With this contract I am doing I have started to stay in hotels near the location a few nights a week, to take away the stress of so much driving (Three Hours A Day). So I assumed that it would be no problem to find a hotel with a wi-fi internet connection so that I could do some work at night. I was even happy to pay for the connection if necessary.

Four weeks in and I have yet to find a hotel that I can plug into the internet from my room. Well actually I could have one, if I am prepared to pay £95 a night for a bed and a couple of dried up sausages with a blob of beans in the morning. I cannot believe that so many hotels in the UK are so behind the times, come on guys, it takes nothing to install broadband and get some wifi hubs in, I mean you can even make a profit on it if you want.

But the other thing that shocked me, is my utter dependence on the internet to do some work. I take online access so much for granted now then when it is taking away it is a real problem. I cannot get access to so many things, not just my sites, but my email, my blog, a lot of contacts through MSN and Skype etc. I get a real feeling of being cut off, and I also find it a little disturbing that I am now so dependent on getting the internet. So I have started to think of ways that I can do more of my work offline. Although I am also now looking at some mobile devices like PDA’s, Blackberries etc, so that I could at least get my email if nothing else.

Would be interested to hear others comments on this, how do you cope with those periods when you are totally offline, how do you still manage to run your online business?