Hi Alison
Apart from free wifi in various places or using your phone for the internet, the easiest way to (almost) guarantee you can get online is to get yourself a
Mifi gizmo. You put a sim inside the
mifi and it connects to the internet in the same way a phone does - 3G or 4G mobile data connection. Then the
mifi unit shares that connection by transmitting a wifi signal that you can connect to on your laptop... basically you create the equivalent of your own McDonalds wifi hotspot. I say 'almost' because you can never really guarantee a mobile signal on a phone absolutely everywhere and these work in the same way... they are very good though, in my experience.
This is a typical example of a
mifi unit... a fast 4G one will cost around £50, whereas the slower 3G ones are in the £20 bracket.
View attachment 38158
They're only about 3 inches long, come in black or white, have a rechargeable
battery (can charge on 12v via usb) and a password, so other people can't jump on your internet.
If you do get a
mifi unit, next you'll need a data sim to go inside it. You can either buy a pay-as-you-go data sim that has umpteen GB of data allowance on it or you can sign up for or buy a monthly allowance deal with any mobile network. I tend to use the PAYG "Internet with legs" data sim from 3. They come with either 12GB of data that will be valid for up to a year (depending how quickly you use the 12GB) or 24GB of data, valid for up to 2 years. If you think you'll need more than 12GB for your trip, then I'd buy 2 x 12GB in case you use loads in one month and exceed 3's 12GB montly limit for overseas use... I did! If you don't think you'll use anything like that amount in a month, then you'd be safe with a 24GB or a 12GB might serve. A 24GB sim works out cheaper than 2 x 12GB (roughly £45 as opposed to 2 x £27). I got a good signal in most countries with my 3 sim on my recent 7-week trip around Europe.
I won't go into any more options at the mo... if you really don't understand this stuff, then that's enough to digest. There are lots of other options for getting your laptop on the internet and I'm sure others will explain those at some point. Good luck!