Internet cafes in South America.
 

Ten years ago, it seemed they were in every small town in all of South America.

It made life very simple to keep in touch and blog without needing your own laptop.

What's the situation now ??

I'm guessing there's WIFI everywhere. So need need for rooms of PCs anymore.

Theres wifi almost everywhere now as far as I have been in SA. In case theres not I buy a local simcard and top up with a data package. Works well most places where you have mobil coverage although slow at times, and not too expensive if you dont watch too many youtube-clips...

In Brazil internet cafés (or cybercafés they are more commonly know) are almost everywhere, even in smaller towns you can find at least a couple of them. Wifi is also very common nowadays, most truck stops and hotels have free wifi for their clients and many restaurants also have free wifi. Airports also have wifi but they are very expensive and the service is almost always pretty terrible.

Is also possible to buy a prepaid Sim Card virtually anywhere in Brazil for R$5 to R$10. Most cities have, at least, a 3g network available and most medium and bigger cities have 4g networks as well. Tim have a prepaid plan called "TIM PRÉ 7 DIAS", you pay R$ 10/week and have 1gb of Internet per week, 100 minutes for calling to any land line or cellphone line in Brazil, free Whatsapp and free SMS. They also have 3 internet only plans, 1gb per month plan for R$30/month, 3gb for R$60/month and 5gb for R$ 70/month, all paid on the credit card.

I wanted to avoid carrying a laptop for writing. That's the best thing about internet cafes.



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Increasing wifi access, increasing threats
 

Best to take note of this theme - wifi can be a problem.

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...services-86393

I can't talk about the whole country or even continent but in Brazil in small and medium cities you will have no problem finding cybercafés or lanhouses (is kinda of a cybercafé but people can also play games like Counter Strike or League of Legends online). On bigger cities in other hand is not that easy to find them except if you look for lower income neighborhoods which can be a bit dangerous depending on the type of bike you intend to travel (big trails bikes in special have become a major target of bike robbers in Brazil specially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro).

The idea of using an external keyboard with your phone is a really good option IMO. If you look on Amazon for folding Bluetooth keyboards you gonna find a ton of them, including brands like Logitec, Microsoft and Anker.

tablet?
 

Touring Ted,

I noticed a lot of people in SA are using smart phones to access the Internet, so the market for internet cafes is getting smaller. Backpacker hostels almost always have a computer available to guests. Personally, I try to avoid backpackers hostels or limit my stays.

In Peru I used a cyber cafes in small town and a day later there were none in a much larger town. When I asked where the internet cafes are, the answer was quick and clear that there weren't any. It was as if I was asking for a restaurant that catered to cannibals. I never learned why, but I suspect there was a community reaction against cyber cafes.

You want to write while on the road. If you write every day, look into the world of tablets. Typing on a virtual glass keyboard might not work for you. There are flexible keyboards that plug into a tablet that you might want to investigate. Alternately, notebook computers are very cheap, small and light. They are basically disposable.

I took an old iPad on a short trip to Peru last year. The iPad (and an iPhone) were useful for looking up information, sending email and simple posts to Facebook. Both were loaded with blocks of map data from Google Maps, so I could see my location in relationship to a predefined route. When I break away from my daily grind for a long trip (5-6 months) I will definitely consider taking a tablet. A notebook computer may win out over a tablet to meet all my needs.

If all else fails, write on paper and transcribe later. =)

Using public wi fi in general is dangerous anywhere in the world, specially if you are sending and receiving sensitive data. Using a VPN is a good option, for those who don't want to use a paid service you can always use the services of the TOR network.