In our daily lives at home the internet is pretty ubiquitous. Often people want to go on holiday to get away from all the fuss and bother of technology but we weren’t having one of those unplugged holidays.

We were warned that Japan is not totally straightforward if you only speak English. And so having access to maps, translations and the internet on demand seemed a good way of making sure we didn’t sink.

We’re going away for a long time and we want to make sure we can keep in touch with our families. In the UK hotels charge a premium for internet and we didn’t know what we’d find in Japan or New Zealand so having something we could control ourselves was attractive.

We also wanted to keep our phones on us and not even run the risk of ludicrous roaming data charges so we needed to keep data switched off, our phone numbers live and still be able to access the internet from the palm of our hands.

When we get to the Cook Islands we will be pretty much cut off from the rest of the world and with little or no access to any form of internet. 16 days of being unplugged will do us some good.

Having had use of a GDS Mifi for the last few months I knew how effective they were and when a friend endorsed their travelling credentials a few weeks ago our decision was made. We bought the Huawei E331 and equipped with the knowledge from the excellent Prepaid with Data wiki ordered our BMobile sim card – 1GB of data over a 14 day period for under £30.

(Christine’s edit: I honestly don’t believe Ben can go ‘unplugged’ for any significant period of time. The Cook Islands will be interesting…)

If you’re heading to Japan and planning to use shinkansen (or maybe even the bog-standard train for more than a handful of journeys) then chances are buying yourself a JR Pass will be worthwhile.

You have to buy them outside Japan (which seems a bit harsh if you’re Japanese and wanting to travel around the country) and then exchange them when you want to use them. They can be used for 7, 14 or 21 days of unlimited travel across the JR network.

We bought ours via jrpass.com and the excellent Japan Guide has a full description of what they are and how to use them. They cost us £196 each but because the Yen is one of very few currencies that’s weaker than Sterling that’s actually gone down to £182 now.