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A travel router sounds unnecessary until you run into unreliable hotel wifi, device limits, or a public network you’d rather not use. The TP-Link Roam 6 is built for exactly those situations, and its AX3000 variant is currently down to $79.99 from $99.99 on Amazon, while the cheaper AX1500 is $49.98, down from $59.99, with price trackers showing both at their lowest prices so far.

So the choice mostly comes down to whether you want to save $30 or pay more for faster networking and extra capacity—both can take hotel, Airbnb, or other public wifi and turn it into one private network for your devices, which means you can connect the router once and then join your phone, laptop, tablet, and streaming stick through it instead of signing each one in separately. They also support OpenVPN and WireGuard, so you can route those connected devices through a VPN if you want an extra layer of privacy.

The AX3000 is the one I would look at if you travel with several devices, work remotely, or simply want more headroom. It can deliver up to 2,402Mbps on the 5GHz band and 574Mbps on 2.4GHz, compared with 1,201 Mbps and 300 Mbps, respectively, on the AX1500, and it can handle up to 80 connected devices instead of 60. You also get a 2.5Gbps WAN port for faster wired internet, plus USB 3.0 for things like phone tethering, a USB modem, or file sharing. None of those upgrades will fix bad hotel internet, but they make the AX3000 better suited to heavier use once you are on a decent connection.

The AX1500, meanwhile, still gives you Wi-Fi 6, Gigabit Ethernet, USB tethering, and the core travel-router features, making it the easier pick if you mostly travel solo or just want a simple way to get a laptop, phone, and a few other devices online.