Unifi Travel Router
67 comments
·December 24, 2025wateralien
kleinsch
Huge plus one. Useful to bridge hotel wifi so all my devices connect automatically, also useful as an ad-hoc router that fits into my travel pack.
kstrauser
Heartily seconded! A friend recommended I get one and now I push all my other technical friends to buy one, too.
My wife and I traveled a bit this year and it was great having all our gadgets connecting to a single AP under our control. It’s easily paid for itself by avoiding ludicrous per-device daily charges.
windexh8er
I think most travel APs can generally do this, but the feature that makes GL.iNet products popular is: extensibility. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand for manufacturers, but making products useful via extensibility is a sure fire way to open your target market directly up to prosumers. And those are the buyers that will find you.
I own two of their products, one of them I bought in 2019 and can still run what I need to on it.
hnburnsy
Have you tried hooking it up to an Ethernet port in a hotel room like the one that the TV uses?
matt-attack
What’s the use case exactly?
raw_anon_1111
I have this.
TP-Link AC750
When you are some place with a captive network and want to use devices that don’t have a browser. You connect the router to the WiFi network that has internet access and you connect the other WiFi network to a device with a browser like your phone. Every device looks like one device to the captive network and you can use them all.
Second use case, I now live in a place with a shared internet access that is shared between all of the units. Anyone can broadcast to and control our Roku device and there is no way to block it from the Roku.
We create a private network with the router
tstrimple
One is actually usable wifi at hotels with ethernet cables available. I don't use that device, but a DIY version that also acts as a portable media server while traveling. We can tunnel back to our home network, but often stay places with very bad reception and or internet access. Also helps keep the kids entertained on longer road trips. They can connect their devices to the router as we travel and have full access to the cached media.
ei8ths
these are awesome, i just take my old wifi router tp-link, its big though. I might have to get one of these little guys.
theoreticalmal
What is the benefit of this over, for example, an iPhone hotspot?
neither_color
Run one wireguard server in your home and one client instance on this router and now all of your devices can share the same residential VPN connection. No fraud blocks or extra verifications from your banking apps, no million suspicious login detected from all your social accounts, use your home netflix account, etc. All without your individual devices running a VPN app.
drnick1
> Run one wireguard server in your home and one client instance on this router and now all of your devices can share the same residential VPN connection.
You don't need a "travel router" for this. My phone is permanently connected to my server via Wireguard (so that I can access my files from anywhere). Adding another device just requires adding a peer in the server's config file and can be accomplished very quickly. It's not clear what problem the travel router solves, unless perhaps you travel with dozens of devices.
> no million suspicious login detected from all your social accounts,
I can personally do without those.
WillPostForFood
An iPhone can't bridge a wifi network. So you need something like a travel router to share a wifi connection.
trelane
You can control it from the ground up, including installing alternate firmware. You can also use VPNs etc.
bnc319
So… hear me out. Could I connect this to an airline’s paid in-flight WiFi network, and then broadcast an open network to effectively open up access to all other passengers for free? If enough WiFi pirates do this on flights perhaps it would kill paid WiFi entirely (just need enough Good Samaritans)
(And yes I know there are other bypasses you can do like spoofing MAC addresses to get around some device count restrictions)
IncreasePosts
Maybe. And then get throttled or banned for using too much bandwidth. You don't need this product to do this though, you can do the same thing with a laptop and your phone
syntaxing
I really like “bring your home everywhere aspect”. I can be a pain connecting my whole family devices to another SSID. If it can do WiFi repeating (as in login to a single hotel account and stream to rest of device), I would absolutely get one. If not, GL inet is still the way to go
notyourwork
Can GL inet not do that? Genuinely asking.
eps
This Unifi device is primarily meant as an add-on to exising Unifi setups as it's all well integrated.
teeray
Can confirm. It also has a mode to jump through the captive portal. I just set it up with the same SSID and PSK as my home wifi and everything we bring connects automatically. It also routes everything through Tailscale.
tguvot
can do it
pyrolistical
? You just need to set it up once and devices will auto reconnect by default
shmoogy
Wonder how this will work to connect into hotel networks - on my glinet I have to clone my iPhone MAC address so I basically have to connect to the WiFi, do the with authentication enter room number and last name, then disconnect and boot up the router.
Is there a better way to get these connected to a WiFi for relaying where the Ethernet isn't an option?
cyberrock
I wish one of these devices would have an internal battery again like the old HooToo Tripmates. Using it with a power bank doesn't feel quite the same.
aspenmayer
GL-iNet’s Mudi product line has an internal battery and eSIM and physical SIM card support.
Mudi V2: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-e750/
They have an upcoming 5G NR WiFi 7 version:
Terretta
Effectively nobody sells Wi-Fi 7 capable gear yet:
saagarjha
Available December 29th: https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/utr
nerdix
Wifi 5 for an $80 router in 2026 (I mean we're almost there) is pretty disappointing. I get that its mostly going to be used on crappy hotel networks and the crappy hotel network will often be the bottleneck but $80 looks to be roughly twice the price of the typical travel wifi 5 travel router, about equal to the price of a typical wifi 6 travel router, and only $30-40 cheaper than a typical wifi 7 travel router.
