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Stay in touch with your friends and family without jeopardizing the information in your email account by setting up a temporary travel account.

There are several free and quick ways to do this without having to create a huge number of additional accounts.

Create A Travel Email Account - Open a new email account with your current provider.? The new account should be your regular email address with “trav” at the end of it (i.e. “cindy@yahoo.com” becomes “cindytrav@yahoo.com”).

• Hotmail and Yahoo - These two email providers don’t have forwarding capabilities, but the free download GetMail can do it for you. Have all of your emails forwarded to the new account to protect your privacy abroad.

Set up a vacation response (Gmail can do this too) telling your friends and family that you’re out traveling and to contact your ‘trav’ address.

• Gmail - Forwarding capabilities are built it as well strong filtering capabilities (Settings > Filters).

In your primary account setup a filter for any words, people, or businesses you don’t want to be bothered by while on vacation. Have only the email you want delivered to your “trav” account forwarded.

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Travelers going through security airlines everywhere in the US may have their laptops searched or confiscated by the TSA for any reason. Other countries like England, Israel, and many more can do the same.

Password protecting your laptop won’t help either because if you don’t provide it when asked they’ll keep the machine. (And just crack it later.)

Fortunately for us there is powerful and free technology that can not only protect your files but make it look like you aren’t - no matter what skill level you possess.

Create An Encrypted Folder - Download the powerful Truecrypt and create an encrypted volume by following a simple wizard. Then copy all of your personal files there.

• What Is It? A Truecrypt volume is an encrypted folder that can only be opened with a password.
• Skill Level Required: Intermediate

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Segway tours are becoming a popular way to travel cities all over the world but certainly a luxury over just walking. Tours via Segway can be a nice change for the experianced traveler but can also make you a tourist attraction yourself.

My recent Segway tour of DC was undoubtedly fun but I wanted to put it to the test against the traditional walking tour.

Attention On You

Traveling around on a Segway, no less in a group of them, makes your stand out. People will stare at you, homeless will yell meaningless rants in your direction, and high schoolers may tease you. Touring a town by Segway is not ideal for those who like to wander around a city and blend in.

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Zip around the US Capital, Washington Monument, and Smithsonian buildings on Capital Segway. I recently had the unexpected pleasure to receive a tour as a gift, and enjoyed the experience.

The Tour

Tours are given 3 times a day (including weekends and most holidays). After a 15-minute training video, each person is given a Segway to steer inside and around the offices of Capital Segway. Groups are 5-15 people on average. The tours last 2 hours and take you to the traditional Washington DC tourist sights. What set the tour apart for me (aside from the Segway) was how informed and interesting the tour guides made each stop. Already familiar with the area, I found the information from the tour to be unique.

Riding The Segway

The Segway can be quite intimidating to see at first. The instructional video is rather thin and makes it seem like all you can do is fall off the thing. Once you set on though you’ll see how seamlessly the internal gyroscopes do their job. A little lean forward will get you going and a little pull back will slow you down. I was comfortable on the Segway after about 10 minutes and was zipping around the first stop - Pennsylvania Avenue outside of the White House.

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Increase the security of your wireless connections and bypass international blocks of websites by downloading Hotspot Shield. The program connects you to the Hotspot Shield virtual private network (VPN) located in the US potentially getting you around regional blocks of popular websites.

Netflix for example doesn’t allow users to access their “play now” feature which lets you watch movies in your queue on your PC. A connection through the Hotspot Shield VPN will trick this and many other websites into thinking you’re located in the US.

This hack didn’t work for me each time and the connections were less than stable, but tolerable for the most part. Hotspot Shield also purports to give you “unbreakable” secure wireless access but doesn’t tell you how. If you’re connecting through a fairly reputable wireless connection (like an airport or T-Mobile hot spot) most of your important data like passwords will already be encrypted by the websites you visit.

Avoid any computer-to-computer networks and keep your online accounts safe at Internet cafes with these 12 applications you can run from a USB drive. The advertisement heavy Hotspot Shield is a free download, for both PC and Mac.

Thanks Felipe!

EDITED [5/31]: Hotspot Shield works for both PC and Mac and is Lifehacker’s featured download today.

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Keep light on your next trip by leaving your laptop at home and bringing along a USB drive with the applications you’ll need to use most. Finding a decent Internet connection in many places in the world is not only difficult, but can leave your machine vulnerable to viruses, stolen credentials, and simple theft.

Many of the applications (and their settings) such as Firefox, Pidgin, and Winamp can be run from a small thumb drive. Virtual Hosting has a good list of 50 applications that can be run with only a USB drive and an Internet cafe, here are 12 (free) ones that apply to travelers.

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Travelers who have the Mail function on their iPod Touch should disable the function to protect their privacy if the device is stolen.

• From the Settings menu, click Mail then select each email account one by one. At the top of each email account menu you’ll see Account. Slide it from On to Off to disable the account. It won’t erase any of your settings, or messages, just hide it in the Mail client.

This won’t deter a smart thief, but it might keep your nosy sister from reading your electronic love letters from her best friend. A passcode lock also helps in case the device is stolen - hopefully a crook will just give up and wipe the device rather than get access to your emails and any important information contained in them.

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The iPod (any flavor) has become a travel essential for most of us. Since Apple introduced the iPod Touch (and the iPhone) travelers now have the potential for a much more versatile device by their sides.

Although the iPod Touch comes with Safari, YouTube, and a calculator, you can add many more features such as Nintendo game emulators, Internet radios, and even use the device as a level. First you’ll need to get your iPod Touch (all of this works for the iPhone too) ready to be hacked. This is called “jailbreaking” and it’s easy to do. Here is a good tutorial or watch this helpful video. Keep in mind that you’ll need to be using version 1.1.1 of the iPod firmware. If you’re not, you’ll need to downgrade first (here’s how).

Once you’ve that all in order you’re ready to have the Swiss Army knife of gadgets to entertain and inform you on your next trip. Use the Installer icon now on your screen to install the following recommendations.

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Cover your electronic friends from scratches, cracks, and stains with the Invisible Shield. The Invisible Shield is a scratch protection film that was developed by US military to protect helicopter blades.

The thin film covers iPods, laptops, and other devices completely; or they even sell custom screen-only versions. The prices are moderate (around $26 for a full iPod Touch cover) and come with the film, cleaning solution, and a small squeegee to get out any air bubbles.

By far one of the best scratch resistant methods I’ve used to protect my valuable screens that take a beating every time I hit the road. Of course a shiny clean screen is pretty useless if your device doesn’t have any power. Try using a solar backpack for the outdoors or bring an outlet USB charger.

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The free Web application Flight Wait creates a simple graphical representation of flight delay statuses. Select your home airport and you’ll see green, yellow, or red lines to connected cities indicating the time you’ll be waiting.

If all lines are green, the wait is a maximum of 15 minutes. If the lines are yellow, your airport or area is reporting delays between approximately 16-59 minutes. A red line indicates a wait of an additional one to two hours, and if the line is black, you’re stuck for at least two hours.

To get more details that Flight Wait offers use the Orbitz Traveler Update or track your flights directly. Remember to reduce your delay stress and get a good meal.

[via Lifehacker]

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