Pullman, Washington is a small town located on the eastern border of the state. It has an estimated population of 30k. The area is mainly known for 2 things: farming and Washington State University. The community is mostly younger with 85% of the population being under the age of 45. If you are taking a trip to Pullman, there is a good chance you are going to see a sporting event at the university. Before you use any public WiFi there, be sure to use a VPN. We’ll explain more in a moment. First, take a look at our list of the best VPNs for Pullman.
In 1876, Dan McKenzie and William Elsworth staked claims to the area now known as Pullman. Originally named Three Forks but changed in 1884, the founders incorporated the town of Pullman in 1888. In 1890, the legislature established the state’s land grant college and the leaders of Pullman offered 160 acres of land for the campus.
These days, there are a few things to do while in the area. Transportation wise, the town shares a regional airport with Moscow, Idaho. Of course, that is the home of the University of Idaho. You will find restaurants, museums, a regional theatre, a golf course, and a whole host of Washington State University Cougars sports. As you probably know, the head football coach is a colorful character.
Since most of the town supports the college, there are plenty of places that will offer their patrons WiFi. If you decide to use it, you will want to use a VPN. While free WiFi sounds like a good idea, remember that there may be people that want to steal your private information. By using a VPN, you create a secure and encrypted connection. That makes it much harder for cybercriminals to obtain your sensitive data.
The next reason to use a VPN is to help you get around network and geo-restrictions. Schools, businesses, organizations, and even some countries can impose restrictions on what their users can and can’t see. That is called a firewall. Using a VPN will help you fool the blocking software into thinking you are located somewhere else. That way, you can go back to watching what you want to.
Those are the top 2 best reasons to use a VPN while in Pullman. However, you may find more as time goes on. From getting around the network restrictions of an organization, protect your privacy, or even watch a blacked out game, VPNs have you covered. With all of the protocol options available, you will want to use either the IKEv2 or the OpenVPN encryption protocols. If you get an option to choose between versions of OpenVPN, the UDP version is the fastest. However, the TCP version is suited for those with connection issues.
1. Best VPN for Pullman: IPVanish
Pullman is small, so it does not have any servers close in the area. The closest city is Seattle. They have more server locations in the United States than most VPN providers. This makes them one of our favorite options for Pullman.
Countries | Locations | USA Server Locations |
---|---|---|
63 | 89 | Ashburn, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, San Jose. Seattle, Washington DC |
Along with a large footprint in the USA, IPVanish hosts servers in every continent other than Antarctica. The network has consistently been the fastest VPN in North America and Europe in our speed tests. You will find multiple server locations in countries like the US and UK. You can select a location or an individual server.
IPVanish hosts 41 servers in Seattle and you can choose to connect to any of them. We suggest selecting one that starts with “a” in the server name. For example sea-a01.ipvanish.com. In most cases, you will find the “a” servers to be the fastest. We tested an IPVanish server in Seattle, sea.a33.ipvanish.com, and found the speed to be 61.84 Mbps. Our cable Internet connection maxes out around the same speed.
When it comes to value, IPVanish is hard to beat. They offer unlimited access to their VPN network and custom software for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Amazon Firestick and more for $7.50 a month or $58.49 a year. That works out to just $4.87 a month on the annual plan. Members are covered by a 7-day money back guarantee.
2. Best VPN for Pullman: ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN has the components of fast VPN access and MediaStreamer. Together, they act as a Smart DNS service to unblock access to geo-restricted content. It will also help encrypt your connection and unblock live sporting events as well. You will even find a list of the latest live entertainment and sporting events on the ExpressVPN website.
Countries | Locations | USA Server Locations |
---|---|---|
94 | 160 | Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Monica, Seattle, Tampa, Virginia, Washington, DC |
As you can see in the table above, ExpressVPN manages a very large VPN network. Beyond the USA, the ExpressVPN network boasts hundreds of servers in key locations to help protect their user’s privacy. You can use their network to protect your privacy, unblock censorship, and watch your favorite teams from anywhere.
The ExpressVPN app allows you to select a server location down to the city but you can not choose a specific server. Instead, the client will select a server in your chosen location. You also need to know that some cities are not shown on the recommended tab inside the client. Of course, this is true for Seattle (since it is the closest major city to Pullman). You will want to select the “All” tab, open Americas, and then open the United States. At this point, you can select the USA – Seattle server location. As you can see, we tested a server in Seattle and the speed was 60.23 Mbps.
