Ask About the WiFi Before Booking a Hotel or Airbnb
Don’t assume anything!
Many travelers visiting friends and family choose their hotel, Airbnb, motel, or bed and breakfast through travel sites. Seeing the one they like usually comes down to decor, amenities, or location to the things they plan on visiting. But then realize too late their WIFI is extremely slow or sometimes non-existent. How could this happen? You even checked to make sure they had WIFI. Who doesn’t have high speed Internet these days?! Well, it happens.
Imagine…you check in and everything was great. You meet some friends for dinner, came back later that night and decide to try and connect to the WiFi to check my email or watch Netflix. Then things go down-hill from there.
As it turns out, many smaller motels or Airbnb rentals have WiFi network that are not actually WiFi, but a network run from a local hotspot. The only recourse you have is to cancel your reservations (possibly losing money for deposit) and find somewhere else to stay.
Which highlights the point that “WiFi” in an Airbnb listing or even a hotel’s listing doesn’t always mean high-speed internet or free internet.
During my travels for work I have run into internet issues at hotels. Typically, since it’s for work, I stay at a reputable hotel or motel. In these cases they do have actual high-speed internet, but it sometimes isn’t free. The hotel springs a daily or weekly rate for the opportunity to use it.
As long as the establishment discloses their lack of free WIFI it’s nothing to complain about. Sometimes you don’t need the internet, so having a hotel or Airbnb that charges a fee or doesn’t have it isn’t a big deal or the hotel was such a deal you don’t mind paying an extra $10/day for internet.
Still, if you’re booking a spot and know you plan to work or do things like stream video at night it pays to make sure that the internet will be able to handle that.
In the case of hotels, the hotel’s website should let you know if the WiFi is free, and the site hotelwifitest can potentially let you know how fast it is.
For Airbnb’s and smaller motels or a bed and breakfast the best thing is to send an email to the host. Just let them know you plan on streaming videos from your room, or doing work remotely, and tell them you’ll need high speed Internet from your room. The host will usually expect this question and get back to you right away. And, if they don’t have high speed Internet for their guests perhaps this will encourage them to pay the nominal monthly fee for Internet.
