In Part 1 of this series, we talked about tech gifts that won’t end up in that infamous junk drawer. Now we’re looking at something even more fragile than a cheap gadget: your business data, on the move, during holiday chaos.
You’re three hours into a two-hour drive from Albany to Portland… (IYKYK). Your kid asks, “Can I play Roblox on your laptop?” The one with client files, financial data, and access to your entire business. You’re tired, traffic is REALLY slow, and quiet kids sound wonderful. What’s the harm?
During holiday travel, the harm is bigger than usual. You’re out of routine, on unfamiliar networks, mixing family time with “just one quick check of email.” The good news: with a bit of prep and a few hard rules, you can protect your business without turning into the tech Grinch.
Before You Leave: The 15-Minute Security Tune-Up
Take 15 focused minutes before your trip. It’s boring, and it’s absolutely worth it.
Device basics
- Install pending security updates on laptops, tablets, and phones.
- Back up important files to a secure cloud location.
- Turn on automatic screen locking (two minutes max).
- Enable “Find My Device” or equivalent on phones and laptops.
- Charge your power bank fully.
- Pack your own charging cables and adapters so you’re not borrowing mystery chargers.
The family talk
- Explain which devices are okay for kids to use and which are work-only.
- Set up a family tablet or older laptop for games and streaming.
- If kids might use your laptop, create a separate user account with restricted access.
Pro tip: A dedicated family tablet is cheaper than a data breach. Treat your work devices as business tools, not shared entertainment.
If you’re not sure whether your backups, encryption, and account protections are ready for travel, this is exactly the kind of thing a Managed Cybersecurity or Managed IT Services partner can tune up for you before busy season.
Hotel WiFi: Why “Free” Can Be Expensive
You reach the hotel in Corvallis. Within minutes, everyone has connected to the WiFi: phones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles. Your teenager is streaming, your spouse is checking email, and you’re trying to review a proposal.
Here’s the problem: hotel networks are shared by hundreds of guests. Not all of them are friendly, and some might be running fake WiFi networks with names that look believable.
A real incident: guests connected to what appeared to be the hotel network, but it was a rogue hotspot set up nearby. For two days, everything they did online, logins, emails, credit card numbers, flowed through someone else’s laptop.
How to use hotel WiFi without regret
- Confirm the exact network name. Ask the front desk. Don’t guess.
- Use a VPN for work. If you need to access company email or files, use a VPN to encrypt your traffic.
- Use your phone’s hotspot for sensitive tasks. Banking, payroll, client portals, or anything involving confidential data should go over your mobile data, not hotel WiFi.
- Separate work and play. Kids streaming cartoons on hotel WiFi? Fine. You handling payroll or client contracts? Use your hotspot.
Want clear rules your whole team can follow on the road? A Closer Look IT Report Card can highlight gaps in remote access, VPN setup, and travel policies. Book your discovery call.
“Can I Use Your Laptop?” … The Hard Line You Need
Your work computer can reach email, banking, client files, and internal systems. Your kids just want YouTube, Roblox, or video calls with friends. They’re not trying to cause trouble, but they click on pop-ups, install browser extensions, and accept every permission box that appears.
On a personal laptop, that’s annoying. On a work laptop, it’s a security incident waiting to happen.
Simple rules that keep everyone safe
Best option:
- Work devices are for work. Full stop. “This is my work computer. You can use the family tablet instead.”
If you truly have no alternative:
- Create a separate user account with limited permissions.
- Turn off admin rights for that account.
- Supervise what they’re doing.
- Don’t let them install software or browser extensions.
- Don’t save their passwords or logins on your device.
- Clear browsing history and temporary files when they’re done.
Better yet, keep an older device around as the designated “kid laptop” that has no access to business accounts.
Streaming on Hotel TVs: The Log-Out Trap
You finally make it to the room, and everyone wants to watch a movie. Someone logs into Netflix or another streaming service on the hotel smart TV. You check out the next morning and head back to Portland… and forget to log out.
Now the next guest has access to your streaming account and if you reused that password anywhere else (you’re working on that, right?), they have a starting point.
Safer approaches:
- Use your own device (tablet, laptop, phone) and cast to the TV instead of logging in directly.
- If you must sign into an app on the TV, set a reminder on your phone to log out before checkout.
- Better: download shows to your devices before the trip and skip smart TVs entirely.
Never use a hotel TV to access:
- Banking apps
- Work accounts
- Social media
- Any account that stores payment info
When a Device Goes Missing
Travel is messy. Devices get left at rest stops, in restaurants, at TSA bins, or in the back seat of a rideshare. If something disappears, fast action matters more than blame.
Within the first hour
- Use “Find My Device” or similar tools to locate it.
- If recovery isn’t likely, remotely lock the device.
- Change passwords for critical accounts from another device.
- Contact your IT provider or MSP to revoke access to company systems.
- If the device held sensitive business data, discuss notification and response steps with your IT and legal teams.
What should be in place before you travel
- Remote tracking enabled on all work devices.
- Strong password or passcode protection.
- Automatic disk encryption (often built into modern OSs).
- Remote wipe capability for laptops and phones.
Family member lost a device? Treat it with the same seriousness. Lock it, track it, and change passwords for any services they use that might overlap with your business world.
For more on how 10D Tech handles lost-device risk, backups, and incident response, check out the 10D Tech FAQ or our Emergency IT Support & Incident Response page.
