Travelling with tech tiresome

Asmartphone is a traveller’s best friend but despite being around for 10 years, airports, airlines and hotels haven’t fully embraced them.

It’s still expensive to get hotel wi-fi, find somewhere to charge devices and difficult to use your own headphones on planes.

I hope someday to be able to travel while seamlessly connected to the internet but I don’t think hotels are going to help.

A hotel in Sydney I recently stayed at charged A$18 (NZ$19.50) for 200MB, though if you’re feeling flush you could fork out for A$85 for 1GB. That last figure is what I pay for a month’s unlimited broadband at home.

Those charges may have been OK in the 1990s but it’s puzzling why prices are still so high. I know Australia is behind New Zealand with its ultra-fast broadband rollout but most travellers don’t need fast speeds, just fair prices.

It’s far cheaper to roam using