A photo taken at Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, one of the many spots I’ve been fortunate enough to work from after learning these tricks.
Your Comprehensive Guide
Table Of Contents
- What Is A Good Wifi Signal?
- List Of Tools / Software That I Use
- Tools / Hardware That Haven’t Worked (For Me)
- How To Find Hotels Abroad With Good Wifi
- Getting Fast Wifi Outside of Your Hotel
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What Is A Good Wifi Signal?
For me, a good wifi signal is having a video call with a client with no interruptions in the connection.
The goal when I started my digital marketing business was to work wherever I wanted and whenever I wanted.
However, if every time I went abroad my clients noticed a big difference in my quality of work, my email response times, etc I knew I wouldn’t keep them long. I’ve noticed that a video calls tend to be the most taxing thing I do for the Wifi.
For this reason, my goal is to teach you how to have a seamless video call from anywhere in the world (or at least give you the best shot at it!)
Here Are The Hard Metrics
- Download Speed – 50+ MBPS*
- Upload Speed – 3+ MBPS
- Speed Latency – Avg. Below 100 MBPS
- Jitter – Avg. Below 30 MPBS
*You can do plenty of tasks outside of these numbers, and even have video calls without problems. In my experience, if I hit all of these metrics I’ve never had issues regardless of where I was in the world.
What Do These Metrics Mean?
Not Interested In The Nitty Gritty? Jump to the tools & software I use!
- Download Speed
- The speed in which you can retrieve information from the internet
- An example is the ability for your internet connection to retrieve all the video and audio from your client video calls quickly
- This is the most popular metric in wifi speeds. Generally this correlates with improvements in the other metrics.
- Upload Speed
- The speed of your internet connection to send data from your device to the internet
- An example of this is your video and audio being sent from your device to the internet in a video call
- This is quite important for video calls, as you can imagine
- Latency
- Is the time it takes for data to be transferred from it’s original source to it’s destination and back (in milliseconds)
- An example is the amount of time it takes your audio and video to be sent and rendered on your clients screen in a video call
- Jitter
- Tracks the fluctuation of latency over time (in milliseconds)
- So if the speed of your latency is changing all the time, then your jitter will be high
List Of Tools / Software That I Use
- 50 Ft. of ethernet cord
- Plugging an ethernet cord into your labtop from a Wifi Router is definitely the best way to get a consistent internet connection, I had a 90 minute Zoom meeting with only one hiccup high in the middle of nowhere in the Ecuadorian Andes after plugging my ethernet cord into the hotel’s Wi-fi Router. See a picture of where I was below.
- Solis Hotspot
- I was skeptical about this hotspot at the beginning, not going to lie however it’s proven itself quite handy!
- In Ecuador, it averaged 7 more MBPS in upload speed than my Google Fi hotspot. At the time of writing this, it is averaging 3 more MBPS in upload speed than my Google Fi Hotspot in Greece.
- If you’re interested, here’s the spreadsheet where I track the wifi connection across the countries I’ve visited. (I just started this in April 2021 unfortunately so many missed opportunities!).
- Google Fi
- This turns my phone into an international hotspot – with this service I get unlimited data, and texting internationally in 200+ destinations and pretty cheap calling as well. I haven’t been able to find a country that I don’t get coverage in.
- I word it like this, I get good coverage everywhere but not great coverage anywhere, the coverage in the US isn’t as spectacular as Verizon – but for me it’s more than enough.
- When writing this, the service starts at $80 a month and get’s $10 cheaper per month for each person that you add to your plan. If you’re interested in trying it out, and would like to support this blog, here’s a link for $20 off your bill when you signup.
May 2022 update – Google Fi has turned off my international data since I was outside of the country for too long. They don’t share how long you have to be outside of the country to get cut off, but it looks like over 6 months straight and they’ll kick your ass off.
- Nperf.com
- For testing, they allow you to test all of the metrics mentioned above. There are plenty of other tools to test wifi speed, my recommendation is to stick with one tool, because you’ll find the inter-tool reliability is pretty bad (meaning you get consistently different results from one tool to the next).
- Asking Other Nomads In Groups / Forums
- This is a super effective way, and generally the most accurate way of getting good up to date info.
- Search in Facebook or online for digital nomad groups in whatever area you want to go to and ask them directly about their recommendations
- If you have a couple extra bucks, nomadlist.com is a killer way to chat with nomads in the spots you want to go to
- Croissant Co-Working App
- I found out about this software while in Lisbon, seems like every other person I meet uses it. It’s a pretty sweet deal, you sign up for one membership and get access to coworking spots all over Europe, the US, Israel & South America (there may be more spots added after I’ve written this
- The pricing changes based on where you’re based out of, but is around ~$30 a month. You can get a decent discount (for both you and I) if you use the code loren89
- Search Function In Review Sites
- Search on Google, or go to Booking.com and look at their wifi score, more on this below.
