When you can’t afford high speed internet at home or you’re traveling and don’t want to pay costly internet fees on top of the already high cost of your hotel room, do you have to turn to dial up access? You’ll be happy to hear that the answer is no. Here are a few options for using high speed internet access for free:

Photo: SXC

Head to a Library

Grab a phone book and look up the phone number of the nearest local library and make a quick call to ask if it offers free high speed internet access for patrons. If you are traveling, make sure to mention that you are not a local resident to confirm that the library has a way for visitors to access the internet. If you have a laptop with a wireless internet card, don’t forget to ask if the library offers Wi-Fi access, which means that you will be able to use your laptop to access the internet once you are in the library. Otherwise, you may have to use the library’s computers to go online.

Hunt for Free WiFi Spots

If the library doesn’t offer high speed internet access, you’ll still need that phone number so you can ask the librarian to look up local free Wi-Fi hot spots for you. My local coffee shop has Wi-Fi that is paid for by a special government grant and I know my local Panera Bread lets customers use Wi-Fi, too. (The coffee shop owner even lets you use the computers in the shop for free, but I don’t think that is very common!)

Don’t want to call your library? Do your research ahead of time. You can take your laptop with a wireless internet card to any of the Wi-Fi locations in the Wi-Fi free spot directory and hop onto the internet.

Quick Tip for People Who Are Using Free High Speed Internet Access

Be careful when using Wi-Fi. My computer guy said hackers may be able to intercept your private information when you use Wi-Fi, so you probably want to postpone banking and other high risk activities until you have a secure connection.