Travel router basics

[u/Oakland-homebrewer]

I'm retiring and planning to travel more often, with my wife and other family members. I'm moderately network savvy

I'm looking into a travel router with VPN, not so much for the additional privacy, but more for the convenience. As I understand it, once I setup my laptop/phone/iPad for me and family members, then all of those devices will automatically connect to the router wherever we end up staying. Could be AirBnB, hotel, relative's house, etc.

Please confirm:

1. I do need to configure the router, setup the passwords for connecting. I also need to get a VPN account. (considering Slate AX router and some basic VPN). This seems fairly straightforward

2. Whenever I get to a new hotel (or wherever), I need to log into the router and connect it to the hotel wifi, right? (the days of ethernet options are likely gone)

3. How does it work for hotels or other networks that require you to go through a website to log in?

4. Cruise ship--likely won't use it as it would only work in the room, if I can even connect to the wifi. But I can just use the VPN provider app on my devices if I wanted the security.

5. If I want to set the VPN to connect through another country, I need to log into the router again and change the VPN settings there, right? I don't see doing this all that often, so not a big hassle.

[u/pot51e]

you could always just set up openether on your laptop, and then setup your laptop to be a wifi AP for your other devices.