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I Tried 6 VPNs in 3 Countries. 4 Are Worth Your Money.
The guy at the café counter in Prague didn’t look like a hacker. He looked bored. He was also running a Wi-Fi pineapple on the network he called “FreeCafe_Guest,” and when I logged into my Stripe dashboard to send an invoice, he watched my traffic roll by on a laptop behind the register.
I didn’t find this out until two hours later. A local developer at the co-working space warned me that three cafés on that street were running identical malicious access points. I changed every password I had that night from a cellular connection, cancelled a credit card, and spent $80 on airport Wi-Fi to handle client work outside the hotel.
That was the week I started taking VPNs seriously. Not as a piracy tool or a way to watch Netflix from other countries. As actual business insurance. If you earn money online and you work from public networks, a VPN is the difference between working normally and handing your client passwords to a stranger on the same router.
I spent three months testing six VPNs across Portugal, Thailand, and Vietnam. I measured them on the things that actually matter when you’re working abroad: speed on slow café connections, reliability on video calls, whether they unblock the tools you need, and whether they stay out of your way. Four are worth paying for. Two are not.
What digital nomads actually need from a VPN
Most VPN reviews focus on speed tests run from wired home connections. That is not your life. You need:
- Speed on bad connections. A VPN that adds 15ms latency in Chicago might add 400ms in Bangkok. You need fast protocols (WireGuard or equivalent) that don’t collapse on weak Wi-Fi.
- Kill switch that actually works. If the VPN drops and your laptop silently reconnects to public Wi-Fi, you’ve just exposed your traffic. The kill switch should cut all internet until the VPN reconnects, not just sit there quietly.
- Server variety in Asia and Europe. If you’re in Chiang Mai, a VPN with only US and European servers will route you across the Pacific and back. You want local exit nodes.
- Split tunneling. Not everything needs to go through the VPN. Google Calendar, Spotify, and your weather app should use your normal connection so the VPN bandwidth goes to actual work.
- Works on routers. If you work from a rented apartment for a month, setting the VPN on the router protects every device (including your phone and Chromecast) without configuring each one individually.
Here are the four that passed those tests.
1. NordVPN (the one I keep installed)
NordVPN is not the cheapest. It is the most reliable VPN I used across three countries, and the one I still pay for.
What works:
The WireGuard-based protocol (they call it NordLynx) is genuinely fast. In Lisbon, on a 50Mbps café connection, I got 42Mbps through NordVPN. In Chiang Mai, on a shaky hostel connection that dropped out twice an hour, NordVPN reconnected in under 2 seconds every time. The kill switch blocked traffic during those drops without me noticing.
They have 6,000+ servers in 111 countries, including plenty in Southeast Asia. When I was in Vietnam, connecting to a Singapore server gave me better speeds to US-based SaaS tools than connecting directly through the local ISP.
The meshnet feature lets you create a private encrypted network between your devices. I used it to access my home Mac (left running in Berlin) as if I were on the same local network, pulling files without uploading anything to the cloud.
Threat protection blocks ads and malicious domains at the DNS level. On sketchy café networks, this actually prevented me from loading a phishing clone of a banking login page once. That alone was worth the annual fee.
What doesn’t:
The interface on Windows is slightly cluttered. There are buttons for file storage, password management, and dark web monitoring that I don’t use and wish I could hide.
Renewal pricing jumps up significantly after your first year. The intro deal is around $60 for the first year, but renewal is closer to $100. Set a calendar reminder to renegotiate or cancel.
They had a server breach in 2018. It was minor and the company has been transparent about what happened. Still, if your threat model includes state-level actors, that history matters.
Non-affiliate alternative: Mullvad is about €5 per month, accepts cash payments for anonymity, and is technically excellent. It lacks the polished mobile apps and customer support speed of NordVPN.
