The first question 20-somethings and 30-somethings ask when booking a holiday.

By LUCY ORMONDE

My secret talent? I’m so glad you asked.

Just quietly, I’m pretty confident that I know the precise location of every free-to-use power point in both Sydney’s and Melbourne’s domestic and international terminal.

The only problem with my secret talent however, is that I share it with approximately 29,230 frequent flyers. So there’s always a steady line of people hovering around those power points and making awkward conversations about the weather/battery life/ price of airport coffee.

In a world that’s now dominated by the 24-hour news cycle, social media and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), queues for power points and never-ending missions to locate Wi-Fi are just part of everyday life in 2013.

Just as an FYI, you should know that this is an advertorial for Telstra. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.

Take it from the team at Mamamia. In another life, we would be known as the Wi-fi Detection Squad. Because between us, we’ve got more stories about seeking out Wi-Fi and bad internet connection than we have about seeking out chocolate at 3pm (and there are a lot of those ones to tell).

First, there’s the editorial team member who organised a holiday with her friends – only the friends wouldn’t let her know the location of the hotel.

The reason?

“They knew I’d call the hotel and ask if they had Wi-Fi,” she said. “So when we arrived at the accommodation, the first question I asked was exactly that. I shouldn’t have been surprised when the person at reception told me they did indeed have Wi-Fi – but that it would cost me more than I earn in week to use it.”

Then there’s another team member whose Grandmother lives in a remote area of NSW.

“Every year we go to Granny’s for a week over Christmas,” she says. “There’s no Internet connection at her house – nor is there any reception – but my cousins and I know that if we climb the nearest hill/mountain, we can get a moment of sanity.”

“Inevitably though, my cousins end of spending most of Christmas day on the hill.”

One of the girls who works in advertising talks about going on a holiday in the Philippines and spending the entire time at a bar that gave you free Wi-Fi every time you ordered something.

“My husband and I were probably there three of four times a day just, you know,  ‘getting a drink’,” she says.

Me personally?

On a holiday this year, I thought it would be a good idea to go away without my phone and try to live in the moment.

But – when you live and breathe the news – it’s harder than you think.

My finest moment came when I found myself sitting on the floor of a backpackers hostel (that wasn’t my own) with my iPad, surrounded by twenty-something shoe-less Brits singing Bob Marley and drinking casks of Sangria.

Oh the things you’ll do for Internet access….

Avoid the holiday hassle of searching for public Wi-Fi or using expensive hotel Wi-Fi to get your devices connected. Make the holidays more enjoyable and be the holiday hero! Get the gang online on the go with a Telstra Pre-paid 4G Wi-Fi device. Connect up to 5 devices at the same time including laptops and tablets on Australia’s largest and most reliable mobile network. Find out more here.