Internet Access

[Sue/Al]

Don't know where your traveling, but we're all over this USA except for the NE...YUK! born and raised there, couldn't pay us to return to the "old country" as we refer to it as....heck our relatives in PA. don't know how to use a cell phone...anyway we find WIFI everywhere thousands of places and more coming on everyday, just can't understand the problem with folks not finding it like we do??? and best of all it's FREE, we retirees don't pay for anything we can get for Free! just planned a 1900mi. trip from Fla. to NM and every one of our stops (campgrounds) off Free WiFi, wouldn't go any other way....

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Sue,

Perhaps you could advise the other forumites where to easily locate all this free campground wi-fi. I've found a few campgrounds with free wifi (I even worked in one this past summer) and have located places I could "borrow" someone else's, e.g. motel parking lots and such. Have even tried a internet cafe or two.  But most of us are looking for access from the convenience of our mobile living rooms. Are yu really finding free wi-fi everywhere you camp?

 

[Bob Zambenini]

I am not findiing free wi-fi at all campgrounds but its becomes more available. This is to the point that the ethical  'use of wi-fi signal ' or 'not to use the signal' becomes rather a moot point.

For instance I am at Emerald Desert in Palm Desert and they have three free networks, although not very good. There are a couple of other networks unsecured also.

So I drove in a few days ago and  turned on my notebook and my computer connected and my browser showed up with a home page and my mailwasher downloaded my headers.l

I have sinned already, so I am supposed to go around the park with 300 RVs here and find out which signal I am stealing or I getting this weak signal from the park system, which is also called Default!  Some of these networks have names like 'default' or RV**** .

I have Network Stumbler which shows the number of the device of each person's card, so guess I could try to find out who has which number.

I was at another large park a while back and for four days I had a great signal to browse and get email. I could not figure out where the signal was coming from, but suspected a 5th wheel  nearby, but where I could get a better signal. But in those four days, not a sole was at the site, as far as I knew. I actually had 5 networks showing most of this time.

So with so many open access signals available now and more coming all the time, to figure out which is the one you are receiving and getting permission is as I say a rather moot excerise.

On an unrelated point, with all the rumors of Emerald Desert closing  and condos being built, the plan is now in concrete ( pardon the pun).

They will close over the summer of 2006 but will reopen with 248 sites in September. The sites will be around the big orginal clubhouse. The golf course will be gone. They rest of the park will be new housing. They had some 800 sites and added a number a couple of years ago in an undesirable area next to railroad.  But from my experience here over the years, the 248 is probably a good number as they are not all that busy with the $37 day rate. They do have a couple of big groups during the year that they will not accommodate now.

Bob

 

[Ned]

You can prevent the automatic connection to the strongest network by unchecking the advanced option that says "Automatically connect to non-preferred networks".  This will allow you to choose the network to connect with.

 

[Sue/Al]

Absolutely RV Roamer, just planned a 1900 mi. trip for Jan/Feb and every campground has Free WiFi coach connect... We plan our trips, set up our GPS then pick our stops, /cities, then our campgrounds check out their websites, with pics. and amenities,? 3/4 of them say FREE WiFi, that's for us!? if we camp in a state park, we check surrounding area's for a town or even a motel/hotel, then drive there in our car and connect as we did on a recent trip to Eufala AL. two motel's a short distance from the park entrance worked just fine.? Many times on the road, because our laptop is booted up for GPS we pull into a food stop and the darn thing puts us online....it's way cool!? And that's the Truth!!!
P.S. if you use Trailer Life, many of the campgrounds in there have their website listed, but I have a list of states on my desktop, and cities, and campgrounds, that takes you to their web page.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

That's good to hear, but on our recent  journey from Maine to Florida we didn't see a one that was free. In fact, only stopped at two campgrounds that had any wifi at all.  On the other hand, we did not plan our trip around free hotpots either. Probably if we researched it as you do, we could do much better.

 

[Sue/Al]

We do not plan our trips around Free hotspots, we know where we are headed as in this trip from Fla. to NM and we will stop at Shreveport visit Casino's then down to TX and wind up in El Paso taking our car for day trips, knowing how many mi. per day we choose to travel tells us where we will stop, Al set's up GPS, I take it from there.we were both born in the NE live in Fl. 25 yrs. do not, nor will we ever go back to the NE on purpose...YUK! so can't tell you about WiFi there, and have no interest.But I will not be without my E-mail or ability to send digital photo's to fam. and friends of our trip. our return trip will no doubt be different but we'll set that up before we head for home. We love our notebook pc, and having our puter with us, and with Free WiFi all over it's a piece of cake! Now many/all of TX interstate rest stops have it, Wow...can't wait! heard Ohio does too but don't really care....

 

[John From Detroit]

I am planing my big trip around hot spots (At least till I get to Indio), however most of them will cost me a total of 20 bucks (1 month at flying J)

 

[Sue/Al]

Why would you pay? especially flying j? when there is FREE FREE FREE everywhere...that's the point of this discussion that's been going on, many TA's are FREE (the WiFi) well we're retired and I pride myself on the fact that I get everything especially for our PC's for FREE, all the great programs installed on our PC's are FREE, only thing we pay for is dial-up at home for $16.95 and it's Terrific! we even dial-up 2 at a time, pay for one.

 

[Kirk]

If you really want to be able to reach the internet, and without running all over looking for a free access point, and to do it from your RV, there just isn't any way that will match the Manual Flyer dish system from Starband! We are fulltime, and we spend a lot of time in out of the way places, like wildlife refuges and remote areas. Often we are in locations that have no cell coverage at all. But with our dish we just set up the tripod, aim the dish wit our trusty "Birdog" meter and we have it! Both the internet and our dish TV! And have it everywhere we go, and we don't run all over looking for a spot. We can even supply a connection to a frined if they happen to vist us! There is nothing for the RV that matches it.

