Travel Routing

I tend to write a version of this article every couple of years as things change and my interests change and it can be a very broad subject. Or it can be pretty narrow. It depends on what your goals are. But since i have not found a good way to parse it, you will get everything.
When i say travel routing i mean any time you leave the house especially on an extended trip. So i guess the best place to start would be your vehicle. I know some vehicles come with a esim if you want to pay for it built in but i prefer to roll my own.
There are actually three ways that you can go from here in regards to a router. I like the USB C powered routers such as the travel routers from tp-link which come with openwrt built in. Or you can get a home router that runs on 12v dc and wire that into the car directly using one of the fused lines that is only powered when the ignition is on. I would also suggest putting open-wrt on that as well. The 3rd is actually the easiest and thats simply using the wifi sharing on your phone.
1. First lets start with the phone wifi hotspot. Like i said this is the easiest but it also provides you with the least amount of control and usually the slowest speeds unless you want to pay extra to your cell phone provider.
a. This can still be relatively secure especially if you use a vpn on your phone
b. Doesnt allow you to control the IP address provided which can make local file serving and troubleshooting more difficult
c. Many cell providers will limit your speed for tethering in this fashion and while there are ways to get around it you will probably need to do it on a per device basis unless you want to pay more for tethering

2. The 12v router.
a. This setup is probably the least convenient and most difficult to setup in that it requires you to wire into the electrical system of your car unless it has an inverter built in or you can fund an accessory power supply with the correct size barrel jack and have a port handy. Running from the fuse panel is also an option so long as you find one that is off when the ignition is off.
b. Next you will need to setup something like easytether to get around the tethering issue mentioned previously and run a usb cable to where you can easily access it from your phone. This will keep your phone charged if slowly and provide internet to everyone using the device.
c. You can either run a vpn directly on the device back to your house or you can run it from your phone. I almost always have the vpn turned on on my phone so i dont worry about it.

3. The 5v router
a. These run off of USB and a lot of them come with openwrt built in. You can do all of the same things with this that you can with the 12v but you can also easily disconnect it and take it with you when you get where you are going or into whatever hotel you are staying at.
b. We will get more into the the hotel portion later on
c. Some of the smaller ones or lower cost ones may have memory limitations

Running openwrt allows you to add applications like easytether and different VPN applications if you need them and allows you to control all of the IP addresses. This let you set static ips and you can setup different servers if you want to. with traveling there are always places in the middle of nowhere that you are not going to have internet access or the speeds will be too slow to stream properly. So it can be good to have a server setup with something like plex or even a game server if you want. it all kind of depends on what other devices you are willing to bring with you or have set up in your vehicle. The routers may also have a usb port that could be used for file serving but if it only has the one i think it will be better used connected to your phone for tethering. Easytether is an older application that still works even though you sometimes have to jump through a couple of hoops to get it installed.
But in order to run a plex server OTG you need a device. The easiest that i have found for doing this on the move is a tablet that runs linux. Dell Venue, Dell Latitude, many others. You just need to setup plex the way that you normally would and then maybe an eternal hard drive if you need more space. You will need to make sure that sleep is disabled and the device stays plugged in. Also because it is a tablet you probably wont get a lot of simultaneous streams and you should optimize the files so that transcoding is limited. Also May be a good idea to keep the device somewhere that gets some airflow.
Now that all being said there is the overkill solution. You can do the whole thing on an SBC with a wifi adapter and a hard drive. Something like the zima board or a raspberry pi with a couple of hats. That is probably not something that i would leave in a car in Texas but i can see the benefits. Also it doesnt just need to be videos that you keep on there. You can set it up as a local backup for the photos that you take on vacation as well as have a local instance of something like audiobookshelf.
All of these setups are also a good thing to have while you are in a hotel or at a relatives house. Especially if you have a wife and kids. You can keep the same name and password as your home router and a couple of clicks and everyone will just be on it and if you have the vpn setup on the device then it will be just like you are on your home network when you have internet, Just one connection to either the router at the families house or to the ethernet connection at the hotel. If you cant find the ethernet connection at the hotel then use the one that connected to the TV. Also if you have the diy server you can have it work as a settop box if you bring an hdmi cable with you.
I even left one of my routers at my dads house one year because they were having issues with the wifi signal reaching everywhere so i took the time to reconfigure it to repeater and had one of the bands match their router and another of the bands setup with vpn back to the house and matching the wifi name there. After we left my mom had an issue with the wifi on her laptop going out so i had her move the repeater and hook up to it using ethernet.
When traveling an important thing to remember is security. Always use protection when interfacing with someone elses internet connection. That is why i always have a VPN handy. i have two separate wireguard connections active at home and one openvpn. As well i have a VPN service that i pay for that is external to my home just in case it becomes unavailable. From a VPN company that is verified to not log information. Using a VPN allows all your data to be encrypted on whatever network you are using. I have another article that i have written on travel electronics that goes a lot further into the things that you can do to protect your devices, specifically geared towards international travel.