Take Your Network With You

Hotel Wi-Fi is terrible. Captive portals, device limits, privacy concerns. I tried the GL.iNet Beryl AX on my last trip. My dad had been running the same idea with the Slate AX and recommended it. Small router, big difference. How it works The Beryl AX broadcasts your home SSID. Your devices connect automatically. Behind the scenes, the router talks to the hotel internet and routes everything through a VPN. The hardware is tiny, about the size of a deck of cards. USB-C powered, so any phone charger or power bank works. Wi-Fi 6, so it isn't a bottleneck. Setting it up Do this at home before you travel. You need a VPN provider that supports WireGuard. I used Mullvad. Router Power on the Beryl AX, join the default network (GL-AXT1800-XXX), open 192.168.8.1 (bookmark it), and set an admin password. Configure 2.4GHz and 5GHz with your home SSID and password. This is the trick: your devices can't tell the difference between this router and your actual one. Restart. Anything that knows your home Wi-Fi connects automatically. VPN VPN, WireGuard Client, paste your Mullvad account number, hit Next. Name the profile, click Add. The router fetches and provisions the WireGuard configs. Pick a server, click Connect. Status and VPN IP show in the dashboard. Verify from a connected device. Your IP should show the VPN server's location. Hotel Wi-Fi At the destination, Internet, Repeater, Connect. Pick the hotel network and enter the password. For captive portals, enable "Auto-Enable Login Mode for Public Hotspots." If a network rejects the router, "Camouflage" mode makes it look like a laptop or phone. The router remembers networks, so the same hotel chain reconnects on its own. What you end up with Devices connect using your home credentials. No password entry, no per-device authentication, no device caps. All traffic flows through the encrypted VPN tunnel. The hotel only sees encrypted data heading to Mullvad. Server location is your call. Home country for geo-restricted content. Nearby for performance. Trade-offs Bandwidth drops because everything routes through the VPN. Fine for browsing, email, and streaming. Big downloads are slower than direct hotel Wi-Fi. Some corporate networks block VPN traffic aggressively. Mullvad offers multiple connection methods and servers when one path gets blocked. Battery on connected devices takes a minor hit from the always-on encryption. Next: Tailscale The Beryl AX supports Tailscale too. Tailscale isn't a traditional VPN. It builds encrypted mesh tunnels directly between your devices. With Tailscale on the router, the home network follows you: print to your home printer from Tokyo, hit your NAS, SSH into your home server. Haven't tried it yet. Next on the list.