- Bonus Tool – A Tracking Spreadsheet
- If you’re as nerdy (or neurotic) as I am you can even track your test results in a Google Sheet, like mine here. From there you can easily see how your wifi speed is from place to place, you can see how your hotspots are performing on average, etc.
Tools / Hardware That Haven’t Worked (For Me)
- Speedify
- I have tried this software a couple of times, and it’s a popular one that I’ve heard about a lot. One time really early on in my traveling, and again while in South Africa. Both times trying the software, I saw no increase in any meaningful metrics.
- Wifi Range Extenders
- I tested out one of these, and didn’t see any meaningful increases in any meaningful metrics. I think if you’re super far from the router than perhaps, but in that case I’d just say find a quiet place closer to the router for your video call.
How To Find Hotels Abroad With Good Wifi
- Asking Other Nomads In Groups / Forums
- This is a super effective way, and generally the most accurate way of getting good up to date info.
- Search in Facebook or online for digital nomad groups in whatever area you want to go to and ask them directly about their recommendations
- If you have a couple extra bucks, nomadlist.com is a killer way to chat with nomads in the spots you want to go to
- Look For Co-Living Spots First
- I’m writing this from Southern Mexico and they have all kinds of co-living places. 9 times out of 10 if the place is labelled as a Co-living spot, then it means that they’ll have quick Wifi.
- So just search in Google, Booking, etc. for Coliving + your city, and see what you can find. These places will usually have discounted prices if you stay for a month at a time. Selina is my favorite co-living spot, with locations all over Mexico and the US.
- Search Reviews On Booking.com or Google
- Go to their reviews, then use the search icon to search their reviews for the keyword “wifi” or “internet”. See how many people have reviewed positively and or negatively on their wifi.
- On Booking.com, they actually have people review the wifi as well, so you can see the wifi score of the hotel you want to stay at.
- Save Good Hotels
- As you find hotels with good reviews on their Wi-fi save them in your favorites on Booking, or a 3rd party app.
- Test The Wifi Before You Buy
- Go to the hotel your heart most wants to stay at, once you get to the lobby let them know that you’d love to stay there but you work online and need to check the wifi first. Run a test through Nperf.com, and if the results hit the minimums outlined in the “What Is Good Wifi” section then that’s your hotel! If not, head onto the next one.
- Bonus Points
- Ask the hotel staff if you could see the wifi router, if they let you check it out you should be able to plug your Ethernet cord in for even more stable wifi (if needed).
Extra Tips Around Fast Wifi At Hotels
- Wifi May Differ From Floor to Floor, or Even Spot to Spot
- This is HUGE! I recall running wifi tests in the lobby of a place seeing great numbers, then struggling in my hotel room on a video call.
- Ideally, you want to be as close to the router as possible with the fewest walls between you and the router.
- Nicer hotels will usually have a router on each floor, but others may only have a router on the lobby floor.
- The Fewer People Using The Wi-fi The Better
- If your at a hotel with okay wifi, then you’re not going to want to battle with the other folks using the wifi.
- This can also mean just using the wifi early in the morning when everyone is asleep, or late at night while everyone is asleep! If your sleep schedule hasn’t adjusted to the timezone yet this can be a plus!
- *If you’re at a hotel with great bandwidth, and caps on how much bandwidth individuals can use, then this is unnecessary
Getting Fast Wifi Outside of Your Hotel
In this case a lot of the same elements outlined above are going to hold true namely the following
- Busier places may have slower wifi (or if you see everyone is on a lab top they could have great bandwidth! So take this advice with a grain of salt)
- Metropolitan cities tend to have faster wifi than rural areas, Nperf actually has a pretty cool map that can give you a decent idea of what the download speeds are for different parts of a country.
- Try To Use an Establishments Wifi – Even if you have to buy a drink, this is usually cheaper and faster than a hotspot. Although if you’re only going somewhere for wifi, test the wifi first before buying something. I had to buy a $7 poor quality beer at some bar in Tahiti only to find out the wifi didn’t even work! I didn’t even want to be at the bar I was just looking for Wi-fi, (needless to say, I was pretty pissed). I then had to rush to the next cafe / bar to see if I could find a place with wifi.
- Test Out Your International Hotspots – If the wifi isn’t working at a nearby establishment then I always try out both of my hotspots, see which one is faster and go with that one. I prefer to have two hotspots available to me at all times, I like Google Fi’s and Solis’ but there are others out there for sure!
In Conclusion
You can find fast Wifi in most places, as long as you have a couple different backups and you’re patient. If you’re in a rush to find a hotel or a cafe quickly you may get lucky, but chances are your Wifi will lack.
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