| Main Page | What's New? | State by State | More Info | A.T. Clubs | Guestbook |
| Journals | FAQ | Advice | .GIF Maps | Mailing List | Books, Maps, etc. |

Points of Net Access Along the A.T.

Here are some places in the vicinity of the trail where you can potentially get Net access. Different places may restrict access, though, in my own travels, I have had pretty good luck getting access at college libraries, as well as town libraries, even in some unlikely little towns.

Please let me know of other locations in the vicinity of the trail that you may find which have public access, and also let me know if you are unable to use any of the facilities below because of restrictions. Also, if you find that any of the libraries in the second part of the list actually DO have Net access, please let me know.

(Miles are for approximate distances to the town, not necessarily to the town library, college, or other facility.)

Further Words about This Page

Other Public Libraries in Towns Near the Trail. Some of these may have net access. (Those that don't have it today, may well have it in coming months, as the nation gets increasingly connected....

Here's a page about general public access around the world...as well as a search engine for cybercafes.

About This Page

Once people get accustomed to having email, many are reluctant to give it up while on the road. Some take laptops or now the smaller palmtops, but there is usually still the problem of finding a jack to connect them to. There is also the problem of having to worry about them getting stolen or damaged.

Another alternative is to try to find some access somewhere along the way... A good bet is a library, either a public library or a University library. It helps to have an account that can be reached easily via the web. One possibility is to get oneself a free HotMail account. (There are a couple of other services on the net similar to this one, Backpackers.com among others.)

You may also wish to know how to set preferences within Netscape or some other browser so that you can read mail directly from your regular account. Here are Larry Magid's instructions for accessing your POP mail via Netscape

Note: January 1998 - There are now at least two websites through which you can read your POP mail. Go to either www.readmail.com or www.readmail.com to do this.

Addtionally, in some libraries, you will only be able to get Lynx (a fine text browser) access. For example, just about every public library in the state of Maryland has one or more Sailor terminals. Sailor is the library webserver for Maryland. And in the libraries or through public dial-up numbers the only way you can see it is using Lynx.

If you are unfamiliar with Lynx, and wish to make use of it, you would be advised to Telnet to Sailor so that you can get a feel for using it in advance of traveling in Maryland and wanting to be able to use it. (You need to make sure your browser has a telnet application in order be be able to telnet. Win95 comes with one, usually in the path: c:\windows\telnet.exe If you're using Win 3.1, you'll need to find a telnet app on the web and download it and set it into your preferences. I don't know about Macs.)

To use Sailor in Maryland (and other sites that have the text browser Lynx), you will need to be able to get to your account via telnet or have a hotmail address that you can use. (Or some other Web mail service) To get to your account via telnet using Sailor, you will need to have a scripted telnet to your account on a webpage somewhere. Ask a friend with a webpage to put the link somewhere on a page, or do it yourself if you have a page, or ask me and I will put it on a page. For example, the HTML one would have to put on a page to allow someone to telnet to my provider would be:
<a href="telnet://fred.net"> Telnet to fred.net </a>

And if you find yourself a bit further afield than the greater East Coast, and need some need to get some access in Hawaii, here's a page for you...

| Back to Main Page |