The best VPN services for travelling

The best performance with a virtual private network (VPN) service comes when you’re connecting to servers in your neck of the woods. Basically, the closer the server to where you’re connecting from, the lower the impact on download, upload and latency speeds. So when it comes to travelling, a VPN should offer servers in or nearby the locations you want to visit.

According to the Bureau of Statistics (via Escape), the top 10 travel destinations in late 2022 were for countries in Oceania (New Zealand and Fiji), Asia (Indonesia, India, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), Europe (UK, Italy) and North America. We’ve evaluated and categorised the best travel VPNs based on global locations, cost and for specific regions in all major continents.

This is the easiest category to determine because it’s all about the numbers. Of the 17 VPNs we’ve reviewed, ExpressVPN has the most locations to choose from, with 151 on offer. That’s handy for globetrotters, but ExpressVPN also has great representation in all continents: first for Oceania and Europe, second for Asia, third for the Americas and fourth for Africa. If you want travel versatility, ExpressVPN is a great choice. It also helps that it’s a robust VPN service with lots of servers, fast connection and it’s a great VPN for accessing geoblocked streaming services. You’ll have to pay for the pleasure and it is restricted to five simultaneous connections, but ExpressVPN is one of the easiest-to-use VPNs available.

For contender VPNs with a lot of global location choices, consider Private Internet Access, Surfshark or CyberGhost.

In terms of the VPNs we’ve reviewed, NordVPN has the fewest location choices (83) while ExpressVPN has the most (151). A bunch of contenders sit around the 100 mark, but while Windscribe is the cheapest overall VPN we’ve reviewed, PureVPN sits in second spot and still offers 95 server locations. For the best value, go with the PureVPN annual plan, which has the lowest price of all the VPNs we’ve reviewed. Take advantage of the 31-day money-back guarantee if you don’t like it in that first month. Aside from cheap pricing, you’ll get access to a very manageable 10 simultaneous connections to protect all compatible devices on a network with thousands of server options for uptime peace of mind.

For competitively priced alternatives, consider Private Internet Access (the annual or three-year subscription), Surfshark (annual) or Mullvad VPN (monthly).

As far as most VPN providers are concerned, Oceania seemingly refers to servers in Australia and New Zealand. For New Zealand, there’s typically only one location option. And for Australia, servers tend to be clustered on the east coast. Even then, location choices are limited to anywhere from one to only a handful of options. Windscribe offers six Australian city choices: Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. That’s not as all-encompassing as we’d like for our vast nation, but it’s the best of what’s available. Windscribe is also a solid VPN care of unlimited simultaneous connections to protect all of your family’s compatible devices, and it has a great selection of global locations if you’re heading outside of Australia.

Alternatively, Mullvad VPN and ExpressVPN both offer six location options for Australia, while Surfshark has five locations for Australia and two for New Zealand.

Asia is the largest content in the world, which means you want a VPN that offers a lot of location choices for countries in that vast region. Despite the expansiveness of Asia, most VPNs we’ve reviewed only offer a handful of choices or below 20. Surfshark VPN is one of a few that offers 20+, with 30 on offer. Naturally, it also helps that Surfshark VPN is a great all-rounder VPN. Surfshark offers unlimited simultaneous connections, thousands of global servers and 142 total global locations to choose from. Admittedly, Surfshark has inconsistent global speeds and isn’t the best for streaming. Still, it’s an easy-to-use VPN with plenty of features for users who want to get the most out of it.

For VPN alternatives that have a decent number of Asian locations to choose from, consider ExpressVPN, Hotspot Shield VPN and CyberGhost VPN.

The Americas is a massive place, spanning North American and South American continents. Given the population of these regions, and the reality that VPNs tend to be marketed to those in the USA, there are generally dozens of locations to choose from with most VPNs. Private Internet Access VPN has a clear lead in this category, with 67 options in the Americas. With 146 global locations and a network comprising tens of thousands of servers, Private Internet Access promises plenty of travel versatility and consistent uptime. Buy an annual or three-year subscription for the best value. Whichever subscription you choose, you’ll be able to use Private Internet Access simultaneously on up to 10 compatible devices.

Alternatively, check in with Surfshark VPN, ExpressVPN or IPVanish VPN for a decent range of location choices in the Americas.

Full disclosure: ExpressVPN and Surfshark VPN both have more European locations to choose from than CyberGhost VPN. Go with either of those options (featured above) if you want the most choices for Europe. Otherwise, CyberGhost VPN is the next best bet with 55 European locations to choose from. CyberGhost is a fully featured VPN that supports up to seven simultaneous connections and has an expansive global network with thousands of servers. Admittedly, it’s not great for streaming and speeds can be inconsistent, but it does have inbuilt anti-malware and ad-blocker functionality, which helps to add to its overall versatility.

Outside of ExpressVPN and Surfshark VPN, those travelling to Europe can also consider Private Internet Access VPN, Hotspot Shield VPN and NordVPN.

NordVPN is one of the best VPN services you can buy today with a great commitment to user anonymity and security, a global network of thousands of servers, fast speeds and great streaming results. What it lacks in global location options it makes up for by offering top-five results for Oceania, Europe and Africa. The reason we love NordVPN in general is it’s incredibly easy to use for newcomers, while VPN veterans can find more value from a range of inclusions, including anti-malware and ad-blocker functionality. NordVPN doesn’t really compete on price, so stick with the monthly or annual subscription if you’re curious to try. You can always take advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantee if it’s not for you.

Alternatively, CyberGhost VPN and Surfshark have one or two more location choices in Africa than NordVPN.

Below is a breakdown of the location counts per major continent. Note the information was accurate at the time of writing, and some of the VPN locations had to be manually sorted.

If you want a VPN that has the flexibility to offer nearby servers wherever you travel, go with a VPN that offers the most location choices. Note that VPNs tend to advertise an overall location count as a combination of countries and cities. More popular and populous travel locations tend to have more location options.

For those who tend to frequent particular parts of the world, go with a VPN that has the most location choices for a particular country or the most options for that region. Most VPN providers offer a breakdown of their server locations if you search for the VPN name with “server locations” afterwards.

Certain VPN providers offer free versions so you can try before you buy, but note that these tend to be restricted to particular server locations. That’s great if you’re travelling to one of those places, but less great if it’s far away from where you are in the world. As an alternative, consider using a money-back guarantee (all VPNs offer them). Just remember to set a calendar reminder to cancel if you don’t like a VPN after testing the full version.

The best travel VPN overall is the one that has the most locations. VPN providers tend to separate country and per-country city counts (where available). Note that countries like the USA tend to have more location choices than smaller places like New Zealand.

For our cheapest category, we looked at a balance of overall price and the number of global locations available. The specific continental winners were first ordered in terms of available Bureau of Statistics data for the most popular travel destinations for Australians (at the time of writing). Afterwards, we used VPN location information or, where unavailable, manually counted and sorted the results into regions.

Note that these numbers were accurate at the time of publication but may change up or down between VPN providers. The winner of each regional category was the one with the most location options, though we’ve flagged where we’ve chosen another VPN provider for the sake of variety.