Comment by ssl-3

You don't need this. Strictly speaking, we don't need much.

But a travel router can be nice to have.

I bring some tech with me when I travel.

Obviously a phone, but also a decent-sounding smart speaker with long battery life so I can hear some music of my choosing in decent fidelity without using Bluetooth [bonus: battery-backed alarm clock!], a laptop for computing, a streaming box for plugging into the TV, maybe some manner of SBC to futz with if I'm bored and can't sleep during downtime.

All of this stuff really wants to have a [wifi] connection to a local area network, like it has when I'm at home.

A travel router (this one, or something from any other vendor mentioned in these threads, or just about anything that can run openwrt well) solves that problem.

All I have to do is get the router connected to the Internet however I do that (maybe there's ethernet, decent wifi, or maybe my phone hotspot or USB tethering is the order of the day), and then everything else Just Works as soon as it is unpacked and switched on.

And it all works togetherly, on my own wireless LAN -- just as those things also work at home.

Bonus nachos: With some manner of VPN like Tailscale configured in the router, or the automagic stuff this UBNT device is claimed to be able to do, a person can bring their home LAN with them, too -- without individual devices being configured to do that.

I think travel routers are pretty great, myself.

(But using Ubiquiti gear makes me feel filthy for reasons that I can't properly articulate, so I stick with things like Latvian-built Mikrotik hardware or something running OpenWRT for my own travel router uses.)