There are several free and quick ways to do this without having to create a huge number of additional accounts.
Create A Travel Email Account – Open a new email account with your current provider.? The new account should be your regular email address with “trav” at the end of it (i.e. “cindy@yahoo.com” becomes “cindytrav@yahoo.com”).
- Set up a vacation response (Gmail can do this too) telling your friends and family that you’re out traveling and to contact your ‘trav’ address.
- In your primary account setup a filter for any words, people, or businesses you don’t want to be bothered by while on vacation. Have only the email you want delivered to your “trav” account forwarded.
- Say your Gmail address is “cindy@gmail.com”. You can give out the mail “cindy+trav@gmail.com” or “cindy+travelocity@gmail.com” for example. They’ll all be delivered to “cindy@gmail.com” but the To: field will still contain the “+trav” or “+travelocity”.
Make sure to use a completely different password for any travel email account. Internet cafes are shady places, and unknown wireless connections are easy places to get your account hacked. A temporary travel account using one of the many methods above will help insulate the damaged caused by hackers.
Anyone can read your emails over the Internet and lots of Internet cafe computers have keystroke loggers to steal passwords. Also, many conservative (and liberal) governments monitor email communications which could get you in trouble if they don’t like what you are saying or reading.
[photo by: Ross Mayfield]