlikely to happen to you, but it is easy to do, high school kid easy. Do you want to risk someone getting your banking information or other sensitive info and putting a mortgage on your home and then transferring the money to the Grand Caymans? Don't ever risk using public WIFI for anything sensitive without using a VPN to secure your traffic, it is just not worth the risk to be "that guy" who got hacked.
I did a write up on my blog on Internet Safety while RVing. Part 3 addresses WIFI security and Part 4 addresses VPN's.
Link

Post some real life PROOF of REAL folks who have been CERTIFIED BY A THIRD PARTY that they got hacked by using a public wifi..

Many people YACK that it is not safe, but yet they (and you) offer no real life CERTIFIED EXAMPLES as proof.

Is it possible? Sure, but in real life, since you are an "expert" on the subject you should be able to offer real examples and even numbers on how many have been hacked..

I would bet, that if you could even offer proof, most of those folks would have already been hacked via Malware BEFORE hopping on a free wifi..