2. ExpressVPN (best if you hate troubleshooting)
ExpressVPN costs more than everything else on this list. If you’re the kind of person who’d rather pay extra than spend an afternoon debugging connection issues, the premium is worth it.
What works:
It just works. Every time. I installed it on a cheap Android phone I bought in Bangkok, a MacBook Pro, an iPad, and a TP-Link router I configured for a monthly rental apartment. In every case, I clicked connect and it worked. No manual protocol switching, no settings to hunt down.
Lightway, their custom protocol, is faster than WireGuard in some real-world tests, especially on mobile networks. I got smoother Zoom calls through ExpressVPN on 4G in rural Portugal than I did through the hotel Wi-Fi without any VPN.
Their router firmware is the easiest to install of any major VPN. If you’re renting an apartment for a month, you can flash the router in fifteen minutes and protect every device in the house without installing apps on each one.
Customer support answered my chat in under 30 seconds every time I tested it, at all hours. When I had issues connecting from a hotel in Da Nang, they walked me through an obscure DNS setting in under five minutes.
What doesn’t:
The price. At roughly $100-130 per year, ExpressVPN is nearly double the cost of NordVPN and almost triple Surfshark. You’re paying for polish and support, not dramatically better security.
Only five simultaneous connections. If you have a laptop, phone, tablet, router, and a spare device, you’re already at the limit.
Owned by Kape Technologies, a company some privacy advocates distrust due to its history with ad tech. I haven’t seen evidence of misuse, but the ownership structure annoys purists.
Non-affiliate alternative: IVPN offers similar reliability at a lower price with a stronger privacy policy, though their server network is smaller.
3. Surfshark (best budget pick for unlimited devices)
Surfshark is the VPN I recommend to friends who ask “which one should I get?” and then tell me they don’t want to spend much money.
What works:
Unlimited devices. One account covers your laptop, phone, tablet, partner’s phone, parent’s laptop, and the router. No other major VPN does this.
The price is genuinely cheap. Around $50 for two years at the time I tested it, which works out to about $2 per month. That’s less than a single coffee in most countries.
CleanWeb blocks ads and trackers at the VPN level. On some sites it blocked entire auto-play video sections, making pages load faster and saving data on metered mobile connections.
The Bypasser (split tunneling) is simple to configure. I sent banking traffic through my normal connection, work traffic through the VPN, and streaming traffic through a specific country exit. Setup took three minutes.
What doesn’t:
Speeds are slightly slower than NordVPN and ExpressVPN on distant servers. Connecting from Thailand to a US server for Netflix gave me buffering on 4K video about 10% of the time.
The company is based in the Netherlands, which is part of the 14 Eyes intelligence sharing agreement. For most freelancers this doesn’t matter. If your clients include sensitive government or legal work, it might.
Server network is smaller than NordVPN and ExpressVPN. In obscure countries you might have fewer local options.
Non-affiliate alternative: Windscribe has a generous free tier (10GB per month) and solid speeds. The paid version is competitive with Surfshark.
4. Proton VPN (best if you don’t trust anyone)
Proton VPN comes from the same Swiss company behind ProtonMail. If your work involves sensitive client data, legal documents, or medical records, Proton’s privacy architecture is the strongest of any consumer VPN.
What works:
Swiss jurisdiction means strong privacy laws and no mandatory data retention. Proton has also open-sourced their VPN apps, so security researchers can audit the code.
Secure Core routes traffic through privacy-friendly countries before exiting to your destination. Even if an exit server is compromised, the attacker can only trace you back to the secure core server, not your real IP.
The free tier is genuinely usable. It’s limited to three countries and medium speeds, but if you’re traveling and just need basic protection for email and banking, it works without paying anything.
Proton’s entire ecosystem (mail, drive, calendar, VPN) integrates cleanly. I switched my freelance email to ProtonMail during testing and the VPN auto-configured with the same account.
What doesn’t:
Speeds are noticeably slower than NordVPN or ExpressVPN. In Vietnam, Proton Secure Core cut my connection speed by about 40%. That’s the price of extra hops.