I don't mind a unifi premium for the integration but they should at least have a $50 wifi 5 version and a $100 wifi 6 "pro" version
novok
I'd pay $30 for the software alone that actually works.
IncreasePosts
Based on unifis release schedule that means may 2026
firecall
>while captive portal logins on hotel networks are handled quietly in the background.
Anyone know how it automagically sorts out connecting to the hotel WiFi?
Hotels often want some combination of my room number and surname I've found, or some combination of hotel name and floor password.
dingwallr
"To connect the UniFi Travel Router to a guest network, open the UniFi Mobile App and select a nearby wireless network. If the network has a captive portal, it will automatically forward to your mobile device for login."
from the FAQ https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/utr
varenc
It likely relies on the travel router cloning the MAC address of your phone or whatever you use to authenticate. That way the hotel just thinks the travel router is your phone.
qgin
> Automatic handling of captive portal authentication
Very curious about how they're pulling this off
varenc
Details are scarce right now, but they say that via the UniFi mobile you'll authenticate yourself onto the captive portal and the travel router will use that. Guessing it'll clone your phone's MAC?
cromka
This is brilliant, actually very innovative product by Unifi. It's interesting because it seems they do what Apple does: they can add new products and features only because all the devices work together in an ecosystem.
8fingerlouie
They were founded by ex Apple employees, so there's that.
libeclipse
Innovative how? Many travel routers already exist and support similar features
cromka
The way it automatically connects to your home and presents to your devices as part of your home WiFi. So you bring that device with you and everything else works like you're back home.
I use OPNSense and OpenWRT myself and there's no way you can make travel routers this convenient with them.
varenc
Tailscale running in subnet router mode on a GL.iNet router comes close. You can setup Tailscale through the GL.iNet GUI but to have it also route traffic for everything over to your Tailnet you need to flip one setting via an ssh command.
Not as convenient as this travel router sounds though, but comes close-ish for techies. (wish it didn't require that tweak via SSH. Maybe it'll be added)
walterbell
> presents to your devices as part of your home WiFi
That will be fun for browser geolocation based on WiFi name.
cycomanic
Why do you think this would be difficult to do using openwrt? Wouldn't you just set up the travel router to have the same ssid and password as your home network and configure a wireguard tunnel from the travel router to your home network (that is if you want to be in your home network)
makestuff
It seems like the main feature is being able to access your home network to watch netflix, access LAN devices, etc.
How is this different compared to running a tailscale exit node in your home network?
Is the benefit of this that you have a hardware device that you can connect to instead of needing software like tailscale?
__float
I think so: it looks like "UniFi Teleport" is also based on Wireguard.
You can also do this with a travel router like one of GL.iNet's and Tailscale subnet routers.
slig
I have a hard time believing anyone would actually use this versus self-hosting headscale in a discarded ThinkCentre and running it from a closet.
nickt
Not sure if you’re serious but reeks of “you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially”
slig
Not serious, and you got it.
tonypapousek
I’m in the market for a solid travel router, and my home network is all Unifi gear. This is a no brainer, especially with the built-in Teleport support.
dangus
I run OpnSense, Wireguard, hooked up to third party WiFi access points, and I had to do a lot of configuration and work that I wouldn't have had to do if I had just bought Ubiquiti equipment.
I did save money, a really significant amount of money.
Obviously, yes, I am capable of going through the work that eliminates my need for this product. I have no trouble configuring Wireguard and setting it up on my client devices and running through all that.
But it was a lot of work to get to this point and I had to spend a lot of time learning how to do that, even as a person who is already technical. Wireguard in particular took me a solid half a day to build understanding and get it configured.
If I was a little bit richer and I went back in time I'd probably just buy all Unifi. In fact if I wet back in time I think I'd just buy Unifi.
This specific device does seem like a really nice extension of their product line.
null
lucb1e
How would Tailscale run in your home network without a hardware device to connect to?
AJRF
You can create a subnet router on tailscale and access any device on your local network, regardless of them having tailscale installed
elteto
Not to take away from this device, I think it’s pretty neat. But you can run tailscale on anything, even Apple TVs. If you have a Unifi network odds are that you have at least one spare computing device that can run tailscale.
atonse
Problem is that I think my Apple TV goes into some sort of deep idle mode where tailscale stops working. So it’s been effectively useless for me when I travel.
GlenTheMachine
I travel internationally all the time. Someone tell me why I need this.
novok
You have a workplace that insists you are working from your home while you travel.
It has limits, like the amazon hardware keypress thingy with north korea showed recently, but unless your working at superbigtech or defense contractor it would probably work.
aghilmort
connect screenless devices, e.g., Echo Dot extend weak wireless range in hotel screen share or network between multiple devices eg travel with two laptops and can virtual KVM only have to do the captive device on one - many hotels limit number of devices extra security buffer phone can't bridge wifi for headless like this etc etc
baggy_trough
I need something like this to share a single wifi connection among devices on a cruise. I don't care about the home network access though. Any recommendations?
I never travel without my GL-AXT1800. Saved me so many times: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-axt1800/ I’m actually on it right now.