This super cool portable device can save you boatloads of money when you travel

I travel to 20+ countries a year sharing my firsthand knowledge of reward travel, travel credit card deals, travel tips and more.

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Disclosure, visit this page.

I love cruising and honestly, I never thought I would utter those words until I set sail for the first time. Like many, I always thought cruising would make me feel claustrophobic or imprisoned but I was pleasantly surprised; it’s quite the opposite. It’s liberating and there’s always something to do, especially if you’re on a large cruise ship that is like a floating Las Vegas hotel. I even love the smaller ships more, like Seabourn, since they’re so luxurious and can sail to ports that the larger ones can’t. RELATED: A reader suggested this little-known cruise essential I never knew existed and she was spot-on

However, the one thing I don’t like about cruising is that most ships charge an arm and a leg for WiFi. The same goes for airlines like American Airlines. I flew American Airlines this week and they wanted $19 for just one hour of surfing time; see screenshot below.

That’s insane, isn’t it? Especially, when some of their competitors offer it for free or for a much more reasonable fee of $8 a flight.

Cruises can be equally or even more expensive, depending on the cruise line. Below is a screenshot of WiFi for a seven-day cruise for four devices. It’s $279, which comes out to about $9 a day per device. That’s a bargain but it can still be prohibitively expensive when you and your wife both use a laptop and a smartphone and the kids use iPads.

Fortunately, tech guru Kim Komando turned me onto this pocket-sized, portable Wi-Fi router. She wrote in her newsletter, “think of a travel router as your own private hub on the ship’s network. Pay for the internet for one device but share it using this.” At the time of this publication, the device is 32% off.

I just ordered one but wanted to share this so that you can hopefully catch the sale price, too. But even if the device isn’t on sale, at $49.90 it may be worth it, depending on how much you travel because taking just one cruise or one American Airlines flight would offset the cost.

In addition to Kim and Amazon recommending this device, I looked up the reviews and found a verified user who gave it five stars. John gave five detailed reasons why travelers should have it and here a few of them:

“When I travel on the plane, I get free wifi with my mobile plan. But the moment I want to take my laptop or tablet out, I have to pay for some package to have wifi for them. With the repeater, I am able to connect to the airline wifi, authenticate with my phone as the first device, and then all my devices share that wifi connection.”

John then wrote, “When I travel on a cruise ship, they want to charge me $20+ a day for each device that will simultaneously connect to their wifi, which is insane. And of course you have to continually switch the authorized device. With this pocket router, you can just authenticate once, and all your devices (in wifi range) will use that one connection. When we are talking about having 7 to 10 devices connected at once, this is a lifesaver.”

John also says, “It runs off of an external power bank. I have an Anker 20K mAh power brick, and it will run this pocket router for something like 3 days continually before it needs to recharge. So, for instance, while on the cruise ship, I just throw the power bank and router in my bag, and haul it to the pool, to dinner, etc. and it keeps everyone in my family connected.”

So if you’re looking to stay connected with more than one device and to save some money when you travel, especially while flying or cruising, then you should definitely add this secure portable WiFi router to your arsenal of tech devices.