by Joe Wallace

I spotted this great article on freelane writing on the road at FreelanceFolder. Glen Allsop’s great advice in 8 Tips for Success When Freelancing On The Road include organizing your income sources before you leave and making sure you have access to your passwords and login information online with a protected storage solution. What’s worse than not being able to remember your password for that obscure account you suddenly need? Scrambling for a last-second solution to replace that obscure account.

I’ll add a couple of my own secrets to freelance writing on the road: It helps to do a search of the area you’re traveling to–scope out a few sources of free wi-fi such as Panera Bread or the local library in case your Internet connection becomes unavailable. This has saved my projects more than once–including on an international trip where I had to submit large volumes of video and audio files.

My other suggestion is to avoid using any free wi-fi signals you happen to run across in the airport unless it’s specifically tied to an in-airport business like a coffee shop or restaurant. In recent years there have been many reports of black-hat “free” networks set up specifically to harvest credit card numbers and other sensitive information by placing free wi-fi access in busy places like the airport.

The theives count on a certain percentage of people being just careless enough in the bustle of a busy air terminal. This scam isn’t as well-known as others, but let the web browser beware-it’s child’s play to set up a free wi-fi hotspot and run software to capture the data. These wi-fi networks aren’t permanent, and you aren’t in danger at every corner, but airports are special targets for this activity.