VPN in the USA: Privacy & Streaming for European Travelers

The United States has complete internet freedom. No websites are blocked, no social media platforms are restricted, and there is no government firewall or censorship system. The First Amendment to the US Constitution provides strong protections for free speech and, by extension, open internet access. You can access every website, app, and service without any restrictions whatsoever.

However, the USA has a significant privacy gap that most European travelers don't expect. Unlike the European Union's GDPR, which gives citizens strong control over their personal data, the United States has no equivalent federal privacy law. In 2017, the US Congress voted to repeal FCC broadband privacy rules that would have required Internet Service Providers to obtain consumer consent before collecting and selling browsing data. This means that when you connect to any American network — whether it's hotel WiFi, a coffee shop hotspot, or a mobile data connection — your ISP can legally monitor, collect, and sell your browsing history to advertisers and data brokers. A VPN encrypts all your traffic, making it invisible to the ISP and closing this privacy gap entirely.

The scale of free public WiFi in the United States is enormous. Starbucks alone operates over 16,000 locations with free WiFi. McDonald's, Walmart, Target, public libraries, and virtually every hotel, airport, and shopping mall offer complimentary wireless internet. While this convenience is great for staying connected, most of these networks are either completely open (no password) or use a shared password that hundreds of people know.

Airport WiFi at major hubs like LAX, JFK, O'Hare (ORD), and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (ATL) is among the least secure. These networks handle thousands of simultaneous connections, making them prime targets for cybercriminals. Hotel WiFi is similarly risky — you're sharing a network with potentially hundreds of other guests, and many hotels use outdated security protocols.

The concrete security risks on these networks include man-in-the-middle attacks (where hackers intercept data between your device and the router), packet sniffing (capturing unencrypted data like login credentials), and evil twin networks (fake hotspots that mimic legitimate ones, such as "Starbucks_WiFi_Free" appearing next to the real network). A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel that makes all of these attacks ineffective, even on completely open networks.

One of the most practical reasons European travelers use a VPN in the USA is to access home content that becomes unavailable once you leave your country. Dutch travelers lose access to NPO Start, Videoland, and the Dutch Netflix library. British travelers cannot watch BBC iPlayer or ITV Hub. German travelers are locked out of ARD Mediathek and ZDF Mediathek. French travelers lose access to France.tv and MyCanal. While the US Netflix library is extensive, it contains different titles than your home library, and locally produced content is often missing entirely.

European banking is another critical concern. Several Dutch banks including ING, Rabobank, and ABN AMRO have security systems that flag login attempts from American IP addresses. This can trigger additional verification steps, temporary account locks, or declined transactions — exactly the problems you don't want while traveling. German banks like Sparkasse and Commerzbank, as well as UK banks, have similar location-based security measures.

The solution is straightforward: connect to a VPN server in your home country (Netherlands, UK, Germany, etc.) and your streaming services and banking apps will work exactly as they do at home. When you want fast browsing for general internet use, switch to a US-based VPN server for the best speeds.

Unlike countries with internet censorship where you must install a VPN before arrival, the USA places no restrictions on VPN websites or app stores. You can download and set up any VPN service after you land without issues. That said, it's still recommended to install and configure your VPN at home where you have a familiar, trusted internet connection and can troubleshoot any setup issues without stress.

For the best performance in the USA, connect to a US-based VPN server for general browsing. Servers in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago typically offer the fastest speeds depending on your location. When you need to access European content or banking, switch to a server in your home country — the speed will be slightly slower due to the transatlantic connection, but more than sufficient for streaming and transactions.

American internet speeds are generally fast in cities and suburbs, but can be variable in rural areas and national parks. Always enable the kill switch feature on your VPN, especially when connecting to hotel and airport WiFi — this automatically cuts your internet if the VPN connection drops, preventing any unencrypted data from leaking. Most premium VPN services like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark have excellent US server networks with thousands of available servers across multiple American cities.