Hotel and airport WiFi is shared with strangers, and you can't always tell a genuine network from a copycat. Back home, your broadband provider can be required by law to keep a record of the sites you connect to for up to a year. A VPN encrypts your connection in both places.
Hotel and airport networks are shared with everyone in the building, and many have no password at all. Anyone can set up a network with a convincing name like "Airport_Free_WiFi" and see which sites the devices joining it connect to. Most banking apps encrypt their own traffic, but a VPN puts everything else on your phone or laptop behind the same encryption.
Sorting out identity fraud means calls to banks, replacing cards and documents, and disputing charges. That's hard enough from your own sofa — and harder from a hotel room in a different time zone.
Under the UK's Investigatory Powers Act, your internet provider can be required to keep a record of every site and service you connect to for up to 12 months, timestamped and tied to your account. A VPN encrypts that traffic and hides your IP address, so what gets logged is a Surfshark server — not your evening.
I use Surfshark every single day living in Thailand — mainly so I can still watch the shows I'd normally watch back home. It's also come with me to Benidorm and across Poland, connecting to hotel and café WiFi without a second thought.
It's not a "nice to have" for me anymore. It's the same category as locking your front door — you don't think about it until the day you didn't do it.
Convinced already? No need to keep reading.
Get protected — from £1.79/mo| Surfshark | NordVPN | ExpressVPN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devices at once | Unlimited | 10 | 10 (Basic plan) |
| From (long-term plan) | £1.79/mo | £2.59/mo | £2.19/mo |
| No-logs audit | Deloitte, 2x | Deloitte | Yes (audited) |
| Money-back window | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days |
Prices correct as of 2 October 2026, plus VAT or sales tax where applicable · always double-check current deals on each provider's own site before buying, as VPN pricing changes frequently.
You may notice a small dip, but on Surfshark's WireGuard protocol most people don't notice it at all for browsing, streaming, or video calls.
Yes, in the UK and in the vast majority of places you're likely to travel — including the whole of Europe, the US, and popular destinations like Thailand. A small number of countries, including China, Russia and the UAE, restrict or ban VPN use, so it's worth a quick check if you're heading somewhere less common.
Yes. Surfshark has apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and Linux, and unlimited devices means everything can run at once under one account — no juggling required.
Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee: cancel within 30 days of your first purchase and you get a full refund. If you subscribed through the Apple App Store, the refund goes through Apple instead.
From £1.79/month on the 2-year plan, plus VAT or sales tax where applicable · unlimited devices · 30-day money-back guarantee
Get Surfshark before your next trip