 

[Ron]

There will be around 13 or more Satellite internet systems at the Quartzsite RV Forum rally. Probably one Starband Mobile Flyer set up included.

 

[Sue/Al]

And how many big.$$$$$$ Total plus per mo. did all that cost ya? we'll take Free any day, of course we're not full timers, we maintain a home, and travel when we can, so maybe full timers would be interested. We're just delighted that FREE WiFi is popping up in new places everyday, and have had no problems on our travels getting it,in our RV and just can't understand people that say they can't find it?or have trouble finding it? even when camped in a(remote) state park, we tow our car so we simply go for a ride or take the notebook pc along sightseeing, and we have always found Free WiFi. or I should say our pc finds it for us...LOL

 

[Terry A. Brewer]

Sue

>>just can't understand people that say they can't find it?or have trouble finding it? even when camped in a(remote) state park<<

I don't know where you live or how you camp, but here in the west once you get away from he freeways you will not have free wifi or in most remote locations even cell service. I can't even get a TV signal or cell service at my cabin in northern Idaho.<G>

Terry
At Meteor Crater Park, AZ
A Passport park & Free wifi.

 

[Tom]

Since everyone's experience will be different and since this could be useful information, I've started a new topic on the subject of Free WiFi at campgrounds. If you know of, or have stayed at a campground offering free WiFi, please click on the link and respond in that topic. We'll get the answers added to the forum library,

Thanks

 

[Jeff]

Free WIFI would not have kept us up-to-date with email on ouir two trips across the country this year.

We had 3-4 days while traveling that we were not able to use Verizon's Express Network. If we had stayed in some of those locations we would have been out of luck with Verizon as Terry said.

 

[John From Detroit]

Why would you pay? especially flying j? when there is FREE FREE FREE everywhere...that's the point of this discussion that's been going on, many TA's are FREE (the WiFi) well we're retired and I pride myself on the fact that I get everything especially for our PC's for FREE, all the great programs installed on our PC's are FREE, only thing we pay for is dial-up at home for $16.95 and it's Terrific! we even dial-up 2 at a time, pay for one.

The main reason for paying Flying-J is that I'm going to be spending some nights at Flying-J's on my trip west, I can buy a month's access for 20 bucks (and use half of it) The west bound plan goes something like this, Leg 1....

Leave Detroit at some oh-dark-30 hour (IE, 2-4 am) stop at Meijer's on Michigan in Jackson and drop the towed, Pick up any last second supplies, lock on the auto-tracking Sat antenna and call DISH to activate my receiver, Pick up 3rd party who will be traveling with us, re-hook towed and continue west.  Sometime later in the day pull into Flying-J service center in Indianappolis, IN, dinner, night, breakfast, refule fill fresh water tank, head on s.w.

When the day starts to get long,, Find another flying J, drain and re-fill the tank (this time w/o the bleach), dinner, fuel and breakfast once again.  Continue more westernley, once we hit AZ I need to make a left and drop down to Yuma for a bit,,,, After that I won't be needing free-wi-fi any more


Oh, just a side note:  Went to the airport (DTW) to pick up darling daughter and beau Sat Morning,,,Well, I needed to call Beau and guess what.. I'd left my phone at home, Wife's phone was in car w/me but her phone does not know many phone numbers (She refuses to learn how to use it's built in phone book)  So, I figured "Why not log on and see if I can find his last call to me on the cell provider's web site"  Great idea, Had a good strong signal to the laptop, but when the log-in page showed up they wanted 16.95 for a one day connection (Exit browser very fast)

Then I remembered I'd backed up my phone on this laptop... I was able to open the phone's phone book on the laptop and copy the number to my wife's phone by the eye-finger copy method

 

[Sue/Al]

to Terry A Brewer, we camp like everyone else I suspect? but I do prefer 50amp elec. so I don't have to be selective on running appliances, and got to have my Free WiFi, like cable TV too...been from Fla. to CA. and back, now going in Jan, up to GA, then LA, then El Paso TX and every campground we've chosen offers Free WiFi coach connect, you got to do your homework before you leave home, put your PC to work for ya, that's what we do....No Problem! and our GPS has it all mapped out for us, we're taking a more Northern Rt. skirting all around Hurricane devastation area, seen enough of that on our home turf, with Charley!

 

[BernieD]

and every campground we've chosen offers Free WiFi coach connect,

Sue/Al

You say that every campground you've chosen offers "Free WiFi coach connect".  Coach Connect is a fee based Wi-Fi service requiring an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly connection fee. So either you are paying a fee or the campground has raised it's rates to provide the service.

Yeah, there are places all over the country if you want to spend the time and effort to search them out, but if I have a PCS cell phone connection, I would rather sit in my coach and surf the web with that.

 

[Tom]

My hat is off to you.

I sure don't drive to a Starbucks, Kinko's or an airport to get a free WiFi connection. We travelled 10,000 miles across the U.S. and eastern Canada on one trip and found free WiFi at one park. That connection was next to useless unless you were sitting in front of the campground office. WiFi at other parks cost as much as $8/night and, with the exception of one park, was as useless as the free WiFi.

There's a good reason that RVers buy satellite &/or cellular solutions (I have both) or stick with other RVer's who are prepared to share their connection..

 

[John From Detroit]

I used to breakfast 3 mornings a week (I worked 3 nights, 11 to 16 hours) and the restaurant had free Wi-Fi

Note: They also had good food and service and the prices were decent as well