While ExpressVPN is sold at a higher price point than the other services in our list, the value is high given the size of their network and service features. You can connect a computer, handheld device, router, and game console (SmartDNS) with a single VPN account for just $6.67 a month with an annual subscription.
3. Best VPN for Pullman: NordVPN
Countries | Locations | USA Server Locations |
---|---|---|
61 | 80 | Atlanta, Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Jose, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington DC |
You will find that NordVPN has perhaps the best mix of services for the price if you subscribe to an account for a longer length of time. All users have full access to their network and custom software. You can connect using the VPN client for Windows or Mac. They also have an easy-to-use mobile app for both Android and iOS (iPhone, iPad) devices.
NordVPN hosts 38 servers in Seattle. Unfortunately, the NordVPN client does not show the city of the server. However, they have kindly provided us with the server numbers for Seattle. You will want to connect to one of the following servers: 361-364, 569-576, 758-760, 825-828, 964-975, 980-987. The easiest way to select a specific server number is to select the “Servers” tab in the app and then sort the results in alphabetical order. You can then scroll down and select any of the server numbers we have listed above. You can see the load time percentage and the distance to each server. We tested the United States #364 server in Seattle and found it to be fast with a download speed of 63.07 Mbps.
Want to access streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or BBC iPlayer from anywhere in the world? If so NordVPN is a great choice. They are one of the only VPN services that can still unblock Netflix. You can sign up for unlimited VPN and SmartDNS service from just $3.99 a month with a 2-year membership.
4. Best VPN for Pullman: StrongVPN
StrongVPN is headquartered in the United States and has one of the most well established and best VPN networks in the country. Previously, the company charged users based on the number of server locations and protocols they used. As the community has changed, StrongVPN now offers members full access to their network with hundreds of servers worldwide.
Countries | Locations | Servers | USA Server Locations | Software | Monthly | Yearly | Refund |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
20 | 43 | 600 | Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC | $7.50 | $52.49 | 7 day |
The latest addition to the StrongVPN service is the StrongDNS feature. Everyone who signs up for a StrongVPN account also receives free access to StrongDNS which is a smart DNS service used to circumvent geo-restrictions. It is a great solution for those who plan to travel outside the USA and want to access Netflix.
StrongVPN hosts several servers in Seattle. You can not select a specific server. Instead, you will want to click on the server location drop-down and choose United States – Seattle. We selected OpenVPN UDP for the best performance. After connecting to a server in Seattle, we tested our speed and found it to be 60.22 Mbps.
StrongVPN has been kind in offering our visitors a 25% discount. The coupon stacks on top of their normal term discounts. You can enjoy unlimited VPN and free SmartDNS access for just $7.50 a month or $52.49 a year. The annual account works out to just $4.37 a month. New users are covered by a 7-day money back guarantee.
5. Best VPN for Pullman: PIA
There are a lot of torrent users who love Private Internet Access. The service includes a feature that will stop your system from communicating if the connection to their service drops. Meaning if your encrypted VPN access is dropped for any reason it will keep you safe.
As far as setup for the PIA Windows client goes, there is not much to it. However, don’t let its’ simplicity fool you. PIA offers different levels of privacy protection depending on your needs. You can control encryption levels and find the right balance between privacy and speed. As you can see our speed test showed that PIA was running at 62.67 Mbps while connected to Seattle.
When it comes to their Windows client the PIA team has included an Internet kill switch. The kill switch will kill your Internet connection anytime the VPN fails. That can really come in handy for those wanting to ensure anonymity in Pullman. Private Internet Access offers VPN from just $2.50 a month.
If you want to see other options, you can always feel free to check out our top 10 VPN services list. You shouldn’t need to, though. We made our decisions based on speed, reliability, price, and security. We also looked for providers with servers located in the same general area as Pullman. That way, you can be assured that you get the best speeds. Of course, they all have great networks. Speed is important if you plan on downloading or streaming HD content. The providers we mentioned above are the best options for doing that, no matter which popular services you want to use. With any luck, you can use our guide to make an informed decision.