There’s so much of our lives tied to services on the Internet these days it is hard to completely disconnect. It’s not just about checking emails or social networks. I like the ability to capture and save bits and pieces of information on Evernote – and that requires Internet Access or at least email.

One of the best ways to get mobile Internet access is through the phone. In our case, our plan allows us to hook up (or tether) the laptop to the phone and get online. I don’t carry a laptop anymore but my husband does. Because of this, we hardly have trouble getting Internet access on the go anymore. It was also a huge life saver when we had to suddenly admit our daughter in the hospital for 14 days.

The down side is, you have to maintain what cell phone carriers usually call a data plan and that is not cheap. At the time of writing for a single line plan, Sprint is charging about $65 a month. I am with Verizon – who bought Alltell so I am grandfathered in at a $90 a month everything included plan.

Technology wise, another alternative is to get one of those modems like MiFi or the Overdrive from Sprint. But those too run at least $60 a month.

Unfortunately there aren’t that many alternatives that don’t require you to sign on to a 2 year plan. The good news is, you could

• Plan to stay at hotels with Wireless access.
• Scope out wifi access points in the city you are traveling to. Many cafes even the small Main Street ones offer free wifi these days.

My only concern with connecting at these places is security. So you will always want to be careful. Someone told me once, they only check emails on these networks, they don’t do banking and anything like that so they aren’t worried. Well, that may be true but if you have ever lost your email account you will suddenly realize how much personal stuff is sent to you via email. And email accounts can be hijacked – a huge upset. I’ll write about this at a later date.

So yeah, even my email account I guard closely.

You know what the funny thing is? Why these companies don’t offer a pay-as-you-go data only plan. They may think that keeping you hooked monthly is earning them more but I think, I’d pay a little more for the convenience to get non-public Internet access whenever I need it.