These days, being able to access the Internet while camping is as necessary as shelter, food and water to many campers. Some tips on accessing WIFI in the outdoors.
Waking up in your tent, you unzip your sleeping bag, start a fire to heat water for coffee and then, while sipping your first cup of java, you open your laptop, fire up the Internet connection and check your e-mail, confirm the reservation you have tomorrow at the next campground and upload photos you took yesterday to your blog for the world to enjoy.
Welcome to the new world of camping, thanks to the spreading availability of wireless access in the wilderness.
If you're an RV camper, the ability to get online is even more pervasive. Recent reports indicate that 80 percent of KOA's 450 campgrounds have wifi access, usually included in the nightly space rate.
Remember the old days, when people who were making reservations for a tent pad or RV spot, were only interested in whether there were water, electric and sewer connections? Now the requests for Internet connections are just as common, and campgrounds who don't provide that Internet access are finding that campers are moving on to campgrounds that do allow them so they can get online while getting outdoors.
This next generation of campers is used to being connected to the web during their everyday lives, sometimes 100 percent of their waking hours, either through computers, handhelds or cellphones. In fact, in a 2006 survey by KOA, 53 percent of campers said they brought their laptops with them when camping, up from 32 percent in a similar survey just one year earlier.
If you're thinking about getting Internet access while outdoors, you'll need to be sure of a few things:
Does the campground offer Internet access? - If the campground or park doesn't offer Internet access, you'll only be able to get connected by finding a nearby access point such as a library, Internet cafe or city/town-provided wifi connection. Some of these may cost you an hourly access fee. Be sure to ask when making your campground or park reservations.
You have a laptop with a wireless network card - Any computer manufactured within the past 3 years will most likely already have a wireless network card included. If you have an earlier model you may find it necessary to purchase a card to attach to your laptop. Also, if you are using one of the wireless cellphone carrier companies (Sprint, Cinglular, etc.) to access the Internet on your laptop, they will provide you with their own card for use with your laptop.
You have a software firewall - In almost every case, any free wifi connection is going to be unencrypted. If you intend to do more than surf webpages with your connection (checking e-mail, your bank account, stockbroker website, etc.) you'll need a software firewall to keep your private, personal information (passwords, account numbers, social security number) from being sent in plain text over the Internet for anyone with a sniffer program to see and use against you. A quick search of the web will give you many available software choices; just pick the one you prefer.
In today's connected world, getting outdoors means you can still get online.
