The Longest Way Home Travel Blog

Remote internet access in the Philippines (click to enlarge)

“How do you connect to the internet so often when traveling?”

It’s a question I get asked a lot from people planning their travel trips. Especially people going away for 3 months plus who want to bring a laptop, upload photos, and blog etc,.

For those who don’t have laptops I wrote up an article here called How to Travel Blog from a Cyber Cafe it’s more specific to connecting without a laptop.

For those that do have a laptop, or those who want to know some of the methods I have been using when in the Philippines- here they are:

The Philippines is a relatively well connected internet savvy country. And there are several ways to connect online – (this can also apply to many other SEA countries)

1) In any of the malls you will find a cyber cafe. General fees are an average of 30 pesos and hour.

2) Also in many of the Malls there are WIFI zones. Not all are free though. Head to the information desks and ask if there is free WIFI in the Mall, if not they may have scratch cards. But, do check around yourself anyway. I’ve found plenty of businesses in Malls who have WIFI that’s not password protected, and quite fast.There’s usually a place to sit nearby too.

The usb internet solution for travel in the Philippines

3) Out on the streets in many towns and city’s you will find plenty of small internet cafes. Some will just be gaming zones with no internet, others might have strange booths with guy’s and girls, and sometimes indistinguishable types using webcam’s. Best to avoid the latter cafes. Prices here are 15 pesos upwards. They don’t always have fast connections here I’ve found.

4) Nation wide roaming internet access with a doogle. This is something I used quite a lot. There are two main telecom company’s in the Philippines offering this method. Globe (philcom) and Smart. I don’t endorse anyone here. But I chose Smart as the queue was shorter! And, the people seemed to actually take an interest in what I was looking for.

For 1,999 pesos I paid for a Smart Bro plan that basically allows me to connect to the internet via my laptop and a usb doogle with up to 2MB/s speeds. I can access the internet anywhere there’s a mobile connection. Which is pretty much nationwide.

A more practical method evolved

The phone to laptop method is what I actually ended up using more often as the Smart doogle is a bit big for my USB ports. Again Smart have a package here, which is basically mini cd that has a program that allows an auto connect to their network via your phone.

I avoided the fee for this and just connected using Bluetooth or a cable. Almost like using the phone as a modem, but through Smart’s gprs/Edge/3G network. The only downside here is that it puts a strain on a phone’s battery. But for me this isn’t an issue as I have been using a fake i-phone with a staggering 2 week battery life.

I now connect my phone via bluetooth or cable with no issues.  The mobile billing is quite cheap and works with a regular phone sim. Internet access is sold in blocks of time and not bandwidth here. About 10 pesos an hour at certain times in certain areas. Otherwise it’s about 30 pesos. And it does have good coverage. There are always promotions running so it pays to log onto your providers homepage every time you go online.

I will admit that the 2MB/s claim is a little generous. But, I can watch youtube videos etc. Though I wouldn’t as it’s a little costly after a while. You top up your account with ordinary telephone scratch cards.

I connect up via my fake i-phone and a usb

Some tips when using the above method of staying online while traveling:

1) Offline I write blog posts up on a word processor like Open office or MS office. I then get online and paste them in and I’m done. Staying online to write up posts simply takes too long.

2) Don’t read blogs! Sign up to their RSS feeds through a feedreader like Google Reader or FeedDemon. I use several, but I like FeedDemon as it’s fast and it allows me to catch up offline later.

If RSS is too much to handle, another great way to read blogs offline is to subscribe to email updates. If you don’t like getting a lot of mail then create a filter and a new folder in your email account so updates can go there rather than clutter up your inbox.

You can get my own journal sent to your email every week by signing  up here. It’s free, you won’t ever get spam, and can unsubscribe anytime.

3) If you use Twitter, facebook or any other social site use the tabs on your browser and try to multitask as much as possible. It’s not so much about bandwidth here, but time. The less time online, the less you are spending on internet access fees.

4) If you use wordpress to blog, use Gears which is available in settings. It downloads the most commonly used files on WordPress and makes it a lot faster to use when you are online.

5) Use an offline desktop email application like Googlemail’s or Thunderbird. Download your mail as you are copying and pasting other things online. Get offline, read it. Write replies and then get online again to send them.

6) If you are using the doogle or phone method I mentioned,  then set a timer on your phone or watch to go off 3 minutes before that time block of internet access expires. If you are charged 30 pesos an hour and you log off after 61 minutes, then you are charged for 2 hours. So be careful! And check the prices, as they will often change plans!!

7) If your pictures are small, then uploading them through the doogle/phone method is fine. But if they are big I wouldn’t. I prepare two sets of images. One for the website which are re-sized. I can upload them using the phone to laptop method with no problems. For larger 5MB -15MB plus photos I try to find free WIFI at a mall. Sit, have lunch, and maybe dinner while uploading. Or in a hostel with wifi, I simpy leave the laptop on overnight to upload.

Mobile Travel blogging

Mobile Blogging and emailing is quite easy and cheap in the Philippines as well. Until recently Smart had a 50 peso for 5 hours of internet plan on a ready to go sim pack for your phone (smart bro). There was also a 100 peso for 12 hour option on the same plan. The regular fee is 10 peso for 30 mins. This is by far the cheapest I’ve seen in my travels. Though they tend to turn the promotions off every now and then. At the moment it’s 10 pesos for 30mins.

On Mobile I use an application called Snaptu which works great as an all in one RSS reader, Twitter, Facebook and movie review application. Good news for travelers looking for an all in one solution on either blackberry, Symbian phones or Windows mobile. There’s also a really great photo app to view some stunning getty images. Snaptu’s support team is also great in fixing any issue you might have. Best of all, it’s free and they have a lot of new features on the way.

I use Worldmate and Psiloc World Traveler on mobile for multi currency conversions, weather reports and time zone checks across the world.

Skype works well with wifi on mobile but with gprs or Edge only via text.

Opera mini (Beta 5) makes browsing 10x faster and great for bandwidth hungry websites! It also supports tabs.

Not to mention google/nokia maps with gps for getting around with ease. I’ll have a feature about this coming up soon.

There are several other ways to connect online and upload that I mention in my article How to Travel Blog from a Cyber Cafe. Not everyone takes advantage of these methods, but I find it allows me to do a lot more than I would be able to otherwise.

So that’s how I am able to travel the Philippines and get online with ease no matter where I am – be it on a ferry, up a mountain, trekking in a jungle or when living on an island!

Coming Soon:

A very big question I have to ask in my journey to find home…

Feel free to leave a comment below!

Some related articles you might like:

1. Dealing with the religious divide when traveling overseas
2. Traveling and living in Mindanao, The Philippines
3. How I deal with getting sick when traveling