Wise — International Transfers
The best way to move money across borders. Send USD abroad, hold foreign currency, and pay local bills without getting hammered on exchange rates. Essential for expats.
Charles Schwab — Best Expat Bank
The #1 recommended US bank for expats. Zero foreign transaction fees, ATM fees refunded worldwide, no minimum balance, and works in every country I've lived in.
Schwab tracks this one by code, not by link — enter it when the application asks for a referral.
Open Schwab Account →Airalo — International eSIMs
Skip roaming fees with eSIMs for 200+ destinations. Download a local data plan before you land — no physical SIM swap required. I use it every time I travel.
Fold — Bitcoin Rewards Debit Card
Earn Bitcoin on every purchase with a debit card that works like a regular Visa. Stack sats passively while you spend. One of the easiest ways to accumulate Bitcoin.
SafetyWing — Nomad Health Insurance
Travel medical insurance built for digital nomads and expats. Billed monthly, covers 180+ countries — the answer if you're living abroad without employer benefits.
GL.iNet — Travel Router with VPN
Runs the VPN at the router instead of on each device, so your laptop, phone, tablet and TV all sit on a US IP at once — which is what US banks, brokerages and streaming services expect from an account holder. Two ways to set it up; see below.
Two ways to set it up
Both put every device behind one encrypted connection on a US IP address. The difference is whose US address it is — a VPN company's, or your own. That distinction is what decides whether a bank treats the login as normal.
Setup 1 — One router
Travel router + dedicated-IP VPN
For most people, and for anyone with no US address to leave hardware at. You carry one router and pay a VPN subscription.
- Router: GL.iNet Beryl AX (GL-MT3000, about $100) or Slate AX (GL-AXT1800, about $120)
- Plus: a VPN with a dedicated IP add-on — Proton VPN Plus or NordVPN. A shared VPN IP is not good enough; it has thousands of strangers on it.
- What you get: one stable US IP that belongs to you alone, in a US city of your choosing.
- The catch: it is still a data-centre address. Some banks flag known VPN ranges no matter how stable the IP is.
About $100–120 onceplus roughly $15 a month, forever
Get the Travel Router →Setup 2 — Two routers · what I run
Home-IP hub + travel router
For anyone with a US address they can leave a router plugged in at — a family member's house, your own place, a trusted friend's. Stronger, and cheaper over any real length of time.
- Hub, stays in the US: GL.iNet Flint 2 (GL-MT6000, about $115–160) — plugged in behind the home internet, always on.
- Travel router, goes with you: GL.iNet Slate 7 (GL-BE3600, about $120–150)
- Linked by: WireGuard or Tailscale, both already built into the firmware. No subscription, nothing to install.
- What you get: your actual residential IP — your own ISP, your own city. Not a VPN range, because it isn't a VPN.
- Also worth it: a small battery backup for the hub (about $60) so a power cut at home doesn't strand you abroad.
About $295–350 onceand $0 a month, forever
Get Both Routers →Watch the build, start to finish
The two-router setup walked through on screen — both routers, the tunnel between them, and the check that proves it is working before you fly.
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Router setup walkthrough · BrightShadow2k
Prefer to watch on YouTube? Open it there — and subscribe for the rest.
Street prices move; these are recent typical ranges, not quotes. Either setup keeps your traffic encrypted on networks you do not control and keeps US services working normally from abroad. Neither one changes your tax residency, your reporting obligations, your employer's policy, or any platform's terms of service — and a bank can still re-verify you by device, browser, time zone and behaviour. The two-router build is walked through step by step in a consultation.