Photo by Umbar

Bring your laptop to Paris this summer and set yourself up in a park.

The city is preparing to roll out 400 free Wi-Fi hotspots. It’s all part of an ambitious plan called “Paris Ville Numerique” which aims to make Paris one of the world’s most connected cities. The aim is to foster a more nomadic lifestyle in public places like parks, gardens, and public libraries.

Each hotspot should be able to sustain 30 users simultaneously. A detailed map of all the access points—which will include 63 public libraries, 200 public gardens and 40 district offices of the city hall—is available at the city’s Web site.

The ultimate goal of Bertrand Delanoe, the Socialist mayor, is city-wide coverage by the end of 2007. There are additional plans to improve street furniture, notably in the university district in the 13th arrondissement, to make laptop users more comfortable.

For the moment, many Paris cafes offer Wi-Fi, but you often have to pay by the hour. One of our favourite places for free and reliable wireless access is Columbus Cafe, a Starbucks-style chain which has two non-smoking locations at 81 rue St-Dominique in the 7th arrondissement (Metro: Rue du Bac) and 25 rue Vieille-du-Temple in the 4th arrondissement (Metro Saint-Paul).

Popularity: 5% [?]

There once was a time when spending time in London as a tourist meant spending endless hours in Internet cafes. With the expansion of Wi-Fi zones throughout the city, this reality is quickly changing, with laptops increasingly counting as essential travel gear.

If you’re in Islington, Upper Street has free Wi-Fi access and a ton of cafes. Just stay away from Starbucks and Cafe Nero, as they charge. Get a tea for a quid and type away.

A stone’s throw from Leciester Square, Suburb in Soho does free Wi-Fi.

If outside of central London, you can find free Wi-Fi in a host of local cafes—in all Natural Cafes for example.

Wififreespot.com offers a small selection of places but our rule of thumb is that newer and forward-thinking hotel lobbies and cafes are golden. The latter happily give the stuff away to get customers, whilst the latter are keen to challenge Starbucks for patrons.

Warchalking has listings of several cafes and hotels. (We highly recommend the National Hotel.) My Hotspots apparently helps you find free Wi-Fi but we didn’t find it to be very useful. Rumors have it that the City (square mile) will soon go wireless but no doubt it won’t be free. University wireless access is also typically out of bound, as it usually requires a password.

No more 2 quid for 20 minutes of internet! Get a coffee or bowl of porridge and eat, type for hours and be merry.

Popularity: 6% [?]