Gear guide
Security while travelling: a rep’s guide
A week on the road puts your laptop on four networks you don’t control, your phone in three taxis, and your client list in a hall with twelve thousand other people. None of that needs to be a problem. Here’s what reps set up before they fly, what to watch on the show floor, and where the client data in your bag actually sits.
Before you fly
Five things that take a few minutes each at your desk and are awkward to sort once you have landed.
Turn on a screen lock and device encryption
A PIN or biometric lock with encryption behind it is the single step that decides what a lost phone costs you. On current iPhones and Android handsets encryption follows the lock screen, so setting one turns the other on.
Move two-factor codes off SMS
An authenticator app produces codes without a signal. SMS codes need a network that will deliver them, and a roaming SIM in a hall with no reception is where people get locked out of their own CRM on the morning of a show.
Switch on Find My / Find My Device
It is what lets you locate, lock or wipe a handset from someone else’s laptop. Worth checking it is actually on before you travel rather than at the taxi rank.
Check your backup ran
Open the settings and look at the date of the last one. A backup that stopped syncing three months ago looks identical to a working one until you need it.
Know what client data you are carrying
A laptop with a contacts spreadsheet on it is a data breach waiting for a taxi. If the contacts live in an account you can sign out of remotely, a lost device is an inconvenience rather than a notification to your clients.
The two worth paying for
Everything above is free. These two are not, and they cover the part the settings screens can’t: the network itself.
Airalo
eSIM for international travel
The stronger of the two, because it takes you off the shared network rather than working around it. It also removes roaming charges, which is usually what persuades people — the security is the part they notice later.
Get a travel eSIMairalo.com
NordVPN
Encrypts your connection on networks you do not control — show halls, hotel lobbies, airport lounges.
For the hours you are on the venue’s Wi-Fi, the hotel’s, or a client’s office — where an eSIM’s data allowance won’t stretch to a day of laptop work. Set it to connect on its own when it meets an unfamiliar network, then stop thinking about it.
Get a VPNnordvpn.com
Affiliate disclosure: the two links above are affiliate links — if you buy through them, RepBud may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It doesn’t change what you pay, and it helps keep these guides free. The advice on this page stands either way.
On the show floor
A trade show is a building full of people whose job is to be interested in your suppliers, your rates and your contacts.
Treat the hall Wi-Fi as a public room
Most sites use HTTPS, so what you send to them is already encrypted. What the network can still see is which services you are using, and anything that has not made the move. A VPN wraps that too.
Charge from your own plug, not a stranger’s cable
A USB socket carries data as well as power. A wall plug you brought, or a power bank in your bag, sidesteps the question — and a power bank is the more useful item on a show floor anyway.
Read what the badge scan collects
Your badge is a lead record. When you scan someone, or they scan you, contact details change hands under the organiser’s terms — worth a look at what those say, particularly for a show outside your own jurisdiction.
Keep the bag on you at stand meetings
A laptop bag under a table at a busy stand is the most common loss at a trade show, and it rarely looks like a theft while it is happening.
Lock the screen when you step away
Fifteen seconds at an unattended laptop is enough. On a stand you are surrounded by people whose job is also to be interested in your suppliers.
Back at the hotel
Where the quiet admin happens — the follow-ups, the quotes, the expenses — usually on the least private network of the day.
Hotel Wi-Fi is the hall Wi-Fi with a password
A shared password is not a private network — it means everyone in the building is on the same one. This is where the VPN earns its keep, because the hotel room is where the quiet admin work happens.
Use the safe, and remember the last-day problem
Most losses happen on check-out morning when the safe is emptied in a hurry. Open it and photograph it empty before you close the door.
Turn off auto-join for open networks
Handsets rejoin anything they recognise. A network called "Airport_Free_WiFi" is recognised in a lot of airports, and not always by the airport.
Watch for the invoice that arrives mid-show
A payment-detail change emailed while you are away from the office is a well-worn approach, and a trade show is when it is sent. Confirm it on a number you already had, not one in the message.
Where the client data sits
The part of this that is worth more than the settings screens: a contact list on your device travels with the device. Lose the laptop and the contacts go with it, and under UK and EU data protection rules that is your incident to assess and possibly to report — to the regulator, and to the people on the list.
The same contacts held in an account are a sign-out. You revoke the session from another device and the data stays where it was. That is the argument for a system rather than a spreadsheet, and it is a large part of why RepBud keeps your trade contacts, meetings and follow-ups in one place instead of in files that live on whichever machine you had with you.
This guide is general information, not legal or security advice, and your own company’s IT policy comes first. RepBud is designed to assist, not replace, your professional judgement.
Your contacts, meetings and follow-ups in one account — not on the laptop in your bag.
Heading to a show?
Each event guide carries the dates, the venue and the travel to go with it — including the two above.
Travelling securely, answered
Do I need a VPN at a trade show?+
It depends on what you do on the network. Most sites are HTTPS now, so the contents of what you send are already encrypted between you and the site. A VPN adds a layer over the rest — which services you connect to, anything not yet on HTTPS, and the DNS lookups in between — and it does that on the hall Wi-Fi, the hotel and the airport alike. If you handle client contact data or supplier rates from your laptop while travelling, it is a reasonable thing to have running.
Is an eSIM better than a VPN for security?+
They answer different halves of the same week. An eSIM gives you a connection of your own so you are not on the shared network at all, which is the stronger position. A VPN is what you use when you are on someone else’s network anyway — the venue’s, the hotel’s, a client’s office. Reps who travel a lot tend to carry both, and the eSIM does double duty by removing roaming charges.
What is the first thing to sort before a trade show?+
A screen lock with encryption behind it, and two-factor codes on an authenticator app rather than SMS. Those two take a few minutes and cover the two things that actually go wrong on the road: a handset that goes missing, and a code that will not arrive because you are in a hall with no signal.
Is public Wi-Fi at a hotel safer than at the airport?+
Not meaningfully. A password shared with everyone staying in the building is a password everyone in the building has. Treat any network you did not set up as one other people are also on.
What happens to my client data if I lose my laptop?+
That depends on where the data lives. Contacts held in a spreadsheet on the device travel with the device. Contacts held in an account are a sign-out — you can revoke the session and the data stays where it was. It is one of the arguments for keeping trade contacts in a system rather than a file, and under UK and EU data protection rules it is also the difference between an incident you manage and one you report.
Are the links on this page affiliate links?+
The VPN and eSIM links are — RepBud may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. It helps keep these guides free. The advice above stands whether you use those links or not.