Every Memorial Day weekend, tens of millions of Americans hit the road, fill airports, and crowd into hotels, cafes, and rest stops - places that share one quietly dangerous feature: open, unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Connecting to public internet without protection is one of the most common and underestimated digital risks ordinary people take. This weekend is a good moment to understand what that actually means, and what can reasonably be done about it.
What Public Wi-Fi Actually Does to Your Data
Public networks at gas stations, coffee shops, and hotel lobbies typically lack encryption at the network level. That means data traveling between your device and the internet - login credentials, payment information, browsing activity - can potentially be observed by other parties on the same network. This is not a theoretical threat. Techniques such as packet sniffing allow someone with basic tools and access to the same network to intercept unencrypted traffic. Even without active interception, your internet service provider can monitor the sites you visit and the data you transmit unless that information is encrypted before it leaves your device.
The risk scales with how much you do online while traveling. Checking a bank balance on airport Wi-Fi, logging into work systems at a hotel, or submitting personal details through a form at a roadside diner all carry real exposure if the connection is unprotected.
How a VPN Addresses the Problem
A virtual private network - commonly called a VPN - works by encrypting your internet traffic before it leaves your device and routing it through a secure server. To anyone monitoring the local network, your activity appears as a stream of unreadable encrypted data rather than identifiable requests. Your ISP sees only that you are connected to a VPN server, not what you are doing. This is the fundamental value of the technology for travelers: it insulates your data from the vulnerabilities of whatever network you happen to be using.
Not all VPNs are equal in how they implement this. The quality of encryption standards, the independence of security audits, and the provider's data retention policies all vary considerably across the market. These distinctions matter more than marketing language about speed or simplicity.
Choosing the Right VPN for Travel Inside the United States
For domestic travel specifically, server coverage across U.S. states is a practical consideration that often goes overlooked. ExpressVPN is one of only a small number of providers that maintains servers in all 50 states - an advantage if you need to access location-sensitive services while moving around the country. It uses strong encryption protocols and has undergone multiple independent security audits, which places it among the more credible options in a market where unverified claims are common. Its current pricing starts at $2.79 per month, which represents a significant reduction from what the service cost roughly eighteen months ago and makes it competitive with providers that have historically undercut it on price.
NordVPN is a stronger choice if streaming video is the primary use case. In testing across services including Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video, it has demonstrated consistent performance unlocking geo-restricted content. Proton VPN appeals to users for whom legal jurisdiction matters: the company is headquartered in Switzerland, which operates under strong privacy laws, and it supports port forwarding - a technical feature relevant to users who torrent files or need to run certain applications remotely.
ExpressVPN offers one capability neither of those providers matches as simply: Aircove, a physical router with VPN support built directly into the hardware. For travelers renting accommodation or setting up a temporary home network, this plug-and-play approach provides protection across every device on the network without requiring configuration on each individual device. With NordVPN or Proton, configuring a router-level VPN requires a more involved technical setup.
The Broader Habit Worth Building
Memorial Day weekend creates a concentrated window of elevated risk simply because of volume: more people traveling, more public networks in use, more devices connected in unfamiliar environments. But the underlying vulnerability exists year-round. Public Wi-Fi is a permanent feature of modern travel, and the habit of protecting your connection - through a VPN, through preferring HTTPS sites, through avoiding sensitive transactions on open networks - pays dividends well beyond a single holiday weekend. The technology is cheap enough and easy enough that the main obstacle is awareness, not access.