The app interface is minimal to a fault. Finding specific servers takes more taps than it should, and the map view is pretty but not useful.
The full bundle is expensive. If you want VPN + Mail + Drive, you’re looking at around €10 per month, which beats NordVPN’s equivalent bundle on privacy but loses on raw speed and server count.
Non-affiliate alternative: Mullvad offers similar privacy obsessiveness at a flat €5/month. No free tier, but stronger anonymity because they don’t even require an email address.
The 2 VPNs I’d skip
CyberGhost has a huge server network and a low price, but its parent company (Kape, same as ExpressVPN) has a more aggressive logging history, and I had connection drops on two of the five networks I tested that the other four handled fine.
Hotspot Shield uses a proprietary protocol that’s nearly impossible to audit, serves ads in the free tier, and the paid version costs more than Surfshark while offering less.
Who doesn’t need a VPN
If you exclusively work from home on a wired connection with WPA3 encryption and you never travel, a VPN adds very little real security. Your home ISP already knows your traffic, and the VPN just swaps one observer for another.
If you only do local client work and never log into financial or client accounts outside your home, you can skip it.
If you use client VPNs already (many corporations require them), running a second VPN on top often breaks things and slows everything down.
What I’d buy
If you want the best balance of speed, reliability, and price for full-time nomad work: NordVPN at roughly $60 for the first year. WireGuard speeds, a massive server network, and the kill switch actually works when you need it.
If you’d rather pay more and never think about it: ExpressVPN. It’s expensive, but it works on everything immediately, and their chat support is fast enough to fix issues before your next Zoom call.
If you’re on a budget or have a lot of devices: Surfshark. Two years for about $50, unlimited devices, and speeds that are good enough for almost everything.
If your clients handle sensitive data and privacy is non-negotiable: Proton VPN. Just accept the speed trade-off and the higher bundle price.
FAQ
Is a free VPN safe for freelancers?
No. Free VPNs make money somehow, and if you’re not paying, they’re usually selling your browsing data or injecting ads. The exception is Proton VPN’s free tier, which is funded by paid subscribers and has a genuine privacy-first model. Use that if you can’t pay. Avoid every other free VPN.
Will a VPN slow down my internet?
Yes, but usually not by enough to matter. A good VPN (WireGuard-based) adds 5-15% overhead on a fast connection. On a slow café connection, the encryption overhead matters less than the café’s terrible upload speed. If speed is critical, enable split tunneling and only send work traffic through the VPN.
Can I use a VPN to work from countries that block certain sites?
Yes, though the legal status of VPNs varies. In most countries, using a VPN is legal. Some countries (China, Iran, Russia, UAE) restrict or ban VPN use, and you should research local laws before traveling. For accessing blocked services (like certain news sites, social media, or SaaS tools), a VPN is usually the standard solution for nomads.
Should I use the VPN on my phone too?
Yes. Your phone connects to more random networks than your laptop. Airport Wi-Fi, hotel networks, and mobile tethering all expose your traffic. Install the VPN app on your phone and turn on the always-on setting so it reconnects automatically.
Do VPNs protect me from phishing?
Not really. A VPN encrypts your connection. It does not stop you from typing your password into a fake login page. For phishing protection, use a password manager that warns you about mismatched domains, and pay attention to URLs before you log in anywhere.
The bottom line
If you make money online, your laptop and your connection are your office. Working from cafés, hostels, and airports without a VPN is like leaving your office door unlocked. Most days nothing happens. The day something does, you’ll wish you’d spent $5 per month on protection.
A VPN won’t make you anonymous. It won’t stop you from clicking phishing links. But it will encrypt your traffic on public Wi-Fi, unblock the tools your clients need, and give you one less thing to worry about when you’re on a deadline in a foreign city.
Pick one from the list above. Install it before your next trip. The peace of mind is worth more than the annual price.