The Rental Car Data Trap
Rental cars make it easy to pair your phone via Bluetooth to play music or use built-in navigation. What many people don’t realize: the car often stores contacts, call history, and recent destinations.
When you turn in the car in Eugene or Seattle, that data may still be there for the next driver.
The quick cleanup before you hand over the keys
- Delete your phone from the car’s Bluetooth devices list.
- Clear recent destinations from the built-in GPS.
- When practical, use your phone for navigation and audio instead of syncing contact data.
Thirty seconds of cleanup keeps your personal and business contacts from living on in a stranger’s rental car.
The “Working Vacation” Boundary Problem
You told everyone this was a real vacation. Then you checked email 47 times, took three “quick” calls, and spent an hour answering messages while your family did something fun without you.
Aside from the relationship tension, constant context-switching makes you sloppy with security. You’re half paying attention, more likely to tap a bad link, connect to any WiFi that pops up, or approve a request you’d question if you were rested.
A more realistic approach
- Decide when you’ll check work (for example, 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening).
- For those windows, use your phone’s hotspot for anything involving client or financial data.
- Work from your hotel room or a private space where screens aren’t visible to strangers.
- When you’re off the clock, be fully off … no “just one more email” at mini-golf.
The best security tool here is rest. Your judgement is sharper when your brain isn’t running on fumes.
Sam’s Almost-Ruined Christmas (A Quick Story)
Sam, owner of Clear As Mud Services, fictionally based in Albany, headed up to Portland with the family for Christmas week. On the road, Sam handed a work laptop to the kids so they could stream videos. At the hotel, the laptop stayed on the public WiFi while Sam caught up on billing from the lobby. A few days later, right before year-end payroll, Sam noticed odd login alerts and email forwarding rules that nobody on the team remembered setting.
Panicked, Sam called their IT provider, 10D Tech, from a hotel parking lot in Corvallis. Together, we traced the issue to a malicious browser extension installed while the kids were watching videos, combined with activity over unsecured hotel WiFi. It wasn’t a full-blown disaster, but it could have been. The clean-up took hours that were supposed to be family time and forced a reset of multiple accounts.
After that trip, Sam sat down with 10D Tech to build a travel checklist, lock down work devices, roll out a user-friendly VPN, and clarify which devices were family-only. The next December, the same Portland trip looked very different: kids on a dedicated tablet, Sam on a secured laptop over a hotspot, and hotel WiFi only for streaming. No scary login alerts. No emergency calls. Just a proper break and a more resilient, future-proof security posture going into the new year.
The Holiday Travel Security Mindset
Perfect separation of work and family isn’t realistic. Sometimes your kid really does borrow your phone. Sometimes you really do need to approve a wire while your spouse is driving down I-5.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is intention:
- Prepare devices before you leave.
- Know which actions are high-risk (work on public WiFi) versus low-risk (streaming a cartoon on the hotel network).
- Put barriers between work data and family entertainment.
- Have a clear plan for lost or stolen devices.
- Practice saying, “Not on this device,” and stick to it.
Holiday travel should be memorable for time with people you care about, not for long nights changing passwords and talking to your cyber insurance carrier.
If you’d like your travel habits, remote access, backups, and incident response to add up to something solid, services like Data Backup & Disaster Recovery and Managed Cybersecurity can give you a stronger baseline all year, not just in December.
You can also skim the most common questions from owners like you in the 10D Tech FAQ.
Want to know how travel-ready your current setup is? Request a Closer Look IT Report Card to see where you’re strong and where a small tweak could prevent a big headache: Book your discovery call or call Corvallis/Albany/Eugene/Bend (541) 243-4103 • Portland/Salem (503) 971-9103.
In Part 3 of the December 2025 Blog Series, we’ll shift from holiday chaos to what’s next: which 2026 tech trends small businesses should actually watch and which ones you can safely ignore.
FAQs
- What’s the single most important step before I travel with work devices?
If you only do one thing, make sure your devices are fully updated, encrypted, and backed up to a secure cloud location. That way, if something is lost, stolen, or compromised on the road, you can lock or wipe the device and still have access to your data. - Is hotel WiFi always unsafe for work?
Not always, but it’s shared and unpredictable. For anything sensitive: client data, finances, internal systems, treat hotel WiFi as higher risk. Use a VPN when you must connect and favor your phone’s hotspot for critical work. - Can my kids ever use my work laptop on trips?
The safest answer is no, especially if the device connects directly to client systems or financial platforms. If you have no alternative, create a restricted user account, supervise their use, and avoid letting them install apps or extensions. A separate family device is a better long-term solution. - What should I do if my work laptop is lost or stolen while traveling?
Act quickly: try to locate it with “Find My Device,” then lock or remotely wipe it if recovery looks unlikely. Change passwords for critical accounts, contact your IT provider to revoke access, and discuss any required notifications if sensitive data was stored on the device. - How can I build simple travel security rules for my whole team?
Create a short, clear checklist covering device prep, WiFi use, hotspot use, sharing rules for family devices, and steps to take if a device is lost. An IT partner that offers IT Assessments & Strategy Consulting can help you design policies that are practical enough for people to follow, even when they’re tired and on the road.
Holiday trips should be remembered for good food and bad sweaters — not password resets and frantic calls to your bank. If you’d like a clear picture of how ready your business is for travel, remote work, and the surprises that come with both, request a Closer Look IT Report Card and we’ll walk through your current setup and concrete steps to make it more secure and resilient.
